Dr Nicole Baur
is a health geographer with a strong interest in heritage studies, particularly mental health heritage. She completed her PhD at the University of Heidelberg in Germany in 2005 and has since been working at several Russell Group universities in England and Scotland. She has been researching the Devon County Mental Hospital since 2007 and has authored and co-authored articles on her research in international journals and made several contributions to books. Dr Baur also regularly organises public events to engage local communities with their mental health heritage.
Dr Verusca Calabria
is an Oral Historian and a Senior Lecturer in Health and Social Care, School of Social Sciences, Nottingham Trent University (UK). Calabria’s research sits at the intersection of the history and heritage of mental healthcare. Currently, she is the Principal Investigator of a National Lottery Heritage Fund project entitle “Fifty Years of Middle Street Resource Centre: The Heritage of Wellbeing in the Community”. She co-founded and co-convenes the NTU Oral History Network and is a trustee of the Oral History Society, UK.
Elena Demke
grew up in East Germany, after involvement in the 1989 citizen movement she studied history, and a Rhodes scholarship took her to Oxford. She worked as a historian for the Berlin commissioner for the Stasi-files, 1999–2018, specializing in visual history of the Berlin Wall, the didactics of political education and history politics in twentieth century Germany. Personal experience stimulated her interest in survivor-led alternatives to psychiatry, also in terms of epistemologies. Alongside her job, she studied psychology at the FernUniversität in Hagen, and got involved in peer counselling at the Verein zum Schutz vor psychiatrischer Gewalt e.V. Since 2018, she has conducted research on “meanings of objects in the context of extreme mental distress, madness and psychiatric intervention”, which is a Mad Studies contribution to an interdisciplinary research group working on crises and meanings of things in various times and cultures, funded by the German ministry of education and research.
Rob Ellis
is a Reader in History at the University of Huddersfield, UK. He has published widely on the histories of mental ill-health and learning disability and has worked in partnership to co-produce projects that have emphasised their contemporary relevance.
studied History, French and Educational Sciences at the University of Bremen and Rouen (France) and history at the Technical University of Dresden. During and after her studies she worked as research assistant at the “Institut für Sächsische Geschichte und Volkskunde” Dresden and as scientific staff-member at the State Museum of Archaeology Chemnitz, where she also is the curator of the exhibition about Salman Schocken. For the exhibition, she spent a short time in Israel for research purposes. Since 2013 she is working on her PhD-Project: “A subject as an object of psychiatry? – (Re-)Subjectivation in psychiatric space based on ‘psychiatrised’ writers of pamphlets (‘Irrenbroschüren’) around 1900”. She has been a full-time teacher of history and French since 2017.
Dr Rob Light
is an independent scholar. He has published work as an oral historian and worked in AHRC-funded public engagement projects examining histories of mental health care.
Helena Lindbom
holds a bachelor’s degree in social anthropology and is a retired journalist. She has for periods of her life experienced overwhelming psychological distress and has been in out- and inpatient psychiatric units for several decades. She was a patient in those days when heavy medications with devastating effects were used, medications that are no longer permitted, and she senses that this part of the past should be neither forgotten nor superficially excused or overlooked. Helena has worked with creative writing groups for elderly citizens and is interested in heritage and history, in literature and reading, and in spending time in nature.
Hedvig Mårdh
PhD Art History, senior lecturer in Cultural Studies at Karlstad University. Mårdh is an art historian researching public art, scenography and museum practice. In two research projects funded by The Swedish National Heritage Board and Formas she has been studying art and creative processes in former psychiatric hospitals.
Veikko Pelto-Piri
is a social worker and doctor of medicine. He works in the psychiatric administration, mainly with method support in the prevention of coercion and violence. His research focuses on coercion, violence, ethics and prevention. Veikko has previous experience of working in institutions both for people with
Elisabeth Punzi
is a licensed psychologist, specialist in clinical psychology, specialist in neuropsychology, PhD and associate professor at the Department of social work, Gothenburg university, Sweden where she is also director of doctoral studies. She also works for the Center for Critical Heritage Studies, Gothenburg University, where she directs the work with heritage and wellbeing. She teaches courses in mental health and research methodology and has a research interest in the heritage of psychiatry, Mad studies, and in the meaning of creative expressions and places.
Geoffrey Reaume
is Associate Professor in Critical Disability Studies at York University in Toronto, Canada. He earned his PhD in History (1997) at the University of Toronto and his work was published as a book, Remembrance of Patients Past: Patient Life at the Toronto Hospital for the Insane, 1870–1940 (OUP, 2000). His study was made into a play performed by psychiatric survivors in Toronto from 1998–2000. Reaume is a co-founder of the Psychiatric Survivor Archives of Toronto and co-editor with Brenda LeFrancois and Robert Menzies of “Mad Matters: A Critical Reader in Canadian Mad Studies” (CSPI, 2013). He created the first university credit course in Mad People’s History which he has been teaching since 2000.
Cecilia Rodéhn
holds a PhD in Museum Studies from the University of KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa) and works as a senior lecturer at the Centre for Gender Research, Uppsala University (Sweden). Rodéhn is the project manager of the project From Psychiatric Hospital to Condominium – Urban Development and Cultural Heritage (2020–2023) funded by FORMAS, the Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development. She has previously managed the project Ulleråker – disability and cultural heritage funded by the Swedish National Heritage Board (2016–2019). Rodéhn’s research explores representations of Mad people in cultural heritage.
Marta Wandt
is a visual artist based in Gothenburg, Sweden. She has studied at several art schools, including Hovedskous konstskola [Hoveskous art school]. She has own experiences of mental distress and of psychiatry. She says: “Through painting,
Jenny Wetterling
is active in RSMH (National Association for Social and Mental Health, Sweden) and has worked with different developing projects in the psychiatric field for many years, she has former experience of psychiatric care as a patient. The last years Jenny has been working mainly with implementation of Peer Support and The Suicide helpline. She is a registered nurse working in acute paediatric care.