The MenoMakers' Handling Box

This project builds on the outcomes and learning from the MenoMakers craft and discussion group in North Kensington, undertaken by historian Jessica Hammett and artist Lisa Nash (Brigstow Ideas Exchange; ESRC IAA Knowledge Exchange Seminar). The North Kensington group will co-produce on the proposed project and is made up of ten non-artists who reflect the diversity of North Kensington in its social, cultural and ethnic identities. The project also benefits from outputs and experiences of the Brigstow-funded libraries and performing arts work on talking about the menopause by Vanessa Beck. This combined research base has resulted in the following themes and questions.

It is clear from our activities that there is a continued need to discuss menopause (Atkinson et al, 2021, Beck et al, 2021, Target and Beck, forthcoming). Although menopause is talked about more via our research/activities and through public media (e.g. the Davina McCall programme Sex, Myths and the Menopause, Channel 4, 8 March 2021), it is clear that the individualised combination of symptoms and experience of menopause requires further attention. The continuation of the social taboo surrounding menopause and the reluctance of some women to discuss their situation openly (often for good reason) shows the need for further, wide-reaching ways to allow easily accessible and protected space to discuss menopause. Existing knowledge around menopause is either heavily medicalised or tackled from ‘scientific perspectives’ (Viotti et al, 2021) which leaves little space for women to reflect on their own experiences. This project will also contribute to the emergent literature that highlights the need to change organisational and social cultures in which discussing menopause is ‘at best difficult and at worst ill-advised' (Grandey et al, 2020).

Our innovative activities and research methods aim to display hidden voices and help women to develop their own voice in this life stage. From our previous research we know there is an appetite for discussing menopause in creative settings, but we know less about whether women are keener to enact or make menopause, talk about it, or do both together. We also have little knowledge about what methods and which artistic practices are most suitable for different groups of women (e.g. those represented by the diverse MenoMakers group) and their specific symptoms, including brain fog and (social) anxiety.

Our innovative activities and research methods aim to display hidden voices and help women to develop their own voice in this life stage. From our previous research we know there is an appetite for discussing menopause in creative settings, but we know less about whether women are keener to enact or make menopause, talk about it, or do both together. We also have little knowledge about what methods and which artistic practices are most suitable for different groups of women (e.g. those represented by the diverse MenoMakers group) and their specific symptoms, including brain fog and (social) anxiety.