On doing wellbeing

Collages created by participants during the workshop organised by the Fieldwork Support Network.

On Doing Wellbeing – A Fieldwork Support Network workshop By Clémentine Debrosse

Collage of handwritten notes, a typed letter, and a blue festival booklet titled "The Centre for the Less Good Idea."

The Fieldwork Support Network is a student-led initiative founded in 2020 by UEA PhD students in order to support Postgraduate students before, during and after their fieldwork, regardless of their discipline or research stage.

The Network organises several events throughout the year to address various themes of fieldwork and give space for students to meet and share their experiences.

Between 14 and 20 May 2024, I attended a one-week festival of performances, concerts and participative lectures in Paris at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain. Throughout the week, The Center for the Less Good Idea (directed by William Kentridge and Bronwyn Lace) was invited for a residency to work with colonial archives from the musée départemental Albert-Khan (Boulogne, France) and the musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac (Paris, France).

Together, the members from the Center for the Less Good Idea, museum professionals, researchers and students from Université Paris 8, created various types of performances both in private during closed workshops and in public during ticketed performances.

For the purpose of my PhD research, it was essential for me to record my experience in ways that went beyond the simple written description. In place of traditional fieldnotes, I compiled the events’ programmes, some photographs I took, as well as archival footage used in those performances which I searched in museum databases. I collaged these into my fieldwork notebook, alongside which I wrote some text, but also added colours, and music notes in order to capture, as best as possible, my lived and embodied experience of this festival onto paper. So that when and if I were to need this detailed account for my PhD thesis, I had the closest memory I could get from the real event by merging visual, drawn and written techniques.

Art supplies on a table: a box of markers, rulers, red cups, colored pencils in a holder, a sketchbook, and a paint palette.

Person crafting at a table with magazines, scissors, and glue. A phone, coffee cup, and red book are also on the table.

When the time came to curate the day for the Fieldwork Support Network (FSN) event 'Collaboration and Co-Creation of Knowledge: Experiences and Challenges of Fieldwork' (18 February 2025) generously supported by the Humanities Postgraduate Research Grant Scheme, the organisation of a collage/scrapbooking workshop based on my own practice felt right to offer students new methods of engagement with their fieldwork. Throughout the day, the speakers of the different sessions (keynotes, roundtable, poster display) all expressed the importance of collaboration, co-creation and wellbeing as key elements in their own fieldwork. In the morning, filmmaker Karoline Pelikan and UEA Professor Sarah Barrow gave a keynote about their collaborative filmmaking project with Indigenous women in Peru and reflected on the practical, ethical and emotional challenges of collaborative practices during COVID-19 and beyond. The day continued with a roundtable with four UEA PGR students and FSN members (Enzo Hamel, Jorge Ruiz Zevallos, Eirini Athanasopoulou, Kayonaaz Kalyanwala) which addressed their various experiences of fieldwork and the challenges they had to face. The conversations initiated during this roundtable were extended during lunch thanks to the display of three posters made by UEA PhD students Enzo Hamel and Samuele Tacconi, and visiting fellow Karina Rachel Guerra Braga (Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte). In the afternoon, a session on wellbeing and mental health was led by Dr Sophie Valeix (Sussex University) and Richard Graham (UEA wellbeing team). After the workshop, the day came to a close with the viewing of a collaboratively produced film, 'Kagarika eiroegi: Pairi? (Nomatsiguenga) / If Not Us Then Who?' Introduced by one of its producers, UEA student Jorge Ruiz Zevallos.

After the discussion on wellbeing at the beginning of the afternoon, the workshop felt like we all were giving each other time for actively practicing wellbeing through creative practice. Led by UEA PhD student Garance Nyssen and myself, the workshop was supported by the Student Information Zone at UEA which lent us all the art material used in the making of the participants’ collages.

A classroom with students seated at desks, taking notes and reading. A blue supply bin is visible in the foreground.

Two women sit at a table in a classroom. One smiles, holding a book, while the other focuses on writing. Art supplies are on the table.

Each of the participant, most of whom were UEA PGR students, was asked to print a few photographs from or related to their fieldwork prior to the workshop and given a blank notebook on the day. While it is fair to say both Garance and I were anxious to see to what extent people were going to engage in the creative making, we were stunned to see that they all dived in, focused and the room went silent. At times, some of them would speak to discuss what they were making or looking at each other’s photos. As there were no requirements as to what they had to make, each person’s take on working with their photos was very different: some drew maps, most painted, others chose images and words in magazines, while a few wrote and drew on their images to add special meaning.

A person presents in a classroom, pointing at a projected screen. Attendees sit at desks, listening and taking notes.

A person presents in a classroom, holding notes, with a projected slide on a whiteboard behind them.

When doing a PhD, working is often associated to reading or writing and giving ourselves time to think and be creative through other means rarely fits into this idea of productivity. Yet, by watching all the participants getting creative it was clear that this workshop gave them the space to think about their work in a new light. This feeling of creating together something personal was poignant and enhanced by the participants’ presentations of their creations at the end of the workshop.

Organising this event was a way to expand from both my and Garance’s fieldwork experiences and PhD research. Conducting fieldwork either in museums which deal with colonial heritage, and/or in places which still suffer from postcolonial domination, it was necessary for us to bring to the fore discussions which addressed our fieldworks and the impact of specific fieldwork environments, especially when tied to colonial legacies. In our work, we both reflect on collaborative and artistic practices which seek to disrupt these colonial legacies and felt the need to translate this research into practice, specifically through the creation of a creative workshop.

Garance Nyssen is a third year CHASE-funded PhD student at the Sainsbury Research Unit for the Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas at the University of East Anglia. Working in French Polynesia, her research contributes to studies around returns and circulation of heritage in the context of museum decolonisation processes.

Clémentine Debrosse is a final year CHASES-funded PhD student at the Sainsbury Research Unit for the Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas at the University of East Anglia. At the intersection of art history and museum studies, her research focusses on the exhibition in European institutions of the works of contemporary artists whose practice integrates colonial archival materials.