ArCC Research Focus: Updates, News & Events from the Centre for Art & Creative Cultures, Coventry University
September 2026
Welcome to ArCC Research Focus: a snapshot of the ideas, partnerships, and practices currently in motion, and a sense of where we’re heading next.
ArCC (the Centre for Arts, Research and Creative Cultures) brings together an interdisciplinary research community examining how culture is produced, mediated, spatialised, historicised, technologised, governed, and valued. Across diverse disciplinary backgrounds, our work is shaped by an art and design-based ethos of critical enquiry, supporting practice-led, historically informed, and publicly engaged research.
About ArCC
Drawing on creative practice alongside humanities and social science perspectives, research at ArCC moves between making, analysis, and intervention. We explore questions of media, space, history, technology, economy, and policy, working with communities, cultural organisations, audiences, users, and practitioners. Our research frequently looks beyond individual artworks or design outputs to engage with the systems, structures, and infrastructures that shape cultural life.
Grounded in collaboration, care, and social responsibility, ArCC’s work attends to the ethical, cultural, and political dimensions of art and design practice. By engaging with lived contexts and collective concerns, we bring creative practice, humanities perspectives, and social research into dialogue to explore how existing conditions might be critically and imaginatively reconfigured.
RECENT NEWS
Image: Journal of Modern & Contemporary France
Elizabeth Benjamin appointed to Executive Editor of the journal Modern & Contemporary France
Dr Elizabeth Benjamin has been appointed to the role of Executive Editor at the journal Modern & Contemporary France, for a term of five years. Congratulations! Modern & Contemporary France is a global peer-reviewed journal, offering a scholarly view of all aspects of France and the French-speaking world from 1789 to the present day. Elizabeth's role sits at the forefront of work in history, politics, literary, cultural and post-colonial studies, film and media studies, and the social sciences.
Image: Collage of Exhibits, with permission of GameChangers
FAiR: From Borneo to Coventry
The FAiR (Frugal Artist-in-Residence) Exhibition launched at Coventry University on 5 August, welcoming over 70 registered guests. Bringing together artworks and creative practices from Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo, and Coventry, the exhibition explored how art, science, and community participation can inspire environmental awareness and action. Visitors encountered murals, cyanotypes, recycled-material sculptures, children’s artworks, live painting, and opportunities to contribute to a growing collective artwork. The FAiR journey continues on 28 October with a participatory follow-on workshop as part of the Festival of Social Science, featuring creative activities, demonstrations, and opportunities to contribute to the evolving collective artwork.
Image: 'Critical Care' Image, produced by Dr Rachael Hughson-Gill
'Critical Care' Takes to the Stage
'We’re not heroes or angels. We are ordinary people who were trying to do our job.'
Dr Stacey Moon-Tracy has collaboratively developed a play with nurses across the UK. A Midlands tour has been funded by Arts Council England, and is coming to the Belgrade Theatre.
You can now book tickets to watch the play at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry later this year: https://www.belgrade.co.uk/events/critical-care/
Stacey graduated in November 2025 following PhD research that employed playwriting as an exploratory method for investigating intensive care nurses' experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Critical Care brings to the stage the powerful, untold stories of intensive care nurses during the pandemic. Drawing on first-hand testimonies gathered through Stacey's PhD research, the play reveals the human experience behind the headlines—not just as healthcare professionals, but as people: women, mothers, carers, colleagues, and friends pushed to their limits.
The play honours the emotional realities faced by those on the frontline during the pandemic, whose voices remain underrepresented. Stacey's PhD was supervised by Professor Louise Moody and Dr Sally Pezaro (Centre for Healthcare and Community Transformation). Do get in touch to find out more.
Image: Murray Uniforms Logo
How Does Uniform Design Influence Employees?
On 7 July, Professor Louise Moody joined Murray Uniforms at The Murray Lab – Live! event at the University of Warwick to present findings from recent research on how uniform design influences employees’ workplace experiences. Murray Uniforms is a Coventry-based corporate uniform provider.
