My current project explores how people in Finland create and maintain wellbeing both online and offline, highlighting the reciprocal relationships of care that exist between people, technologies, and nature. The project investigates how the embodied, social, and environmental dimensions of wellbeing intersect to support an ageing society. During 2025 I am conducting fieldwork in various sites in Finland, including Lapinlahden Lähde, an old psychiatric hospital which has been turned into a cultural centre for wellbeing in Helsinki. I am a researcher member of Puistokatu 4 - a space for research, work and discourse on the current ecological crisis.

I am working on a graphic book that will tell the stories emerging from my research through a mix of text, drawings, paintings, and collage. Through the art of my research participants and my own illustrations, the book unravels the multi-layered nature of wellbeing and the intimate connection between the wider societies and environments we live in and our inner lives. 

I am sharing this research journey through illustrated newsletters and I hope you’ll join me on the adventure!

Contact me: laura.haapio-kirk (at) chch.ox.ac.uk