Day one Abstracts

Panel 1

John Kilburn - Pop-up books, Magic, and Health
Lecturer in Illustration, University of Plymouth, UK john.kilburn@plymouth.ac.uk



Pop-up devices destabilise conventional reading practices, evoking qualities often described as magical: revelation, disappearance, transformation, and misdirection. These qualities foster immersive, playful, and sometimes unsettling encounters that shape how knowledge is experienced, remembered, and embodied. This paper explores the intersections of pop-up books, magic, and health, positioning paper engineering as a medium of sensory and epistemic play. In the context of health, such dynamics can be mobilised to communicate complex knowledge, enhance mnemonic engagement, and provoke visceral affect. Ultimately, the pop-up book emerges as a magical object that unsettles boundaries between fact, fiction, body, and belief. 



Bio
John Kilburn [he/him] is a lecturer in Illustration at the University of Plymouth. John is interested in the importance and potential of illustration research methods within collaborative and inter-disciplinary research including authorial and playful practice, graphic medicine, oral history, live-drawing, and pop-up books.



Ellie Robinson Carter - Places That Care 
Programme Director MSc Dementia, University of Hull, UK E.Robinson-Carter@hull.ac.uk

Co-authors: Dr Gary Hodge, Dr Darren Aoki, John Kilburn (University of Plymouth)

Over 400,000 people live in more than 17,000 care homes across the UK, with 70% experiencing dementia or severe cognitive issues. Nearly 700,000 care staff support these residents, yet little research explores the everyday culture within these settings. In 2023, an interdisciplinary team from the University of Plymouth—Darren Aoki, Tamara Damato, Gary Hodge, John Kilburn, Dalia Peralta, and Ellie Robinson-Carter—launched Places that Care, a project funded by the university’s Arts-Health Collaboration Fund. Rather than focusing on ethics or organisational structures, the team sought to explore daily interpersonal interactions that shape the culture of care homes. Using an illustrative methodology, they aimed to document these experiences and communicate their findings through paper pop-ups. However, as the project progressed, unexpected challenges and questions emerged, reshaping their initial plans. This paper reflects on that evolving process, acknowledging the complexities and learnings that surfaced. Rather than offering neat conclusions, it values the ‘messy middle’ – the conversations, methods, and personal perspectives that informed the project. Ultimately, it reframes the project’s destination, offering insights into the collaborative, creative, and adaptive nature of researching care home culture across the disciplines of arts, health, and social research.  

Bio 
Ellie is a Creative Dementia Practitioner, Researcher and Consultant based in Plymouth (UK). Ellie is an expert in using creative practice to enable people with dementia and intergenerational groups to connect to themselves and others, fostering empathy, building belonging and challenging disconnection in our society. Ellie has 10 years' experience of running Sensory Trust’s flagship dementia project Creative Spaces alongside her current role at The Photobook Project. Through her practice and research, Ellie is passionate about empowering the voices of people with dementia and showing what is still possible if the right frameworks, support and opportunities are created for individuals. Ellie’s research involves using creative methods - such as The Photobook Project - to empower people with dementia to share their perspectives and experiences. Ellie is currently undertaking a PhD at University of Hull with this focus, alongside her role as Programme Director for the MSc Dementia. She also consults on research projects related to dementia, intergenerational activity and older people. 

Co-author bios:
 
Dr Gary Hodge (University of Plymouth)is an early career researcher and registered (MH) nurse with an interest in art/health/social care storytelling research in terms of data collection/creation/dissemination and methodology development within health and social care research. He is developing a methodology that combines typical storytelling (text) narrative(s) with art medium(s) to capture and share lived experience data that is often complex / evocative and limited by text only understanding(s) and dissemination (e.g dementia, end of life, mental health). 

Dr Darren Aoki (University of Plymouth) is Associate Professor in World History and Oral History. Dr Aoki's specialisms are in the social and cultural history of modern Japan with a focus on gender and sexuality as it intersects with race and ethnicity. His PhD explored masculinity and same-sex desire in the post-war period in Japan. More recently, he has turned his attention to issues of identity in the trans-Pacific diaspora of Japanese. Through his research on Nikkei (people of Japanese descent), he has developed methodological and theoretical expertise, including in research, teaching, and community outreach, in oral history. 

 

Sian Goddard - Using Co-Creation to Help Intensive Care Survivors Understand Their Physical Recovery Journey
School of Health Professions & School of Art, University of Plymouth, sian.goddard@plymouth.ac.uk  

Co-authors:Sophie Timms and Ebony Underwood (University of Plymouth)

In the UK over 140,000 people every year survive intensive care and are discharged home. Many survivors experience long-term physical issues as a result of ITU. The qualitative study involving 10 participants explored the perceptions and experiences of physical recovery, to help identify the needs of survivors. The visual representation of the project findings aimed to provide an accessible way for survivors to understand the research findings to help them in their recovery.  The six findings were: Drive to get home to their place of safety and recovery; ‘I don’t know’ – Lack of support and advice leads to fear and anxiety; Fighting to recover; Making sense of recovery; Importance of “family”; Focus on regaining ‘self’, regaining identity and role.  

Co-creation was used with the participants, art students and the researcher to create paper-based artwork which would be easily accessible for survivors. Two pieces of work resulted from the co-creation project.  A concertina represented the recovery journey portrayed through the metaphor of climbing a mountain. The infinite fold work illustrated the continuing timeline of recovery with the unfolding demonstrating experiences during the journey. Both works represented the findings, explored the experience of growth during recovery, as well as being grounded in the participant data.

Bio 

Sian Goddard is a Physiotherapist with over 20 years' experience in Intensive Care and Rehabilitation following Critical Illness. She is also a Lecturer in Physiotherapy at University of Plymouth specialising in Intensive Care and respiratory Physiotherapy. 

As part of a PhD in Health studies, she undertook a qualitative study exploring the experiences of Physical Recovery following Intensive Care. In order to make the findings of the research accessible to Intensive Care survivors, she worked with John  Kilburn (BA (hons) Illustration co-ordinator at University of Plymouth) to connect with students on a co-creation project.  


Co-author bios 

Sophie Timms [she/her] and Ebony Underwood [she/her] are Year 2 students undertaking the BA (Hons) Illustration programme at University of Plymouth. As part of their "Interpreting Information" module they worked alongside Sian Goddard and John Kilburn in a co-creation project to disseminate the findings of a PhD study into Experiences of Recovery following Critical Illness.