BU Research Blog

On the 4th July 2026, our team member Tilia Lenz held an artist talk at the Heart of the Tribe Gallery in Glastonbury. Tilia took an arts-led approach to her research into performance in Children’s Social Care and developed (auto)ethnographic Storywork in textile and narrative form. Her work is now on display at the gallery with a large scale ‘safety net in practice’ that her participants created, alongside written stories that are based on her data analysis.

The Gallery offers a space for the public to engage with Tilia’s research and visitors could listen to the stories and learn about the Social Workers’ reality of Child Protection practice. The stories offered a window of emotional engagement and dialogue beyond statistics, reports and ‘hard data’ and allowed visitors to connect. Feedback showed that visitors, from all walks of life felt connected with the stories. They shared that they could see themselves within the narrative and that it communicated their own experiences in a way they had never been able to say. The power of Storywork was evident, showing impact of research and creative methods.

Narrative Storywork
Tilia created a constellation of interconnected stories which emerged through deep listening to participants’ words, silences, gestures, and emotions. The stories were written using Indigenous Storywork principles, which honour story as a way of carrying and generating knowledge. Situated within the landscapes of the Somerset Levels, the stories invite the reader into a world that moves between lived experience, metaphor, and magical realism.

Visual Storywork
To create a more holistic experience of the Storywork, Tilia worked with illustrator Hol Thomas-Wrightson to visualise selected stories and capture atmosphere, emotion, and themes beyond words. Together, these modes of Storywork explore what people need to feel safe and trusted within managerial relationships, and able to flourish within complex organisational systems. They invite reflection on the often invisible relational work that sustains individuals, communities, and institutions.

More about Tilia

Tilia Lenz is a PhD candidate at Bournemouth University, social worker, academic, trade union activist, and storyworker. Her creative research practice brings together textile art, narrative inquiry, and Indigenous Storywork. Her doctoral research, Relationship-Based Performance Management in Children’s Social Care, explores the relationship between newly qualified social workers and their managers. Through six interviews conducted within Somerset Council, participants reflected on identity and belonging, privilege and oppression, whilst considering the impact on performance. Tilia’s work challenges conventional academic approaches by treating stories and textile practice not as illustrations of research findings, but as the analysis and findings themselves. Her Storywork draws on more than twenty years of professional practice in social work and is shaped by a commitment to decolonising research, resisting extractive methodologies, and making sense of her own lived experiences of migration, intergenerational trauma, and displacement.  Through Storywork in textile, narrative, and visual form, Tilia explores themes of safety, trust, belonging, identity, and resistance, creating spaces where complex truths can be felt as well as understood.

Here is a link to the exhibition: https://www.heartofthetribe.com/events-and-exhibitions/a-knot-speaks-louder-than-a-thousand-words