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Lab4Living staff have launched ‘Beyond the Archives’, a podcast series documenting the workflow behind the ORIGIN, or ‘online arts and culture for young people’s mental health’, project.
Sophie Cochrane-Powell, the creator behind ‘Beyond the Archives’, documents the processes undertaken by creative research assistants working on stories that underrepresented young people can engage with on the ‘Ways of Being’ online platform.
‘Ways of Being’ is the online intervention that had resulted from a pilot study led by Dr Rebecca Syed Sheriff, an NHS consultant psychiatrist and senior clinical researcher, after a positive link was found between engaging in online arts and culture and mental health.
Sophie, a creative research assistant herself, felt it was important to get context as to why certain stories resonated with her fellow creative research assistants.
“Different stories hold different meanings to different people and it’s important to tap into that to better understand how these stories can support mental health.”
Her past podcasting experience helped develop the podcast, and she believes that oral storytelling can be an overlooked tool compared to written storytelling: “I think we often focus on the written form but in many different traditions, there is a long legacy and importance placed on oral histories and often these spoken works are more accessible and one that can capture the intent and feelings of the speaker in ways that written word sometimes cannot.”
Sophie feels the experience has been valuable in improving her own creativity as well: “I think it was a really interesting and fun process because I learnt a lot more about other peoples’ ways of thinking, feeling and understanding most especially relating to how stories resonated with them”
“I definitely learnt from others and take on what they say [into my work].
“We had originally intended the podcast to go on the platform so that the young people [engaging with it] can further explore the background of a character they resonated with.
“But then we realised they could stand on their own and that was when we decided to share them to the public.”
Kerry Lindeque, who features on the first episode of the podcast, said of the experience: “It was really great to be able to dissect the process of using the archives and storytelling with Sophie.
“It helped me reflect on my own creative process and it was fun to delve into the methods of storytelling.
“I think the podcast will be really informative for people in their own storytelling journeys and the young people we will be co-producing the stories with.”
Beyond the Archive’s first episode “Lulu Adams: Femininity, Clowning, and Humour in Difficult Times” is available to listen now at the link here.