**Research Firsts Exhibition: Image and accompanying text by the Essential Blends Project Team** ![Photographs, one above the other, of people making a podcast and a hut located in a very leafy garden][1] Essential Blends is a podcast created by practice-based researchers Adriana Minu and Kevin Leomo, supported by the College of Arts Community Building and Public Engagement Fund. We interview artist practitioners from various disciplines, both within and outwith academia, in order to uncover possibilities of practice that others might find inspiring. Our first episode was with Emmanuelle Waeckerlé, an academic, artist, composer, and improviser interested in the materiality and musicality of language. We discussed building community, self-care, intention, and learning how to resist. Together, we performed Emmanuelle’s ‘Song of an Intention’ in Emmanuelle’s beautiful home in Thornton Heath. [1]: https://mfr.osf.io/export?url=https://osf.io/download/dngt4/?direct=&mode=render&format=2400x2400.jpeg