Gill Nicol www.lightsgoingon.com Why is it so difficult to define yourself as a Disabled artist? So this short presentation is from my own personal perspective, as someone working with contemporary arts and its audiences, making contemporary art accessible, in whatever form that takes. So my view is one from the outside looking in, and around. And to prepare for this today took ages! I think because of the question itself. It speaks of many things – of visibility, of language, of power. I ended wondering if it was now in fact, the right question for 2015.

1. Why is it so difficult to define yourself
as a disabled artist?
Awkward Bastards symposium
Thursday 12 March 2015
Gill Nicol
lightsgoingon.com

2. Woman artist
Black artist
Disabled artist
Male (able-bodied, heterosexual) artist

3. Might it be because able-bodied people
don't define themselves as able-bodied, so
why label oneself as disabled?
It flags up difference, not acceptance?
(producer)

4. Increasingly, disabled artists do not want to/feel
the need to define themselves as 'disabled' in
the same way that in recent debates black
writers have made it clear that they don't want
the label 'black' just 'writer'. Why should you
have to wear your disability on your sleeve in
this way? The only time when it's relevant is
when seeking funding or showing work as part
of a specific disability event or festival.
(artist)

5. It’s not about disability, but more about
bloody good art..
(curator)

6. I resist labelling myself any more than an artist
(not visual artist, sculptor etc) - it feels as though
it might be limiting, and make me more mindful
of people’s preconceptions about what any of
those roles are or what they mean.
(artist)

7. a collapsed field

8. A return to making
A desire to collaborate
Personalised accounts of art
A turn towards the body, the sensual – the
experiential

9. ‘Labyrinth of Living Exhibits’, curated by Aaron Williamson at the Hunterian Museum,
Royal College of Surgeons, 2011

10. Labyrinth of Living Exhibits

11. Katherine Araniello, Labyrinth of Living Exhibits, BiPAP 1 (Living Experiment)

12. Judith Scott (1943 – 2005)

15. ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT BODIES OF
WORK—‘INSIDER’ OR ‘OUTSIDER’—
PRODUCED ANYWHERE, AND UNDER ANY
CIRCUMSTANCES, IN THE PAST TWENTY YEARS
Matthew Higgs, Director, White Columns

16. Shinichi Sawada (1987-)

21. Thank you