Exploring research-based creative writing as an ethical strategy for amplifying silenced voices from asylum archives

Through analysis and careful interpretation of inpatient asylum archives, I propose to evidence the unique role that fiction has to play in authentically and ethically amplifying the silenced voices of those who have lived, and do live, with mental health conditions. The research project will examine the consequences of framing asylum inpatient artwork as 'art' (without those patients having consented to being identified in such terms) and will explore how medical and societal attitudes - prior to the disbanding of inpatient asylums - shaped interpretations of patients' identities and experiences.