An exhibition curated by students on the intercalated BA in Medical Humanities at the University of Bristol

Open 31st May – 1st June, 11 am to 5 pm

Advocate! Arts to shine a light on invisible struggles and stigma in medicine.

This collection of artworks has been created and collated by Bristol Medical students who have taken a year away from their medical curriculum to study humanities. Advocate! aims to shine some light onto several aspects of wellbeing and medicine which are currently not well enough understood, including: experiences of chronic pain and illness; stigma in medical practice; and the experiences of neurodiverse people in healthcare settings.

The exhibition aims to show and depict aspects of these subjects without judgement, even (and especially) when it involves matters that can be difficult to bring up in every-day conversation because of associated stigma and ignorance.

Medical practitioners have a vital role to play in advocating for and empowering patients, but may themselves share in the general culture’s ignorance and habits of stigmatisation.

The arts can raise awareness, and so understanding, of difficult to see conditions such as chronic pain; they can make us rethink the tacit consensuses that underlie stigma; and, through empathy and metaphor, they can allow us a sense of how others — such as neurodiverse patients — experience our shared contexts in different ways.

The arts can bring the hidden into sight, and help to break down the barriers to healthcare for vulnerable patients.

Tea and coffee available. Donations welcome for actionforme.org.uk (Bristol).
All are very welcome.