The ‘Everyday Marvellous’ Project: An External Evaluation

Hurley, Ursula

Abstract

This report by Challenge Multimedia provides an external evaluation of the ‘Everyday Marvellous’ Project, an initiative funded by the University of Salford's Internal Research Support Fund. The project aimed to explore the potential of ‘surrealist’, ‘avant-garde’ and ‘anti-traditional’ creative writing techniques to promote well-being. It offered a series of accessible workshops at ‘Salford Loaves and Fishes’, a drop-in centre that supports the local community's homeless, isolated, and vulnerable. The project received ethics approval from the University of Salford. The phrase ‘creative writing’ is often used in well-being applications as a catch-all term for many forms of textual creation. This needs refining to enable the assessment of specific results. Dr Stephen Sunderland’s PhD research engaged surrealist writing methods (also known as avant-garde or non-traditional writing) to support the development of self-efficacy and mental resilience. As a trial with participants was not possible during the PhD, Dr Sunderland and his supervisor, Professor Ursula Hurley, aimed to explore the value of these methods in well-being interventions, especially for people in marginalised positions. This project theorised that surrealist techniques offer an alternative to conventional models of therapeutic writing (e.g. journaling) to support self-efficacy and resilience. In this context, ‘avant-garde’, ‘surrealist’ and ‘anti-traditional’ mean techniques including automatic writing, dream collage, and assemblage. These techniques are well documented in critical research about surrealist practices, but they have not been explored as well-being interventions in the way this project proposed. The overarching aims of this project were to develop impact and lay the groundwork for a scalable intervention. The facilitators (Sunderland and Hurley) intended to test Sunderland’s theory that writing in ‘anti-traditional’ ways may offer people who access support services an opportunity to re-engage differently. To do this, a well-being intervention was developed for self-selecting Loaves and Fishes clients who felt they would benefit (building on existing relationships and creative projects with this local charity). Participants worked collectively on a collaborative surrealist assemblage of text and images. This has now been published as a collaborative novel by Hesterglock Press.

Note: This version has been stripped of personally identifying details to comply with the ethics approval.

• Report Type: Project Report
• Online Publication Date: Jun 11, 2025
• Publication Date: Jun 11, 2025
• Deposit Date: Jun 11, 2025
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.17866/rd.salford.29245979.v1