Proud to say that all the @re--play.bsky.social co-investigators dutily wore their hats to our monthly catch up. Caught up on all we are finding out, with our partners, students and Fellows about activity, perceptions, and experiments in playful learning in Higher Education. Playfully serious 😜

Glad to be part of supporting @pathfindersnma.bsky.social on experienced based co-design #ebcd > the topic of better #socialcare for adults w/ #neuromuscular conditions. A few of us from @northumbriauni.bsky.social led by Dr. George Peat supporting. www.pathfindersalliance.org.uk/social-care-...

If you are into #deleuze and hadn’t seen it yet, this 2025 English translation of his seminars on painting now available from Minnesota Press. Contains much expanded discussions you’ll see in summary in his texts (e.g., on F Bacon) #onpainting

Right #highereducation colleagues and students! 🤩 If you are interested in #playfullearning come connect to RE:PLAY. It’s a wildly collaborative doing-and-learning #ESRC funded UK study on playful learning in HE. research.northumbria.ac.uk/replay/ @re--play.bsky.social

Session w/ students on the MA in Childhood &Early Years Studies on feminisms & childhoods. 👉🏽theory-action as troubling, materiality & embodiment, & the challenge to thinking about positionality, policy & practice as never neutral. www.northumbria.ac.uk/study-at-nor... @northumbriauni.bsky.social

Debate and action needed. Will be reading.

Joining colleagues from the NIHR Innovation Observatory and Edinburgh University at today’s Horizon Scanning and Innovations for Health in Coastal Communities held at Edinburgh Futures Institute. We’re looking at research innovation capacity and capabilities, a subject I am passionate about! 👁️👂🏼🌊

Pleased to have a chapter on The Theory and Practice of creative Public Involvement and Community Engagement (PICE) in PICE in Applied Health and Social Care Research. Great Open Access resource, Edited by William McGovern, Alderson, Bareham & Lhussier. bookstore.emerald.com/public-invol...

Great to meet up with @drhelenkara.bsky.social on her visit to Newcastle to talk about writing, sci-fi, conferences, pizza and all the things. Lovely to see you, Helen.

If we took out far right billionaires out of social engineering hatred, imagine how much would change?? Must funding legal fees for racists, billionaires funding (non) Christian nationalism gatherings in Soho. Get in the sea.

Ok, officially reached “too much” on the jobs, planning, communication. #overstimulated

Going to my mate @nicwhitton.bsky.social public lecture this week and SO excited. Come along if in Newcastle Upon Tyne! 👉 www.northumbria.ac.uk/about-us/new...

Got a #teaching session coming up that gives me a chance to do something new with @northumbriauni.bsky.social Professional Doctorate students (www.northumbria.ac.uk/study-at-nor...). #Art installation and textual propositions to encounter Deleuze’s #concepts. These cards are some examples.

I often find “going away” to workshops and conferences hard work socially, but the recent #ESRC funded RE:PLAY workshop for learning designers was great. Investigating #playfullearning in Higher Education. In this case, developing a design process and resources for educators.

Congratulations North East Bylines on your 5,000th article! 👏😮 “In Newcastle there was a complete reversal with over 3500 anti-right-wing demonstrators to the UKIP-Advance UK gathering of between 150 and 200.” And make sure you’re supporting the Bylines Network…

Setting off later in the UK’s first Playful Learning in Higher Education study. @nicwhitton.bsky.social leading wonderfully as Principal. We will be co-designing the Playful Learning design process and resources for designers with colleagues from across the country. Woop! 🙌

What a great time participating/ speaking at this today. Organised by Petra Makela and colleagues.

Sutton Trust article on social class and “top jobs”. As the Guardian article says, class often left out of EDI conversations. www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

"Basic income is bold but necessary” Dr @ianrobsons.bsky.social, a community development worker with 30+ years in working-class communities shares how #BasicIncome could transform people's lives in Blyth, Northumberland. 📖 Basic Income OUT NOW: policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/trade/basic-...

#deleuzeandguattari #becomeimperceptible

In response to today's #SpendingReview, our CEO @keithareed.bsky.social has welcomed commitment to expanding the Family Hubs programme, but is disappointed by the lack of clarity around funding for #StartForLife services, particularly during #IMHAW2025 Full statement 👉http://bit.ly/4kCwYDN

🔥 Over a quarter of a million people have now signed this petition. Sign and share everywhere.

Urgh. No posts for forever as I just lost the will. Real connection, real creation, materials, walking. Anyway, no hate for Bl*esky, just need less noise. Love to you all in the meantime.

