‘Moving Shame’ was a two day workshop organised and co-facilitated by University of Exeter PhD candidate and Shame and Medicine Project Collaborator Gemma Lucas, yoga teacher/counsellor Catherine Forrester, writer/psychotherapist/creative consultant Dr Meg-John Barker and illustrator with expertise in communication, mental health and active learning, Elizabeth Fortnum.
Body shame is an under-acknowledged contributing factor to an array of mental health issues that are underpinned by gender norms. Contemporary yoga potentially offers alternative ways to conceptualise and experience health and the body, which could alleviate body shame. Yet its discourses and practices can, paradoxically, be used to perpetuate shaming normative body ideals. The workshop investigated these dynamics through various disciplinary lenses, before collaboratively producing an accessible, illustrated zine that communicates our discussions to diverse, intersectional audiences including interested yoga teachers and NGO professionals who work with mental health and body image.
Participants included yoga teachers and relevant NGO professionals. Together with the co-facilitators they engaged in a programme of diverse, creative, and inclusive activities including discussions on the social aspects of body shame and mental health, illustration activities and accessible yoga classes. Each activity enabled creative, novel exploration of the relationship between yoga, mental health, and gendered body shame and contributed to a collaboratively produced illustrated zine that served to communicate our shared experiences and the knowledges we co-created to non-academic audiences in an accessible way.
Confirmed speakers/co-facilitators/attendees:
Meg-John Barker (https://www.rewriting-the-rules.com/),
Catherine Forrester (https://www.helixyoga.co.uk/),
Elizabeth Fortnum (https://www.elizabethfortnum.com/),
Luna Dolezal (https://humanities.exeter.ac.uk/history/staff/ldolezal/),
Gemma Lucas (https://www.swdtp.ac.uk/profile/gemma-lucas/)
Time: 12 – 14 November 2021
Place: Bristol, UK.
Organizer: Gemma Lucas, University of Exeter PhD candidate and Shame and Medicine Project Collaborator.
Contact: Gemma Lucas, GL366@exeter.ac.uk
The ‘Moving Shame’ workshop was jointly funded by the Wellcome Trust’s Shame and Medicine Project and the Wellcome Centre for Cultures and Environments of Health’s ‘Enhanced Research Award’ (https://wcceh.org/the-future-of-the-wellcome-centre-funding-schemes/), and supported by Arts and Culture Exeter.