The session translated academic research into practical insights for business leaders from sectors including travel, manufacturing, hospitality, retail and leisure. The 2026 study, conducted with Murray Uniforms, surveyed 2,573 uniform-wearing employees from more than 1,000 organisations. Results showed strong links between uniform design and employee confidence, happiness, performance, customer interactions and retention intentions.
The findings highlight the value of evidence-based, wearer-centred design in improving workplace experiences and supporting organisational success.
Image: Public Knowledge
Experimental Publishing and the Materialities of Knowledge Production Talk
On November 4th (3pm GMT) Dr Janneke Adema is giving an invited talk on ‘Experimental Publishing and the Materialities of Knowledge Production’ and will be discussing the Experimental Publishing Compendium. This talk is part of the Public Knowledge online seminar series (produced by Besides the Screen and programmed by Gabriel Menotti with support from the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council and Queen's Film & Media). This explores how different editorial modalities can materialise knowledge, form communities, and produce (relatively) stable frameworks of interpretation.
Image: Bee and Flower, produced by David Bek
Flagging Up Agroecological Flower Growing
Professor David Bek visited small-scale flower growers in Lancashire and Cheshire who are members of their regional flower distribution hub. The purpose of the visit was to undertake Floriculture Agroecological Assessments (FLAG) of the flower growing practices. FLAG has been devised to verify the extent to which flowers are being grown in sustainable ways and incorporates economic and community dimensions as well as environmental.
It is envisaged that the rollout of the FLAG framework will help to give British grown flowers are stronger footing in local markets. Following the visit to the North West regional hub, David reported back to the AGM of the Flower Grower Collective who are hosting the initial rollout of FLAG.
Image: Collective Art by GameChangers
FAiR: From Exhibition to Collective Action
Following the FAiR Exhibition in August, join us on 28 October for a hands-on creative workshop exploring art, community, and environmental action. Contribute to a collective artwork responding to “What matters most to you in nature?”, experience an artificial lung installation responding to live global air-quality data, and create alongside a Frugal Artist-in-Residence using found and sustainable materials.
The main workshop runs 10:30am–12:30pm, followed by lunch, with the creative space open until 4:30pm in DD126, Delia Derbyshire Building. Part of Coventry University’s Festival of Social Science 2026, supported through the ESRC Impact Acceleration Account. Places are limited, so register early
PGR NEWS
Image: Adela Pakandlova
Journey to Japan
Midlands4Cities PhD student Adela Pakandlova presented at the conference COMET2026 in Japan. Her paper was entitled: 'Clay Shapes of Grief: Giving Voice to the Bereaved in Portugal'. She also met teams of bereavement professionals from four different organizations in Japan. These include: SIDS association for families in Japan, Ashinaga (helping orphans and chidlren with emotional wellbeing), researchers at the Kyoto University and a Buddhist priest and grief practitioner in Oga.
Image: Agroforestry hemp by Julyan Levy
Wakelyns Organic Agroforestry Farm Fieldwork
PhD student, Julyan Levy, conducted fieldwork throughout August at Wakelyns organic farm. This is an experimental agroforestry farm in Suffolk. Julyan’s PhD focuses on the relationship between humans and the more-than-human world, including how plant agency shapes economies. Through approaches such as botanical capitalism and plant ethnographies, Julyan is studying three plant-centric case studies: dandelions and herbalism, Sphagnum moss and rewilding and the small scale crop of Cannabis Sativa L., colloquially known as hemp. There is a rich pre-industrial history of hemp being was used for textile production in this region of the UK. Despite this year's drought these plants thrived at Wakelyns, many growing up to 2.5 metres tall. Julyan assisted in the harvesting and processing of the crop and is interested in the project to revive UK grown hemp as a regenerative crop in the production of textiles.