We're delighted to announce we've been awarded more than £1 million from The National Lottery Community Fund to create a new National Parent-Infant Relationship (PAIR) Framework! Working with delivery partners Ideas Alliance & Anna Freud, we can't wait to get started! Details👉 bit.ly/4jF3G75

The 2025 national #ARCseminar series on: The healing power of creative arts 💃🏾🎷🎵 7 May: Improving #MentalHealth & wellbeing with creative arts 🎭🎤🖌️ 11 June: Exploring lived experience with creative arts 🎵🕺🎭 9 July: Creative arts for #dementia eventbrite.com/cc/nihr-arcs...

I coached two wonderful colleagues today on how to make show & use the full range of their research activity. Most of us downplay the full extent of our ‘invisible’ work. Make the invisible, visible & lift one another up! #highereducation #qualitative #research @northumbriauni.bsky.social

Reached peak teaching experience today covering questions of ontology and epistemology with Donkey Kong. He has so much to teach us. #teachingandlearning #highereducation @northumbriauni.bsky.social

The final honor guard for Pope Francis included migrants, prisoners, transgender people, the homeless and others selected by the Vicariate of Rome as a symbol of the late pope’s mission of inclusion and outreach. Read more from the funeral: wapo.st/3YdDGqM

Off to teach and learn with professional doctorate students this weekend. My module is about your workplace as a site of research. I work especially hard to help them make their work environment strange. Love it. @northumbriauni.bsky.social

Had a small part in the project but get hold of this new book built on excellent scholarship. We HAVE to look to alternatives to giving up to poverty and tweaking unjust systems. 👉🏾 policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/basic-income #basicincome #poverty #publicpolicy

For anyone working on action research as SoTL - ‘What Does Good Look Like? Quality in Pedagogic Action Research’ lydiaarnold.net/2025/04/14/w...

Great to make this work visible. So much work still to do across disciplines to expand our appreciation of what counts as inquiry and knowledge.

Some playful bird related art from my studio last night. Create something today. #painting #creativity #joy

Story today on BBC news about restraint of autistic boy. This was our life, and our battle for years with the schooling system that abused our child then blamed him for it. / 'Brutal' restraint of autistic boy in calming room www.bbc.com/news/article...

Not only have I been working on a research project today, but ALMOST of equal importance I have acquired a Donkey Kong model for free I saw in a charity shop window. Bet you can’t say that, can you?

The Health and Social Care Committee has launched a new inquiry on the first 1000 days of life, the period from a child’s conception to age 2 – widely recognised as a critical period for development which fundamentally shapes long-term health, well-being, & life outcomes. ihv.org.uk/news-and-vie...

Studio messing about.

Thanks @northumbrialibrary.bsky.social for adding this book to your collection. Loving it, and it will be so helpful to my research. #libraries #deleuze #design

📢#IMHAW2025 Theme launched! This year's Infant Mental Health Awareness Week (9th-15th June) will be asking, Who is holding the baby? #IMHAW2025 will shine a light on the gaps in services that support vulnerable babies & their families. Details👉bit.ly/42nUI63 🧵1/2

Great plotting with Insights NE about a participatory action research project I’m shaping up for social housing partners. Want to mix up bureaucratic thinking with Deleuzian concepts and board game geeks. Of course.

Trump’s War on 'Woke’ and DEI: Incubated by a Nazi Eugenics Foundation – Byline Times bylinetimes.com/2025/02/27/t...

WE ARE NEWCASTLE UNITED CARABAO CUP WINNERS #wedontdoquiet

Oh yes. This is so connected to what gives power culturally and politically to extreme right authoritarianism. The Tate brothers are contributing to this - their dangerous self-proclaimed misogyny should be taken off our media. It's bad enough with the normalised mainstream toxicity without them.

So pleased I can run my studio practice in my own time. It acts as a constant provocation to my academic work, and the black hole of bureaucracy. #innovation #academia #practice

Working with colleagues to develop alternative format outputs for the UK’s REF. It feels freeing and more inclusive to recognise practice, creative and activist research as it is, instead of squashing it all into academic journal articles. #academia #REF @northumbrialibrary.bsky.social

'Children and young people are being asked by the government to give their views on what matters to them. For those aged 10-21 years old, and up to 25 years old for those with special educational needs and disabilities. SURVEY LINK: ➡️ www.iwill.org.uk/NYS-Deliver-... www.bbc.com/newsround/ar...

The sun is out so we NEED to get a pint in. 😉

Yes. 👇🏾

#deleuze #qualitative #visualmethods #reflexivity #experimentation #research 🤘🏽

Ah man, I spent a few minutes talking about the good stuff to combat all the negative challenges and it was such a relief. We must resist despair and go be ourselves credit for showing up, working with others and making small changes. Be hopeful friends, even amongst hard times.