Dr Sarah McLachlan (Senior Research Fellow, Anglia Ruskin University and Research & Scholarship Lead, Essex & Herts Air Ambulance) sets out an opportunity for a visual artist to help people living with traumatic brain injury explore their experiences.

I am leading the development of a grant application to the Arts and Humanities Research Council for a research project using narrative inquiry and arts-based methods to explore the experiences of people living with traumatic brain injury and their families.

The project will involve a series of workshops with participants, in which they will work with a visual artist to create art that represents their stories. The research team are envisaging a ‘life mapping’ approach, where participants are asked to draw significant moments in their lives that are related to their injury or the injury of their family member. The art will be used to facilitate discussion with a researcher in subsequent interviews, and will form part of the outputs from the project. The project outputs will be designed to share participants’ stories with others living with traumatic brain injury and their families, and the health care professionals involved in their care. We also plan to hold exhibitions of the art to raise public awareness of the impact of traumatic brain injury.

We would like to work with a visual artist who has experience of facilitating group work with vulnerable people. Support and training will be provided to the artist, and their time and expenses will be costed into the grant application. A researcher and a member of the aftercare team at each participating air ambulance service will also be present at the workshops.

There will be a need to travel to sites in Epping, Norwich and London. It is likely that four workshops will be held at each site, each with approximately 10-12 participants. The deadline for the funding application is 30th July 2024, so we are hoping to find an artist to work with by the end of June in order to confirm costs for the bid submission.

Please contact ku.gro.drofsmlehcetingi@olleh if you are a visual artist and would like to be considered to take part in this project.