A BBC article and subsequent broadcasts on BBC Points West have highlighted Our First Year Heard, an online exhibition by University of Bristol first year medical students. The students, whose first year took place during the Covid-19 pandemic, have taken part in a form of ‘natural experiment’ to explore their experiences of the Pandemic through artmaking. Viewers are encouraged to contribute online comments to enrich this interactive exhibition.
Our First Year Heard is an online exhibition that showcases drawings, photos, digital art and poems created during the pandemic and which explore issues such as isolation, imposter syndrome and mental health.
The exhibition is platformed on Out of Our Heads, a website which is home to a variety of projects exploring the interface of medicine and the arts. Created mainly by medical students at the University, but also by patients and doctors, the artworks on the site ‘take a fresh look at the vast medical enterprise’.