Disability Arts Online and cartoonist Dave Lupton aka Crippen, presents a resource document in the form of a PDF download and audio book, which encapsulates an alternative history of disability.

A History of Disability from a Disability Arts perspective

The British Council and Europe Beyond Access have launched the preliminary findings of a report titled ‘Time to Act: How lack of knowledge in the cultural sector creates barriers for disabled artists and audiences’.

Read in full here: https://disabilityarts.online/magazine/news/new-report-reveals-huge-knowledge-gaps-on-disability-across-europes-cultural-sector/

New report reveals huge knowledge gaps on disability across Europe’s cultural sector

Jo describes how the Social Model understanding of disability has played an important role in her life as a disabled woman.

Fragile Heart

Jo Verrent: Social Model Interview

Doug Paulley describes how the social model understanding of disability has aided him in his fight against the corrupt status quo

Disabled activist Doug Paulley and the Social Model

& housing contains the word sing: article 3 - healing & justice

Crippen reports on disabled researcher's claim that disability benefits consortium are propping up WCA

165 End Of WCA

Textiles and needlework have long been part of the fabric of disabled women’s history. From the workhouse and asylum through to occupational therapy in hospitals and day centres, and even in the home, needlework has been an activity intended to keep disabled women busy and quiet. But some women found a voice in their sewing. Far from being silenced, textiles gave them the freedom to express themselves in a way that they could control.

Connected By Threads: How generations of disabled women artists have found a voice through textiles

A review by Alison Wilde of the hard hitting documentary Broken Hearts for the DWP, a film by Dolly Sen that tells of the deaths of disabled claimants caused by the inhuman actions of the DWP.

Broken Hearts for the Department of Work and Pensions

Colin Hambrook responds to the current retrospective of the work of Yayoi Kusama showing at Tate Modern, asking why the Art world persists in reductionist stereotypes when interpreting the work of artists placed by society in the room of the 'mad'.

Yayoi Kusama

Sore Loser: a chronic pain and illness zine on queer disabled grief is the latest Covid Commission 2021 by Sandra Alland and Etzali Hernández.

The digital publication is available here:
https://disabilityarts.online/magazine/showcase/sore-loser-a-chronic-pain-and-illness-zine-on-queer-disabled-grief

Sore Loser: a chronic pain and illness zine on queer disabled grief

Pregnancy / Miscarriage / Abortion / Poetry - Part 3: Going Through With It and Recovering

Pregnancy Blog Part 3

Emma Jones’ storytelling project The Nightstand Collective is important viewing for any art-lover, but especially those with chronic illness, for whom it can offer a great sense of comfort. Jones started the project in 2015, inviting people living with chronic illness to submit photographs of their bedside tables, as well as a textual inventory.

The Nightstand Collective

Rebecca W Morris, chronically ill artist and writer, reflects on alternative models of leadership, especially those more appropriate for disabled leaders, arising from her experience of establishing the Rebel Choir in London in 2017.

Rebel Choir

Artist Kin reflects on her time on Outside In’s programme ‘Patient artwork: new dialogues’ in partnership with Glasgow Museums with a focus on making work in response to that of Austrian artist Antonia Jabloner (1908-2002). The programme granted selected artists access to the 'Art Extraordinary' collection, historic works made by Outsider artists often from within Scottish psychiatric institutions – a unique collection donated to Glasgow Museums in 2012 by art therapist Joyce Laing, a pioneer in the field of art and mental health.

The Struggle to be Heard: music and architecture in Outsider Art

Tasmin Luciana is an androgynously fabulous non-binary alternative model, DJ and sound engineer who uses their albinism to create some of their most iconic looks. Tasmin talks to Emma Robdale, reflecting on what fuels their craft and drive.

Snow Punk

Dave Lupton interviews disabled writer and activist Will Reynolds in the continued series of first-person accounts about the life-changing impact of connecting with the disabled community and the social model of disability.

Will Reynolds

Chris Tally-Evans, Siri The Art Critic

This audio piece is a sound collaboration between sonic artist Natalie Hyacinth and artist Omikemi created for Landmarks, a new outdoor performance ritual created by Omikemi. Landmarks draws on personal experiences of familial estrangement and other forms of disrupted belonging, this immersive ritual performance uses poetry, sound, and movement to take us on an intimate exploration of our outer and inner landscapes.

Omikemi and Natalie Hyacinth: Landmarks

The Family Sex Show was a fun and silly sex-education play about the painfully awkward subject of sex. Aimed at children, young people and their families it set out to discuss boundaries, pleasure, consent, equality and relationships.

Family Sex Show Audio

In the process of adapting Monsieur Linh & His Child for the stage, choreographer Raquel Meseguer Zafe, director Amy Hodge and playwright Jude Christian considered Edward Said’s theory Orientalism as a tool to interrogate the aesthetics and narrative of the work they were developing. Here, Raquel describes the process the company went through, and their attempts to use Orientalism to reflect on textural representation.

