Dr Rachel Marsden is a curator, researcher and educator interested in practice-research, creative methods, inclusive pedagogies and ethics of care. This work is informed by her practice in arts and creative health, social prescribing and lived experience of chronic illness and dynamic disability.
Currently, she is Senior Lecturer in Academic Practice at University of the Arts London (UAL), including MA and PhD supervisions. She is also a member of UAL’s Health, Arts and Design (HEARD) research hub and on the Advisory Board for UAL’s ‘Better Making’ social prescribing hub. In addition to her involvement as a researcher and co-network lead for 'Stomach Ache: Curating with Guts’ project supported by the Northern Network for Medical Humanities Research and Wellcome Trust, Rachel is undertaking the research project 'Mapping Creative Health Assets: Mobilising Arts-based Interventions to Tackle Health Inequalities in Staffordshire' via the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), School for Public Health Research (SPHR) and PHRESH (Public Health RESearch for Health) consortium at the University of Birmingham and Keele University until May 2024.
Since April 2022, in a Voluntary capacity, Rachel has advocated regionally and nationally for the creative health sector via her role as Regional Champion (West Midlands) for the Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance (CHWA), and is also a member of the International Association of Arts Critics (AICA).
