The project, known as ORIGIN (Optimising cultural expeRIences for mental health in underrepresented younG people onlINe), is running from 2023-2028 and is a collaboration between NHS Trusts, multiple UK universities, with museum and charity partners. Young people will help create an ‘online museum’ as a way of improving their mental health. This research project is being hosted by Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust, is led by researchers from University of Birmingham and funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR).
We are delighted to be one of the museum partners and from May to July 2025 are working with young people aged 16-24 to uncover twenty unseen stories in the museum collection. These will be submitted as potential exhibits for the ‘online museum’
ORIGIN builds on preliminary research conducted during the O-ACE study, in which an online cultural experience called Ways of Being was co-designed and tested for mental health in young people. Despite limited time and resources in developing Ways of Being, it was enthusiastically received by young people and reduced negative feelings when compared with a traditional museum website.
Origin Exhibition 2026
In May and June 2026 all 18 objects chosen by the young people connected to Museum of Cornish Life will be displayed in an exhibition which is placed throughout the museum, rather than in a traditional gallery format. Alongside each object will be the research that each young person carried out plus their thoughts about the object and why they thought it would benefit someone’s mental wellbeing. A central case will highlight some of the objects that are in our archive and provide information about the project as whole. There will also be a new activity trail created, specifically designed for children aged 7yrs plus. The exhibition has been co-curated by one of the young people who took part in the project in 2025, they have also designed the new trail. They are using this opportunity as part of their final year dissertation at University of Exeter.
Partners
- National Museums Liverpool
- Museum of Cornish Life
- Cornwall Partnership NHS Foundation Trust
- Young People Cornwall
- The Dreadnought Centre
- Imagineear Ltd
Academic Collaborators
- University Of Birmingham
- University of Liverpool
- University of Sheffield
- Sheffield Hallam University
- University College London
- University of Plymouth
- University of Cambridge
- London School of Economics
Image Credit – An intervention for mental health – Ways of Being main menu © University of Oxford / Imagineear Ltd