This page documents some of the projects and partnerships that brought us into conversation with GPs from the National Centre for Creative Health.
INVENTORY OF BEHAVIOURS | 2017-
Addison, Dunseath, Kidd
Since 2017, Inventory of Behaviours has investigated what the ordinary behaviours of artists – the procrastinations, rituals, preparations and neuroses – can tell us about creativity, learning, and wellbeing. Artists submit instructions describing their studio behaviours. Participants enact them alongside strangers in public spaces. The research asks what happens when artists’ thinking is made available to people who don’t usually have access to it.
Over 400 artists’ instructions.
14,000+ participants.
Eight years of public events.
Events Include
Tate Exchange, London (2018, 2019) – large scale public events
Uniqlo Tate Lates, Tate Modern (2019) -11,524 visitors in a single evening
Academy of Fine Art Helsinki, Royal Danish Academy of Art, Oslo National Academy of the Arts (2023)
Published in
Tate Publishing (2017)
Tate Peter Lang (2020)
University of the Arts Helsinki (2024)
Film commissioned by Freelands Foundation
Partners
Tate Modern / Tate Exchange, Freelands Foundation, UniArts Helsinki, Royal Danish
Academy of Art, Oslo National Academy of the Arts, Kuno Network
Insight
Artists require moments of procrastination, diversion and inactivity to maintain creativity, productivity and wellbeing.
‘A better understanding of the activities of artists and the imperatives that shape them has the potential to inform – how art could be taught, applied and what the benefits are to society more broadly.’
DOING TOGETHER | 2023-
Annual symposium, Bath Spa University
Started in 2023, doing together is an annual two-day practice symposium at Locksbrook Campus, Bath Spa University. Facilitators and participants — university staff, students, and members of the community — work alongside each other, testing out ways of doing together that make practice-based research explicit rather than merely describing it. The doing is the research.
4 YEARS.
45+ WORKSHOPS.
150+ PARTICIPANTS.
Partners
Bath Spa University, National Centre for Creative Health GP Special Interest Group, University of the West of England, Centre for Creative and Cultural Industries.
Insight
In March 2026, Dr Louise Younie and Dr Venetia Allan from the Royal College of GPs Creative Health Special Interest Group attended doing together — the first time GPs had joined the symposium.
“Playful dwelling and unhurried attending, pedagogical rest, practice-based research as a way of being with materials, with each other – these ideas speak directly to how we might extend engagement with the human dimension of health care.”
VALUE OF ARTISTS
Bath Spa University School of Art, Film and Media
The Value of Artists is a training programme for creative practitioners from across the South West. Through the training, participants develop artist-led learning resources. The project commissions five of the artists to develop a learning resource exploring the role of artists in society. The resources are distributed freely to schools and education providers across the West of England, designed to support pupil wellbeing, develop creative thinking skills, and be inclusive and accessible.
25 ARTISTS TRAINED.
5 COMMISSIONS.
RESOURCES DISTRIBUTED ACROSS THE WEST OF ENGLAND.
Partners
West of England Combined Authority, Arts Council England, Culture West.
Insight
The project established a model: artworks and resources that travel beyond the project, working in contexts the artists will never visit, reaching people the artists will never meet.
“I think I’m still digesting everything, but the reach and impact of those two days – and the incredible programme you put together – will stay with me, and my practice, honestly I think forever.”
IOB GP EVENT | 18 July 2025
Kidd, Addison, Dunseath and Sackett with GPs from the National Centre for Creative Health Supported by AHRC IAA KE Dialogues funding
A hot day. The table laid out with materials and instructions. Conversation emerged into the room. Energy and an exchange of ideas already in a flow. Introductions and a tangling of interests. Hands busy — sewing, drawing, folding, making — embodied actions aiding concentration. Careful consideration, throughout the afternoon, of each other’s words and experiences. A meeting of concerns and values and a desire to make a change.
GPs reflected on role play in clinical training, imposter syndrome, and time constraints, while artists shared insights on process, playfulness, and moral imagination. The session revealed deep commonalities – especially in care for others, time-pressured environments, and sustaining curiosity.
Live note-taking, drawing, and storytelling helped surface new connections and laid the groundwork for future collaboration in training, wellbeing, and social prescribing. The event affirmed the value of cross-disciplinary dialogue rooted in mutual respect and reflection.
This meeting grew from a sustained body of work. From Inventory’s decade of research into what artists’ thinking does when shared. From doing together’s practice of making encounter productive. And from an earlier conversation with Alexandra Coulter, Director of the NCCH, in the MPF podcast series What does the art school teach? (2024).
Since July 2025 we have met online and in person with Dr Louise Younie, Chair of the NCCH and Royal College of GPs Creative Health Special Interest Group. Dr Younie and Dr Venetia Allan attended doing together 2026.
MATERIAL:PEDAGOGY:FUTURE
This work sits within a sustained programme of MPF research activity. Key events include:
MPF’s first provocation event brought together practitioners from across the globe to critically appraise current pedagogical practices and speculate on their relationship to art making, art works, societies and cultures more broadly. Participants included Prof. Magnus Quaife (UniArts Helsinki), Ana Laura Lopez de la Torre (Universidad de la República, Uruguay), and Dr Gurnam Singh (Coventry University).
(In)Significant Conversation | 14 July 2021
Gilane Tawadros, Chief Executive of DACS and founding Director of Iniva, responded to a series of closed conversations centred on the question: Post pandemic, how can we imagine, critique, and challenge conceptions of art in the future without confronting the hierarchies, systems, structures, and relations which form its present?
What does the art school teach? | Podcast series, 2024
Our podcast series includes a conversation with Alexandra Coulter, Director of the National Centre for Creative Health — the organisation whose GP Special Interest Group we are now working with.