Project Ability attended the Side by Side Symposium at the Royal Festival Hall, in the London Southbank Centre. The event was led by Alice Fox and the Rocket Artists with participation from learning disability artists, their colleagues and support networks. The purpose of the symposium to collectively build an Inclusive Arts Manifesto and the event began with points and questions pitched to us by Sue Williams, Senior Diversity Officer, Arts Council England:
“Why is inclusive arts practice good?”
“How do we recognise the validity of that work?”
“How do we change the conditions of working together?”
“How do we stop being fixed in the same output?”
The opening address discussed achieving great art for everyone and pitched the creative case for diversity, equality and art together, side by side. Andrew Pike from KCat, Kilkenny, reinforced the point and offered us his own take on Inclusive Arts; that it should be just that, included.
“We do what we like to do, we stick our necks out…I don’t believe in pretty pictures…we’re here to shock, we’re here to make a mess.”
“Go and jump in the river if you don’t like it.”
The workshops ranged from collaborative drawing, interactive sculpture, dance, music and film. I took part in “Make Sculpture with Rocket Artists” which posed the question, “How do we want to be viewed as inclusive artists?”
We were given 4 materials to answer this question: mirror foil, pins, foam boards and space blankets. We created a reflective, mountainous landscape; we made, chatted, created headbands for each other, shared our experiences and our work. The overall shape of our sculpture disseminated through our exchanges with one another and became a vehicle to discuss the contribution to the manifesto. We talked about ‘material memory’ with the actual piece itself being a direct result of our physical interaction with the material, completely unique to time and place. We adapted the word “nebulousness” to describe the intangible nature of what we were trying to achieve and, most importantly, we were all wearing our headbands throughout the day, representing the bond that had developed between us; we were comrades working side by side.
If ‘inclusion’ is the underpinning theme of ‘Side by Side’, the venue of the Southbank Centre creates the perfect conditions to say, this work is important. The symposium itself creates a case for the commitment to doing whatever it takes to make things better for learning disability artists in society; it was noisy and they hold the power to make their voices heard.
Instead of fitting art practice (whether that is contemporary, inclusive, individual, collaborative) to a set of measurable norms, perhaps we should be excited by what is unpredictable, noisy, free and unique. Art practice is a fundamentally inter-disciplinary, reflective, instinctive process that helps us to reconsider our own reality. I think the work towards this resulting publication may not be able to quite capture the poignancy and excitement of what happened on the day, but certainly could be part of a much bigger reflection.
Alice Fox is the Artistic Director of the Rocket Artists which consists of fourteen artists, some have learning disabilities and others are lecturers/artists in the Faculty of Art at the University of Brighton. Fox's collaborative arts-based research is used to challenge social inequalities and effect positive change.
The Rocket Artist Group was established in 2002 and is based at Phoenix Artists Studios in Brighton. Learning disabled artists from the Rocket Artist group make artwork alongside students from the University of Brighton.
