Finding (our) voices: Introduction

This area of art and health, art and wellbeing, Health Humanities, is a rich field for both research and creative production. The sometimes gritty narratives — both research-driven and creative — can be challenging to read due to their subject matter and the approach of their writers; they never shy away from content matter that may cause readers to be unsettled, to flinch or draw back. A number of the contributors also challenge the innately positivist, positive and improving rhetoric that can surround work in the health discipline, which is always searching for answers and solutions. Instead, they embrace the subjective and human side of ill-health, and challenge the possibility of achieving wellbeing in any formal sense. A number of these authors, indeed, explore the darker sides of health and ill health, considering suffering, pain, silencing and the position of people on the margins; as well as also contemplating ways of building resilience, of living a worthwhile life despite illness and pain. Such material casts light on the human, the humane, the inhumane and the human condition – sometimes at its most visceral.