Chronic Pain: The Invisible Dance Partner – A zine created by the Peace & Joy Group

We’re excited to share Chronic Pain: The Invisible Dance Partner – a zine created by the Peace & Joy Chronic Pain Peer-Support group as part of Thriving Stockwell’s Community Living Room programme.

This Zine was co-created through a series of creative workshops as part of a master’s project with Massey University (New Zealand). As researcher and facilitator, Emily Martin-Ball, along with co-facilitator and artist Ess Grange, supported the group to explore meaningful movement while living with chronic pain through creative expression. Emily brought the contributions together into this final publication and audio narrative. The piece has been created with care, community, and the voices of the group at its heart.

The journey of the Peace & Joy Chronic Pain Peer-Support group demonstrates the power of a community-based, holistic approach to chronic pain management. The group supports patients to build knowledge in lifestyle medicine alongside creative arts, with a strong focus on meaningful, wellbeing-centred care.

The group began in 2021 through The Mind & Body Programme at King’s Health Partners as part of The PEACS  (Pain: Equality of Care and Support in the Community) pilot programme. This pilot was co-designed to reduce health inequalities in chronic pain and was delivered in partnership with Stockwellbeing Primary Care Network, led by Dr Vik Sharma. The programme combined lifestyle medicine psychoeducational workshops with holistic clinical assessments, with a particular focus on Black communities in Lambeth.

In 2023, Stockwell Partnership joined the pilot to help connect patients with a wider community offer. The group now meets weekly at Art4Space Studio as part of the Thriving Stockwell Community Living Room programme, bringing healthcare professionals and communities together to address health disparities in Stockwell and beyond.

Thriving Stockwell’s role is central to this work, as the Community Living Room programme provides the weekly space at Art4Space Studio for the group to meet. By hosting the group within a community setting, Thriving Stockwell helps bridge healthcare and local support, ensuring that the Zine’s creation and the group’s ongoing wellbeing work remain grounded in community connection and lived experience.

Check out the zine online here (or see the PDF below), and here’s a link to the audio narrative for the project.