For too long, oral health research has focused narrowly on disease outcomes — ignoring the social, cultural, and emotional factors that define how people actually experience oral health. In 2024/25, Big Mouth Tower Hamlets set out to change this. The project did this by capturing the questions, ideas, and topics that people in Tower Hamlets wanted oral health research and teaching at the QMUL dental school to focus on to improve their oral health.
Big Mouth gathered people’s insights using a range of inclusive participatory creative methods such as body mapping and community Big Conversations. Throughout the project, the team engaged seldom-heard voices across the borough and worked with Social Action for Health and researchers in School of Geography. Big Mouth invited us to join these conversations and capture everyone’s contributions on a single mural.
You can read all about the project, including its key findings and our artwork, in the Big Mouth Tower Hamlets book
ILLUSTRATION CREDITS
Artist Isolde Godfrey
Artwork being shown at the ‘What does inclusion in healthcare look like to you?’ exhibition at Queen Marys University…
