Between environmental concerns and compliance: How does media messaging affect motivation and choice between disposable versus reusable face masks?

About the project During the pandemic single-use masks have caused increasing waste as well as a threat to human health as contaminants they contain move into the human food chain when disposed of in the environment. This project explored the question of whether it was possible to make the process of protection more sustainable overall. […]

Museums, Crisis and Covid-19: Vitality and Vulnerabilities

About the project This research focused on how museums can contribute to community resilience and wellbeing in a time of crisis. Covid-19 has significantly impacted on the museum sector, across the UK and globally. Interviews with staff and stakeholders across Northern Ireland conducted for the study exposed the vulnerability of museums, their staff, projects, and […]

Outside the Box: Open-Air Performance as a Pandemic Response

Case Study Theatre and performance artists innovated in their open-air practices during the pandemic, addressing the impacts upon the cultural sector and social isolation caused by lockdowns, alongside the ongoing protracted crises of climate change and biodiversity loss. Spanning theatre and management studies, Outside the Box: Open Air Performance as a Pandemic Response worked with […]

Redesigning PPE: Enhancing the comfort and safety of healthcare workers wearing isolation gowns to treat patients with COVID-19

Case Study During the pandemic surveys of nursing staff highlighted issues relating to the poor comfort, fit and durability of oversized, isolation gowns. The rudimentary design and fabrication of this personal protective equipment (PPE) was the result of a crisis-managed situation whereby the PPE industry, including new companies, adopted an unsustainable, ‘non-circular’ approach to meet […]

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The Digital Beyond. Has COVID-19 transformed digital memorialisation?

Dr Eleanor O’Keeffe worked as Post Doctoral Research Associate on the AHRC funded project British Ritual Innovation under COVID-19. Here, she discusses some of her research into digital adoption in response to the pandemic. Sequoia Nagamatsu’s 2022 novel How High We Go in the Dark, which was started before the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, offers us […]

Guidance, Messaging and Behaviour Change

Arts and Humanities research during the pandemic has been vital in helping us understand how public health messages are received within different communities, how communication platforms affect interpretation and reach, and how effective messaging can combat misinformation and build public trust.  Researchers have investigated how rumours and conspiracy theories originate, how they spread and the […]

Team

Principal Investigator Pascale Aebischer Pascale Aebischer is Professor of Shakespeare and Early Modern Performance Studies at the University of Exeter. Her research concentrates on performances using a range of media, with a particular focus in recent years on digital performance and theatre broadcasts. She led the AHRC-funded Covid-19 project on Digital Theatre Transformation: A Case Study and […]