Decolonising The Narrative: Developing Monsieur Linh and his Child

Artist Basic Income schemes have been adopted by several organisations across the UK, proposing greater financial stability for those working in the arts in light of the pandemic. Bel Pye asks how this shift could impact disabled artists.

What is an Artist Basic Income?

Bel Pye: What is an Artist Basic Income, and could it work for disabled artists?

Will Reynolds reviews the disability representation in Michael Morpurgo's classic novel for older children first published in 2003.

Private Peaceful: a review of Michael Morpurgo's classic

Prominent disabled-led theatre company Vital Xposure have announced that playwright and dramaturg Josh Elliott will join as their Artistic Director in May after six years at Graeae Theatre Company, where he served as Literary Manager and played a key role in developing new, inclusive work.  https://disabilityarts.online/magazine/news/vital-xposure-announce-new-artistic-director/

Vital Xposure announce new Artistic Director

Wellcome Collection has won the inaugural Visitor Accessibility Award at this year's Museum + Heritage Awards, one of the UK’s most prestigious celebrations of excellence in the cultural sector.  

News: Wellcome Collection wins Visitor Accessibility award

Over 2,600 leaders from across the arts and cultural sector have signed an open letter to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) expressing their grave concerns over proposed reforms to the Access to Work scheme.

Open letter against Access to Work reforms gains over 2,600 signatures

UpRoute is a research project led by Ashokkumar D Mistry, delivered with Disability Arts Online and funded by Paul Hamlyn Foundation. This research seeks to understand why the majority of artists receiving major art prizes awarded by UK arts bodies tend to be non-disabled and based in metropolitan regions of the UK, primarily London.

News: New research explores non-disabled and metropolitan bias of major arts prizes

Will Reynolds interviews Rosie

Expert legal opinion, commissioned by Equity, the performing arts and entertainment union, says the government’s welfare reforms “result in very serious breaches” of international human rights law, and constitute “human rights violations for disabled people”.

News: Equity-commissioned legal opinion finds welfare reform violates disabled people's human rights

Anna Landre takes Jonathan Swift's 'A Modest Proposal' from 1729 as a starting point for lampooning the current political climate for disabled people. What follows is an account satirising current government disability policies comparing them to German political policies during the 1930s. Both then and now disabled people are being demonised, criminalised with 'voluntary' murder being proposed as the option for dealing with us through the euphemistically called Assisted Dying Bill. Please only read or listen to this article if and when you feel comfortable to do so. Read by Jamie Hale.

Opinion: A cost effective proposal

Fiona Moon interviews writer, theatre maker and comedian Gwen Coburn about her latest show, Sad Girl Songs, ahead of her Edinburgh Fringe run, and discusses navigating the comedy and theatre scene as a woman with PTSD. Read by Fiona Moon.

Interview: Gwen Coburn on Sad Girl Songs

Shelter exhibition review by Gill Crawshaw

D4D is a research programme that has been investigating the evolving ways in which we as disabled people express, perform, experience and practise ‘community’. 

Funded by the AHRC’s Connected Communities stream, D4D consists of a number of different contributing projects exploring diverse areas such as robotics, the arts, education, employment, genetics and gaming.

Electric Bodies is a series of eight poetry cycles by Allan Sutherland taken from the transcripts of oral history interviews with practitioners from within the Disability Arts Movement. Within the context of the project we aim to examine aspects of disabled artists lives that give voice to some of the main concerns of disability arts as a movement and genre.

Katherine Araniello: A Different Way Of Engaging

Allan Sutherland reads his transcription poetry cycle, telling the life story of disabled artist Colin Hambrook

Colin Hambrook: Ways Of Understanding

Dave Lupton aka Crippen – disabled cartoonist talks to disabled activist David Colley about his first encounters with the social model understanding of disability.

David Colley explains the influence of ‘Social Model thinking’ on his life

As part of his series exploring the Social Model understanding of disability and the affect it has had on the lives of disabled people, Dave Lupton aka Crippen talks to Mary Carr, a retired civil servant and now involved in arts and crafts.

Mary Carr is still fighting and challenging every barrier she encounters

Clinical Psychiatry was initially a look at people bravely trying to analyse and rationalise their hang-ups - written about 1977 before Counselling became widespread. I was delighted that Survivors Poetry adopted it as an anthem. This was recorded by Billy Childish on his then Hangman Records, and later by Jim Clark on Posterity Recordings.

Dave Russell: Clinical Psychiatry

Dave Lupton talks to Sue Elsegood exploring how the social model understanding of disability has played a part in her life

Sue Elsegood and the social model understanding of disability

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