As a research assistant for the Sociology Department at Warwick, I worked within a research hub set in a public exhibition space at the Fierce Live Art Festival in Birmingham. The principal investigator Dr Cath Lambert and I employed a range of interdisciplinary methods to gather and analyse oral, visual and textual evidence from audience members, performers, and teenage participants from the ‘Fun With Cancer Patients’ performance project. (www.livearthub.com) This project gave me the experience of conducting research on performance and theatre-based work within a public setting using arts-led methodologies.

Fun with Cancer Patients Research Hub: A space for the sharing and exchange of thoughts, ideas, reactions, questions, feelings and observations in response to the Fun With Cancer Patients exhibition in mac Birmingham’s Arena Gallery 7 September – 6 October 2013. Artist Brian Lobel’s Fun With Cancer Patients uses art to challenge some of the taboos around cancer. Working with local teenagers who are experiencing, or have experienced, cancer,

Brian Lobel has generated a number of ‘creative happenings’. The exhibition documents these happenings and the fun that was had in the process. In the Research Hub visitors to the exhibition can say, write, draw or express in any other way they wish, their responses to Fun With Cancer Patients. Comments can be made privately or publicly and all will be anonymised.