Richard Butchins, Frida is not a Barbie. Image © Richard Butchins
Activity for 2023
Keen to build on our previous work and using the same Core research questions (above), the programme for year two was developed to explore the nuanced dynamics at play that affected the societal attitudes, ethics and social mores surrounding the depiction, and articulation of disability in British art.
For Meeting One we invited PHD researchers and eminent artists Rachel Gadsden and Richard Butchins to speak alongside Professor Richard Sandel, the celebrated Professor of Museum Studies and Co-Director of the Research Centre for Museums and Galleries (RCMG) at the University of Leicester. This well attended meeting was, for many audience members, a chance to go beyond assumptions and learn about existing and ongoing research that created a baseline of vital information pointing to connections between impairment or difference and the creative process and also presence of disabled people in the British art scene historically.
The meeting raised as many questions as were reconciled and led us to arrange, for Meeting Two, a closed round table discussion to discuss the ethics of the attribution of impairment, neurodivergence or physiological or psychological difference to historical artists in order to understand their work. Chaired and managed by Trish Wheatley and Ashok Mistry from DIBA, the round table was attended by Professor Claire Penketh, Liverpool Hope University; Dr Lucy Burke, Manchester Metropolitan University; Rachel Boyd, PHD Researcher; Rachel Gasden, PHD Researcher; Dr Paul Darke; Elinor Morgan, MIMA, Middlesbrough; Professor Simon McKeown, Teesside University; and Colin Hambrook, founding editor, Disability Arts Online. The discussion enabled a chance to explore varying and evolving attitudes towards disability, stigmatisation and attribution that would provide an ethical guide for analysing understanding disability in the context of British art that would guide the ethics of our research group in future discussions.
Meeting Three explored best practice, lived experience particularly in art writing and curatorial work. This was a hybrid meeting held at The Foundry in London and Online via Zoom. Panellists were independent artist and curator, Sam Metz; Melanie Grant, Wellcome Collection; and Kate Adams, Project Art Works.
The meeting interrogated curating and interpreting the work of disabled artists and disability as well as looking at nonverbal forms of interpretation. This was all achieved by the rich stories presented by our speakers and our lively online and in person audiences.
Our work during Year two has encouraged the confidence and openness for disability focused conversations. As we talk to colleagues, the institutional permeability is palpable and we hope this will allow us to reach into deeper layers of detail to understand the dynamics that surround Disability In British Art.
Dirge of the Brickmen. Image © Colin Hambrook
Activity for 2022
The Disability in British Art (DIBA) Research Group was formed to tackle the following core questions:
- What are the different ways in which disability is treated as a subject in the curation of British Art?
- How might revealing different disability narratives create new opportunities for alternative interpretations of art history and in doing so, how might this lead to increased representation of artists with lived experience of disability?
- How can we create an accessible curatorial language and framework for understanding and interpreting disability representation in visual art, galleries and collections?
The questions represented how we understood disability in the context of British Art and one of the outcomes of the research group has been the formation of a more nuanced interpretation of the questions.
The questions were addressed through a Call for Papers from curators, artists and academics to be presented at the three research group meetings, followed by robust discussion amongst group members. These discussions were summarised by the co-leaders of the research group and published on Disability Arts Online to form both a précis and critical analysis of the paper. Papers delivered during the three meetings presented research from historical, ethnographic or autoethnographic perspectives. Highlights of the meetings came both from speakers and research group members all of whom added to valuable insights to our conversations. There is a deep stigma attached to some words associated with disability and attempts by activists to reclaim that terminology. We explored some of the problematic language through a presentation that highlighted how different contemporary disabled/neurodivergent artists approached or coded aspects of disability within their work.
Mike Layward’s paper ‘Disabled blood’ looked at connections between the industrial revolution and attitudes towards disabled people within the arts sector. Mike’s analysis explored the origins of attitudes towards disability, shedding light on it as part of the human condition that is disregarded until it affects us.
Meeting two was dedicated to two contrasting experiences of British disabled/neurodivergent artists who focused on lived experiences and searching for understanding in the art world. Michelle Baharier and Becky Beasley presented contrasting papers exploring the creation of art as a necessity.
Colin Hambrook presented the paper “What does disability bring to British Art?” which can be seen as a turning point for DIBA, bringing together all of the aspects of the previous meetings and reaching to the heart of the core questions. Colin brought forth multifarious stories of art and disability, and in doing so laid the foundation for future conversations.
Bringing the two worlds of the British Art Network and disability art together to enable us to dig deeper into our subject specialism and fulfil our commitments as conveners of Disability in British Art has been challenging for a number of reasons including the differences in how disability is understood and how art literature is digested by disabled and non-disabled audiences. Going forward we can see our focus narrowing to explore how impairment interacts with the creative process and how its narrative can be captured and expressed without stigmatising disabled artists.
