Leeds artist calls on Yorkshire residents to share disability arts stories
A Leeds artist is asking people across Yorkshire to share their memories and experiences of the Disability Arts movement as part of a national heritage project.
Gill Crawshaw is supporting ‘Cripping Culture: A Journey into Disability Arts Heritage’, a major new project run by disabled-led charitable arts organisation, Disability Arts Online, supported through funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
The project aims to save the stories of the Disability Arts movement from being lost and will share them through an accessible digital archive, interactive timeline and podcast series. (Cripping, like queering, uses a reclaimed word to apply a disability lens to culture.)
Gill is a curator who draws on her experience of disability activism to organise art exhibitions and events which highlight issues affecting disabled people.
She has curated exhibitions which have addressed representation of disabled artists and access (Possible All Along, 2020), charity (Piss on Pity, 2019), and cuts to welfare and public spending (Shoddy, 2016).
The Cripping Culture project would like to hear from anyone like Gill with a link to the Disability Arts movement and is inviting them to contribute their own stories to the collection.
These could be memories of an event, show or exhibition they attended, something they read, an artist they met, an organisation they were involved with or anything else related to disability arts.
Speaking about the importance of contributing to Cripping Culture, Gill said: “The stories of how and why disabled people used art as a political tool, to give us voice and to take control of how we are represented, must be documented and preserved.
"Disabled people can draw strength from this history now. Cripping Culture will empower and inspire future generations of disabled people.
“The disability arts movement could be described as the creative wing of the wider disability rights movement.
"Disabled artists have made work that documents our fight for equality and justice, and our success along the way. In turn, that success draws on the disability arts movement, which has refuted harmful stereotypes of disabled people: disabled artists have authentically portrayed the lives of disabled people on our own terms.
"Disability arts was vital to me in finding a community of radical, like-minded disabled people, and in developing a proud identity as a disabled person.
“I would hate to think that information about the history of the disability arts movement wasn’t available to others.
“There’s so much rich material, stretching back decades, created by disabled artists and campaigners.
“But this heritage needs to be recorded, collected and presented so that current and future generations of disabled people can access it easily.”
Contributions are welcome from people of all backgrounds including artists, writers, producers, performers, curators, musicians, activists or audience members.
By getting as many people as possible from Yorkshire involved, DAO hopes to capture previously untold stories from the area and shed new light on key moments in the Disability Arts movement’s history. DAO is especially keen to hear from people who are part of the global majority and have intersectional experiences of disability.
By gathering the stories and sharing them for anyone to access and engage with online, Cripping Culture aims to support the development of a culture that embraces disabled people’s stories and fills in gaps in existing knowledge.
To share your story, visit www.disabilityarts.online/cripping-culture and submit the online form. Contributions can be text, video, audio or photos that help illustrate your memory.
The project wants to know how the memory or experience contributed to a life and the Disability Arts movement. Multiple stories about different events, projects, artists or organisations, can be shared and these can be told in English or British Sign Language. DAO can offer access support for anyone who might require it to submit their contribution.
Colin Hambrook, Heritage Project Director, said: “It doesn’t matter who you are, if you have a story to tell that involves disability arts in the UK, then we want to hear from you.
"Everyone who shares a memory will play an important part in the Cripping Culture project, saving our heritage for future generations.
“It is important for the legacy of the Disability Arts movement that we capture stories of events from Yorkshire that may have not been previously recorded.
"We want to celebrate the vast breadth of disability arts activity that has occurred across time. We are grateful to Gill for helping us share this call out far and wide and would love other people to get involved too."
The Cripping Culture contributions call out is open until Friday August 14.
To find out more about the project and share a story visit disabilityarts.online/cripping-culture
‘Cripping Culture: A Journey into Disability Arts Heritage’ is a three year project and has received almost £250,000 in funding from The National Lottery Heritage Fund.