Swansea University experts will be joined by Bangor and Cardiff universities to offer a pan-Wales day of fun, informal and interactive events on wellbeing as part of the 2023 Festival of Social Science.
The Festival of Social Science is an annual celebration of research and knowledge about humans and society and celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2022. It’s an opportunity for anyone to explore topics relating to social science – from health and wellbeing to crime, equality, education and identity – through events run by researchers from UK universities.
More than 200 events on the key theme of ‘Lifelong Wellbeing’ are delivered across the UK by 42 universities. They’ll be running from 21 October to 17 November in a mixture of online, in-person and hybrid formats, and will include talks, performances, exhibitions, participatory events and panel debates.
The festival is led and funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), which supports research and training in social science subjects.
Swansea’s activities at the Taliesin Arts Centre between 17-21 October will run throughout the day for attendees to drop in, as well as workshops at specific times. These will run alongside workshops and other activities provided by Bangor and Cardiff University researchers, following themes including mental health, behavioural change, artificial intelligence, dementia, environmental conservation, mental health, climate crisis, gender and identity, and social inequalities.
The events will examine wellbeing in everyday life, from ancient Egypt to today. All events are free and are open to everyone. Tickets for the events can be booked via Eventbrite.
Flip the Streets: Building Community Resilience to Hate: Featuring a showcase of creative community street art, participants are invited to design their own mini art mural to campaign against hate. Studies have shown that the prevalence of hateful graffiti in communities heightens the perceptions of insecurity, threat and fear. The Flip The Streets initiative works with young people to inspire communities to participate through art, to transform spaces and to promote lifelong wellbeing, through strengthening community ties.
Ancient Egyptian Object Handling Workshops: How did ancient Egyptians perceive wellbeing throughout the lifecycle; what can objects from their lives tell us about their perspectives? Join us for a session handling fascinating artefacts from the Egypt Centre.
Online Sleuths: Spot the Deepfakes and Where on Earth?: Can you spot the deepfakes and work out locations from their photos? Are they taken by people experiencing events as they happen, or are they deepfakes? Geolocation and identification of deepfakes are crucial to trust in user-generated evidence for human rights investigations internationally, such as in Ukraine and Syria.
From Profit to Sustainability: What Wellbeing Means in the Context of Business: What does it mean to be a “purposeful” business – balancing profit, people and planet? What wellbeing principles can organisations adopt to promote social innovation in Wales? If you’re a business owner or you’re interested in new ideas around business, wellbeing and innovation, pop along for a chat with our friendly team!
The Tree of Lifelong Learning: What does learning mean to you? Lola the Tree of Lifelong Learning will be joining the day for attendees to pick up a colourful leaf and add their thoughts on learning to the branches.
Community connections: developing conversations for wellbeing: Based on ‘Community Connection in Swansea Spaces’, attendees can grab a hot drink, see the new animation on Swansea Spaces, pick up a pack of conversation cards and have relaxed conversations with new people. Blank conversation cards will be available if it sparks an idea for a new question. Swansea Spaces are warm and welcoming community spaces located all across the city, run and supported by community groups, organisations and charities.