Discover new works by five disabled artists who were given Support Commissions through 2021 by Disability Arts Online and Attenborough Arts Centre. Through a series of conversations, presentations and sharing of work (both finished and in-process), this event will explore the art and the artists involved in DAO and AAC’s Support Commissions programme.
The programme took place between February and July 2021 and offered each of the artists £1500 towards the creation of a new piece of work, plus group sessions, training and one-to-one development time with DAO and AAC staff.
The artists all come from across the visual arts, but each work with very different materials, processes and themes.
They are:
Lynn Cox
Socially Distanced Skirt: A film and installation which explores the absurdity of maintaining 2m distance for visually impaired people. It takes the form of a skirt made of ‘white canes’ which is 4m across. The finished work will include a film of Lynn wearing the skirt around busy London landmarks.
After obtaining a BA and MA at Wimbledon School of Art, Lynn Cox took a career break to have and nurture her children; allowing her to reassess her career to focus on her passions of using darkness as a device for creativity, and her interest in the Situationist practices of psychogeography and the intersection between work/ leisure. In 2013, Lynn became a Churchill Fellow, enabling her to travel to Asia; to observe exhibitions in darkness and to instigate creative art/coaching workshops in the dark. In 2017, Lynn led on the making of permanent sculptures for Eureka’s The National Children’s Museum. Subsequently, Lynn co-lead on Sense’s 9-month ‘Sensibility’ Project/Festival. Lynn is an author and speaker, covering such topics as coaching disabled people and disability arts.
Bhavani Esapathi
Voice Recognition: A sound art work which explores the stories of migrants who have had trouble accessing healthcare in the UK.
Bhavani Esapathi is a maker, writer & social-tech activist working on the intersections of autoimmune diseases or invisible disabilities, migratory politics and access to healthcare. She is currently awarded the Artist-in-Residence at Invisible Flock as part of the Cost of Innovation programme and proud recipient of Art Council England’s DYCP Award [2021-2022]. Previously, she has worked with/exhibited as part of the London Design Festival, The Victoria & Albert Museum, The British Museum, Athens Digital Arts Festival, The British Council amongst others. Her seminal digital storytelling project won the WIRED Magazine’s Creative Hack Award for ‘the best idea’ category in Tokyo, Japan.
Jas Singh
Sabotage: A durational multimedia performance piece which uses news footage and a soundtrack to explore sensory overwhelm.
Jas Singh’s work addresses sociopolitical current affairs. Graduating from Central St Martins in 2012 with a BA Fine Art exploring time-based, durational performative and interdisciplinary practices. Life changes in 2014 resulted in neurological complications forcing him to take a hiatus. In 2018 he returned to the arts and reconfigured his method of practice from audio dissonance to considering visual overload with the same intent.
Sasha Saben Callaghan
The Book of Silk and String: Six digital ‘chapbooks’ of collage, photo-montage and textual intervention. Each volume is a time capsule and together they capture a year of the pandemic.
Sasha Saben Callaghan is a writer and digital artist, living in Edinburgh. She was a winner of the 2016 ‘A Public Space’ Emerging Writer Fellowship and the 2019 Pen to Paper Awards. Her illustrations have featured in a wide range of exhibitions, journals, and magazines. Sasha uses collage and photomontage to create surreal and rebellious images, blending the uncanny and the everyday and challenging viewers to see beauty beyond the mainstream.
Emelia Kerr Beale
Drawings at my own pace: A series of drawings utilising two very distinct techniques as a method of processing the complexities of living with illness.
Emelia Kerr Beale is an artist from Nottingham who is currently based in Glasgow. They work across drawing, sculpture and textile to process the complexities of illness and create moments when discomfort and pleasure, anxiety and joy co-exist. Through the use of motifs such as animal bodies, as well as pieces of text, they consider the ways in which imagination and repetition can be coping mechanisms. They care about celebrating neurodivergent ways of making and thinking as meaningful artistic approaches.
