Our researchers Laura Warner, Fred Cooper, Michael Flexer, and Michael’s collaborators from the theatre company Four of Swords will be sharing their work on loneliness, isolation, well-being, and mental health. Come and join us to chat about their work and more broadly about research needs in your community.

About the Wellcome Centre

Wellcome Centre for the Cultures and Environments of Health is a transdisciplinary research centre based at the University of Exeter. Together, members of the Centre explore how experiences of health, illness and medical knowledge are shaped by cultural practices and beliefs, and investigate how evidence from the humanities and social sciences can be used to help to develop and evaluate innovative and effective public health initiatives.
Committed to engaged research that enables health and well-being, our projects have brought researchers, public partners, and health organisations together to address key health challenges, including: the health impacts of loneliness and social isolation; the value of different forms of evidence in health policy; the impact of relationships on children’s health; and community access to – and involvement in – research and data governance.
Researchers at this year’s Bloom

Gemma Lucas is a yoga teacher and researcher at the University of Exeter who uses gentle yoga and art practices to explore how shame is an under-acknowledged factor in our mental health.
Chloe Asker is an Arts and Health practitioner focused on developing mindful, embodied, feminist and gentle approaches to research.

Laura Warner is a poet and researcher. Her project My project, Uterine Poetics, employs poetry as a methodology for analysing and presenting qualitative data on lived experience of endometriosis. Laura is also involved in the Health and Resilience Project Home (healthandresilience.co.uk)

Fred Cooper is a contemporary historian of medicine and transdisciplinary researcher. Fred’s primary interests are in shame and loneliness, specifically their histories (and futures) as objects of analysis, anxiety and intervention in medicine, public health, the humanities, and social sciences.

Michael Flexer is a lecturer in English and currently the director for engagement at the Wellcome Centre for Cultures and Environments of Health. Michaels’ research interests include mental health and particularly ‘psychosis’; time; the medical encounter and diagnosis.

Proudly presented as part of Bloom – A day of community activity in support of mental health and wellness., 21 May ’23

Full Programme

How to join in! 

1. Click Book Now to let us know you’re coming
2. Swap your digital ticket for a wristband to access activity on the day
3. Sign Up for events on the day via the sign-up sheet at the Welcome Desk, or just drop in!*

*Please note capacity is limited. 

VENUE: THE WORKSHOP, EXETER PHOENIX