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Monday 7 September 2026
Pre-Conference Workshops

½¿É«µ¼º½ PESP Invisible College 2026
10:00 – 16:00

The ½¿É«µ¼º½ PESP Invisible College provides an opportunity for scholars, ECRs and professionals in physical education, coaching, sport, and all related disciplines to come together, network, discuss contemporary issues and share practice. It remains a highlight of the academic year, and the programme for 2026 is set to be incredibly exciting and engaging.

In short, the Invisible College aims to:

• nurture a strong and confident research environment by supporting the current and next generation of researchers through developmental workshops/sessions, and foster collaboration amongst attendees.
• celebrate and recognise excellence in research by offering Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy Journal best paper and best reviewer awards

The proposed outline for the event is below – please note, to keep costs low, lunch is not provided.

To register for the ½¿É«µ¼º½ PESP Invisible College only (and not the whole conference), please .Ìý

Stitching Stories of Space and Place: A Photo-Broderie Workshop on Neurodivergent Experiences in Higher Education
13:30 – 17:30

This interactive 180-minute workshop invites educators, researchers, and practitioners to explore the first-year findings of the Enhancement Project through photo-broderie — the combination of photography and embroidery. Drawing on new materialist and socio-material perspectives, the session understands space not as a passive backdrop but as an active force shaping neurodivergent students’ experiences of belonging, engagement, and wellbeing in higher education.

The Enhancement Project reveals how campus spaces — lecture theatres, libraries, social areas, and transitional zones — can either enable or constrain neurodivergent students’ capacity to act and belong. Furniture arrangements, acoustic properties, lighting, signage, and temporal rhythms all co-constitute educational experiences alongside institutional policies and pedagogy.Ìý

Workshop Structure

• Introduction to Findings (15 mins): Key themes from the Enhancement Project are presented through anonymised student voices and photographs, introducing participants to new materialist thinking about how material environments actively participate in learning.
• Image Selection and Reflection (15 mins): Participants take or choose 1–2 photographs depicting HE spaces that resonate with their context, guided to attend to the agency of material objects and spatial configurations.
• Guided Photo-Broderie Practice (45 mins): Following a facilitator demonstration of basic stitching techniques, participants use thread to trace pathways neurodivergent students navigate, highlight areas of sensory overwhelm or sanctuary through colour-coded stitching, add texture representing different sensory experiences, mark accessibility barriers, and stitch student testimony directly onto images — weaving together discourse and matter.
• Small Group Dialogue (20 mins): Participants share work-in-progress and discuss what their stitching or mark-making reveals about institutional assumptions and opportunities for change, guided by questions about how objects, sounds, and spaces act, and what human-nonhuman assemblages support or hinder neurodivergent students flourishing.
• Translating Insights to Practice (15 mins): A facilitated discussion generates concrete actions, such as sensory mapping exercises, flexible seating arrangements, visual campus guides highlighting sensory-friendly spaces, peer-led “space ambassador” programmes, and integrating student spatial narratives into staff development.
• Gallery Walk and Closing Reflections (10 mins): Participants display and circulate among finished pieces, applying analytical frameworks to identify patterns and emergent themes. Final reflection considers transferable insights for inclusive practice.

Analysing the Artefacts

Photo-broderie is read through a new materialist lens — attending to what stitching does rather than what it represents. How thread obscures or connects photographic surfaces, how colour creates affective intensities, and how density of stitching signals anxiety or attention all generate knowledge that verbal analysis alone cannot. This diffractive approach moves beyond interpretation to understand how making-with-materials produces insight differently.

The act of stitching may itself be regulating for neurodivergent participants, while the medium acknowledges that knowledge about space and belonging is felt, embodied, and distributed across human and nonhuman elements.