Next in our series introducing the 2026-27 cohort of In Practice Research Fellows is Sam Slatcher, a freelance creative practitioner and researcher working at the intersection of arts, community and wellbeing. Here we catch up with Sam to discuss his research project, ‘Crafting Together: Modelmaking, Masculinity and Recovery in County Durham’, developed in partnership with Northern Heartlands, which explores how model-making and diorama-building can support the mental health and recovery of men living with depression, anxiety, addiction, bereavement or illness, and to hear about his plans for the Fellowship.
If your research was a film, what would the title be?
It would probably be ‘Miniature Wonders’ which would hint at the art form and its untapped potential for stirring the imagination.
What will you be doing during your Medical Humanities in Practice Research Fellowship?
I will be exploring how the practice of model-making among men in County Durham impacts mental health and wellbeing. I will be focusing specifically on those who build dioramas, which are 3D scenes presented in a box that tell a story, whether a scene of a railway town, the interior of a building, or somewhere else entirely. Some participants are recovering from serious illness, while others have turned to model-making to help them through bereavement, depression, anxiety, or addiction. Over the first six months, I will spend time with them in the clubs and groups they already belong to, carrying out qualitative research into what they are building and the communities that support them. In the second half of the fellowship, participants will come together each month in a series of workshops, designing and building their own diorama based on their own reflections on model-making and wellbeing, which they will keep after the project. The dioramas will then be presented at an exhibition co-curated with the participants themselves, celebrating the worlds they have made and the stories behind them. I would love the exhibition to not only showcase the dioramas, but to weave in storytelling through recorded voices of participants that can be listened to whilst viewing the miniature scenes.
What expertise and experiences will you be drawing on?
I have worked as a creative practitioner since 2018, mainly using songwriting and community arts as tools for connection and wellbeing. I have worked with people seeking sanctuary and refugees, with organisations supporting people through depression, anxiety and addiction recovery, and with communities connected to railway heritage across the North East. I hold a PhD in Human Geography from Durham University, where I spent three years researching arts-based community projects in West Yorkshire. In recent years I have rediscovered model-making through my own interest in railway modelling. It has always been something of a meditative practice for me, and has helped ground me through periods of anxiety and ill-health. Last year I worked on a community songwriting project celebrating the 200th anniversary of the Stockton & Darlington Railway, and spent a lot of time at railway-themed events. It was there that I became genuinely fascinated by the role model-making plays in supporting men’s mental health. I found myself naturally connecting with other men through model railway groups, and became increasingly interested in how these groups offer what the anthropologist Thomas Yarrow calls ‘quiet companionship’, where emotional care is present even though emotions are never directly discussed.
Why are you excited about working in the medical humanities?
I am really excited to situate my own learning within the medical humanities as such an approach takes seriously the holistic nature of wellbeing and as it is practiced in often overlooked spaces. As a creative practitioner who is usually time starved and stretched in terms of all the tasks that came with the role, I have not always had the time to really unpack the impact the practice or the research frameworks to articulate what actually happens in something like model-making. What excites me about this fellowship is the chance to examine model-making as a practice and explore what it does for wellbeing, in genuine conversation with medical humanities thinking around embodied knowledge, material culture and community-based wellbeing. My hope is that the research will be both robust in its contribution to wider academic debates whilst also being inclusive in making a real practical difference to the organisations and communities I work with.
What changes would you like to see as a result of your research?
I would like to see model-making and craft practices more broadly taken seriously as a way of supporting men who are isolated, vulnerable, or struggling with their mental health. I want this research to help creative practitioners and community organisations feel better equipped to create these spaces. Longer term, I hope it leads to further research and practical resources that bring craft, community and wellbeing together in new ways across the region.
What interests or hobbies do you have outside of your research that might surprise people?
My background as a creative practitioner is really in folk music, and as model-making has become more central to my work, I have been leaning back into music as a hobby. If I am not working, you will often find me taking my small Yamaha travel guitar on walks along the North East coast, recalling old folk songs or attempting to write a new tune!
We warmly welcome Sam to the Discovery Research Platform and look forward to working with him.
Continue reading our interview series with our 2026-27 cohort of In Practice Research Fellows:
- An interview with David McQuillan
- An interview with Fouziya Asim
- An interview with Kate Quinn
- An interview with Maddie Rose-Carbone
- An interview with Sophie-Jo Peel
Find out more:
- Read the announcement of this year’s In Practice Research Fellows
- Find out more about the 2025-26 cohort of In Practice Research Fellows
