The Care Lab is partnered with The Care Aesthetics Research Exploration (CARE) project which is a three-year, Arts & Humanities Research Council funded project, led by a team of theatre and nursing academics and practitioners at the University of Manchester and the Department of Psychosocial Studies at Birkbeck, University of London, in partnership with Greater Manchester Mental Health Trust, and Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust.

The project explores care as craft or as an artful practice. Moments of care, then, demonstrate embodied, sensory and practical skills – the touch of a hand, holding the other’s gaze, a modified tone of voice. These are often felt as being done ‘intuitively’ by health, social care and arts professionals, and so often become invisible when doing care work.

The project team includes James Thompson (PI), Kate Maguire-Rosier and Réka Polonyi (Postdoctoral Research Associates), Jenny Harris (Lead Artist), as well as:

Professor John Keady (CoI) – Professor of Older People’s Mental Health, Division of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work, University of Manchester;

Dr Jackie Kindell (CoI) – Lecturer, University of Manchester and recent Head of Allied Health Professionals and Social Workers, Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust;

Caroline Weimar – homecare worker and co-researcher (London);

Dr Kerry Harman (CoI) – Senior Lecturer, Department of Psychosocial Studies, University of London, Birkbeck;

And up until last year, intern Chloe Bradwell, dementia scholar and circus artist.

The Care Lab is collaborating with artist Jenny Harris on developing and producing ‘The Long Goodbye’. Jenny is a Manchester-based freelance drama practitioner who works with diverse communities including people living with a dementia. This project profiles her mum’s journey with Alzheimer’s. Funded by the Arts Council England Developing Your Creative Practice scheme, she uses photography, creative writing and video to explore her changing relationship to her mum, parenthood and care.

What happens when you ask care workers what is beautiful about their work?

Beautiful Care is a project that works with their stories in response to this question to produce verbatim performances that are then performed by careworkers to their colleagues and their wider communities.

Beautiful Care is led by Jenny Harris, Luke Tanner and James Thompson and has resulted in two performance pieces to date - one for an audience in the Whitworth Art Gallery and one for Bolton Cares staff.

“I love my job.

I learn something new every day.

I go home with a smile on my face.

I love all the stories.”

(words collected from a care worker working at Bolton Cares.)