September 2024:

• Network Co-Leader Dr Rachel Marsden will be representing The Stomach Ache project as part of Scottish Gut Project: A Digest at Centre for Contemporary Art in Glasgow on Thursday 12th September. Thanks to Manon Mathias, Elsa Richardson and Kirsty Hendry for having us for this fantastic event!

July 2024:

• We started work on our upcoming exhibition for Bankstown Arts Centre, by hosting artists and scientists from Western Sydney for a two day workshop at the venue. Thanks to special guest Dr Jerry Zhou from the Translational Gastroenterology Lab at Western Sydney University, and to artists Pheany Ban, Kim Pham, Lleah Smith and Helen Pynor.

June 2024:

• Stomach Ache Lead Researcher Dr Vanessa Bartlett presented at Art & the Critical Medical Humanities: Confabulations X Health & Care at The Royal College of Art in London. Vanessa’s chapter about The Stomach Ache project is in a new book called Art & the Critical Medical Humanities (published by Bloomsbury Academic 2025 and edited by the event organisers Fiona Johnstone, Allison Morehead and Imogen Wiltshire)

April 2024:

• We launched our NNMHR grant and new curatorial network on 24th April at The Doctoral School, University of the Arts London. Thanks to everyone who joined us!

March 2024:

• Dr Vanessa Bartlett and Dr Rachel Marsden will be part of the Cultures of Creative Health Seminar Series at University of Huddersfield on 14 March. Sign up to hear more about the new Stomach Ache Project Network funded by NNMHR that will be launching in the UK later this year.

October 2023:

• The Stomach Ache project is included in a new article about Creativity and Wellbeing by writer Ashley Kalagain Blunt. The article was published in Open Book, the magazine published by the State Library of New South Wales.

July 2023:

• We have been announced as recipients of a Northern Network For Medical Humanities New Networks Grant (funded via the Wellcome Trust). This grant will support a new collaboration with University of the Arts, London, and marks an exciting new phase for the project.

April 2023:

• We are celebrating the completion of the first phase of the Stomach Ache project. We would like to thank the University of Melbourne Creativity and Wellbeing Hallmark Research Initiative, CAWRI for their generous support. Our project report for 2021-22 is available here.

March 2023:

• Our recent Confabulations panel generated some very interesting discussion around creative collaborations with guts. This online event took place on Tuesday 7 March, 7pm GMT / 2pm EST / and Wednesday 8 March 6am AEST. A video recording is available on YouTube until 8th April.

December 2022:

• Join the Stomach Ache project for a Confabulations panel discussion where our lead research Vanessa Bartlett and artists Kathy High and Lindsay Kelley will explore creative collaboration with guts as new ways of understanding human-gut relations, including a response from Claire Hooker. Online (zoom) bookings available via Eventbrite. Tuesday 7 March 2pm EST / 7pm GMT and Wednesday 8 March 6am AEST.

November 2022:

• We’ve been invited to curate a panel for the new series of conversations on health, medicine, and medicalized bodies Confabulations: Art Practice, Art History, Critical Medical Humanities. The panel will be held in late February or early March 2023, with more information to follow.

October 2022:

• Our event “Objects of Digestion” took place on day 2 of The Big Anxiety Forum Naarm, 7 October 2022. Participants were invited to think of (or bring) an object that describes their relationship to their digestion or mind-gut connection. Full details here. 

September 2022:

• A recording is now available of lead researcher Vanessa Bartlett’s seminar “Cultural Imaginaries of Microbial Hacking and the Art of Kathy High.” Thank you to Elizabeth Stephens for hosting this fantastically successful event, and to Claire Hooker for her thoughtful response. 

August 2022:

• Our lead researcher Dr Vanessa Bartlett will be presenting an online Australasian Health and Medical Humanities WIP seminar on Wednesday August 17 2022 – “Cultural Imaginaries of Microbial Hacking and the Art of Kathy High.” More information and registration for the seminar is available here.

July 2022:

• We are excited to be part of the Big Anxiety Naarm Forum, 6-7 October 2022, with an interactive workshop “Stomach Ache: Objects of Digestion,” where we will creatively reimagine the gastrointestinal tract and its impact on anxiety, wellbeing and social interactions.
• Many thanks to our friends at the Arts Health Network NSW/ACT for posting this article about the Stomach Ache project.

April 2022:

• Read a personal introduction to the Stomach Ache project by lead researcher Vanessa Bartlett on the website of our project funder CAWRI, the University of Melbourne Creativity and Wellbeing Research Initiative.