CHRYSES: Mapping Environmental Health Crises – Public Understanding through Myths and Science

What do ancient myths and modern maps have in common? More than we might assume.

CHRYSES is an ambitious interdisciplinary project funded by Humanities in the Humanities in the Environmental Research Area (HERA) and Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).

It explores how humanity has made sense of crises over time—through stories, symbols, and systems of knowledge. The project also asks how these insights might help us respond to today’s environmental and health emergencies.

Beginning in January 2025, this two-year project was named for Chryses, the Trojan priest whose plea to Apollo triggered a plague in Homer’s epic. It brings together scholars from across Europe to rethink how we represent crises.

From mythological floods and famines to contemporary pandemics and ecological collapse, CHRYSES looks at how we narrate upheaval – and how those narratives shape public understanding and action.

At its core, CHRYSES explores the power of maps. Not just as tools of science and data, but as storytelling devices that have long been used to trace danger, guide journeys, and imagine futures.

The project investigates how both scientific and mythical mappings help us interpret complex crises. It’s asking, if maps can bring together the factual and the symbolic? And can they speak more effectively to diverse publics?

The project spans five leading institutions across the UK (UCL and University of Edinburgh), Ireland (University College Cork), Finland (Aalto University), and Estonia (Literary Estonian Museum) and it is structured around a series of interlinked investigations.

This includes exploring how ancient myths depict crises as journeys or transformations. It also involves experimenting with visual storytelling tools like graphic novels, games, and immersive exhibitions.

Additionally, the project engages communities to share their lived experiences of environmental and health disruptions.

At UCL, researchers are focusing on the role of scientific maps in shaping public understanding of environmental health crises.

By analysing how past and present maps represent outbreaks, pollution, climate hazards, and more, the team is building a critical understanding of how design, data, and narrative influence perception.

This strand of the project also considers how scientific mappings can be made more inclusive. By integrating emotional, cultural, and local perspectives it’s exploring new ways of seeing and responding to crises.

Through cross-cultural analysis, creative workshops, and public-facing exhibitions, CHRYSES brings together expertise in participatory mapping, risk communication, folklore, and design.

Hosted across leading European universities, the project creates a rich platform for interdisciplinary collaboration and dialogue.

In a world where crises are increasingly entangled – ecological, epidemiological, social – CHRYSES opens new ground for thinking with maps, thinking with myths, and creating more inclusive, culturally attuned ways of understanding the challenges ahead

More information

• Visit Dr Artemis Skarlatidou Academic Staff Profile
• Email Dr Jakleen Al-Dalal’a, Research Fellow on the CHRYSES Project

This project is supported by CHANSE and HERA CHRYSES, by the Research Council of Finland under Grant Agreement 369388, Research Ireland under Grant Agreement RI4046, UKRI/AHRC under Grant Agreement UKRI463 and the Estonian Research Council.