Welcome to this part of my website focussing on text and the written word which surrounds my performance practise. The joy of floating between academic writing, concise application text, marketing material/words which paint pictures, creative and reflective blogs and imaginative script, is explored below. Needless to say, then, all text and ideas are my own (with insight, guidance and grammar correction from amazing writers/thinkers… Nat Palin, Dr. Erin Walcon, Dr. Bob Whalley, Jennifer Noice, Steve Sowden, to name a few).
Writings and Citings
A collection of my own original texts and where my practise has been referenced by peers:
Still Suspended academic review in Cambridge Journal of Visual Culture – Sybilla Griffin critical analysis of this twisted and knotty narrative of a disabled artist trying to create work within the layers of real, multiple restrictions and constrictions. Features in issue 1 of CJVC Space. The article Still Suspended: A Roar Against the Anti-Rhythm includes an interview with me and delves into the main visual/aesthetics, the text/sub-text and social, technical and ideology codes of the work
You, Me & My Voice Evaluation Report - building upon the ACE required evaluation I researched, perfected and developed a comprehensive evaluation document - analysing and unpicking the successes and realities of independently diverse companies touring a live production in the South-West
You, Me & My Voice referenced by Kate Caryer of The Unspoken Project – in their presentation of AAC users, voice and theatre making. In her presentation: The Unspoken Project: The Making of THE VOICE MONOLOGUES (2018), Kate refers to my practise being one of a handful of contemporary (and historical) works celebrating speech impaired artists/AAC users, and therefore validating disability as a positive identity
Letters to Beyond the Grave – inspired by a dream like R&D which interrogates concepts of ‘The Market of Nostalgia’ around Paignton Pier, I began writing letters to Charlotte Bronte and Van Gogh who, in a surrealist connection helps to demystify the creative process
Ongoing creative blog – initially written for the wider artist community, this evolving blog is a space for personal reflection, unpicking creative practise and ways of working; taking readers on a journey through practise. The blog tries to offer an insight into the way I devise, start dialogue and undermine ableism and honour the voices who help me along the way
Escaping into worlds of wonder and myth – lightly playing with fictional creative writing, I critique the world around me by experimenting with fiction in a universe of magic and mayhem – bit like Terry Pratchett’s work but not as witty
Outlining the massive negative impact on me of cuts to my social care package, signed by legends – my identity as a disabled individual and artist was stretched to near breaking point when I was subjected to a 2-year assessment process which objectifies and sucks self-worth out of individuals. The support I received from friends, family and the creative community was a beacon of hope, catalysed by this letter signed by amazing people doing amazing things. My practise is informed and enhanced by lived experience, endeavouring to raise awareness and show solidarity to individuals forced through this process in order to get the support they deserve
Undergraduate Dissertation, Performance Research, Plymouth University – considering the scope of a level 6 piece of work, this dissertation offers somewhere between a scratching the surface overview and a deep dive into disability politics, disabled performance and disrupting hegemonic views of disability. Chapter 1 takes the reader through a contextualisation of disability – a summary of this can be read below, alongside a brief introduction to Climate Justice underpins my practise:
Disability Studies/Crip theory
Disability theory runs through my practise as a central pillar. Please allow me to introduce you to the underpinning discourses of disability in a rough, cursory, (hopefully relatively accessible and jargon explained) introduction.
Disability is a form of self-identity; a building block to understanding individuality; how each understands themselves and their relationship with society; part of the discourse of lived experience. Performance, dialogue and practise are tools to transform disability to being positive identity (Kuppers, 2001; Cummings, 2016). Finding allies within such political movements as Black Lives Matter and feminist protests, the Disability Movement gathered momentum in the 1970s. Fuelled by creative protest, the arts and community, the movement absolutely rejects the medical model of disability, destabilising the objectifying framework of ‘other’ or ‘pity’ by introducing a progressive lens in which to understand disability in the form of the Social Model.
Building on the momentum of shifting political and social landscapes, the Affirmation Model (John and French, 2000), begins to cement itself in agency, individuality and a understanding that a sense of ‘being’ is shared beyond the human experience (post-humanism - Centre for Culture and Disability Studies (2020). The disabled performer, whether live, virtual or a hybrid space in between, disrupts hegemonic narratives of disability, undermines gazes of ‘pity’ and establishes the notion of what is disabling about being disabled.
Glossary
Medical model – a by-product and pillar of institutionalised ableist structures in society, propped up by mass media. A way of subjecting the disabled body as an object that needs to be ‘fixed’. If this cure cannot be achieved, the medical model legitimises the ‘hiding away’ of disability – leading to denial of education, imprisonment in care-homes and to the extreme of state-sponsored ‘mercy’ killings.
Social Model – The belief that individuals have impairments, and it is societal structures and culture that makes individuals disabled. There is a demand on public spaces, businesses and governments to make the community accessible by removing: physical barriers, attitude as barrier and institutionalised discrimination as barrier. The Social Model is a useful tool when organisations/government structures are thinking about access and inclusion and it is founded in the belief disability is a positive identity and that only disabled individuals, their families and friends can decide what is ‘best’.
Affirmation Model – that an individual’s life is not absolutely defined by the identity of disability and each can choose to what degree they own their impairments. With a range of identities, disability intertwines with a person-based lived experience and, with all things considered, an individual would not choose to change their identity.
Disability – tricky one, but within this virtual experience disability will be described as a self-identity by no-one but the individual with the support of their family/peers – a person that experiences long term barriers, hindering full and effective participation in society on an equal basis.
Hegemony/Hegemonic narratives of disability – sustained largely by the medical model and the mass-media’s ‘tragedy’ depictions of disabled bodies, hegemonic narratives idolise the concept that bodies are meant to be ‘perfect’ and there’s nothing worse than being disabled. These ideals reflect the dominant views of the ruling class and will differ across societies.
Ally – friends who are from/self-identify as individuals from equally oppressed groups. Together we stand against hegemonic narratives and systemic inequality.
Climate Justice
“Someone once said that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism. We can now revise that and witness the attempt to imagine capitalism by way of imagining the end of the world.” ― Fredric Jameson
The injustise of the growing need for food banks in the UK (Full Facts, 2017) is a parallel narrative to glaciers melting and devastating floods throughout the global south.
The need for universally recognised and upheld human rights, and equality throughout society, is now recognised as a corner stone to combat the effects of Climate Change and mitigate Global Warming. ClimateJust (2014) describes that ‘climate justice is linked with an agenda for human rights and international development’. Ethnicity, sexuality, gender, class and ‘protective characteristics’, alongside disability are all powerful identities for individuals/communities, each having associated hegemonic views (Donaldson, 1993) – these identities are at the forefront of activism and the most undermined due to a global wide lack of action.
As global temperature rises the natural world and eco-systems which sustain human life are struggling. More frequent mass flooding, out of control forest fires, drought causing famine, increasing health risk and freak extreme weather events are just symptoms of a much greater threat to our planet that we, as humans, are causing – all putting life, lively hood and property at greater and greater risk (United Nations, 2022).
This issue is really the most urgent challenge – communities who produce the least emissions feel the biggest back lash from a global neglecting of the planet. It is clear that if we do not change our relationship with our environment and the natural world, how much we consume and the way we manufacture, more and more communities will encounter deeper health and social deprivations (United Nations, 2022).
Diversity, within our own community and across the world feels the full brunt of the main driving force of climate change which is also a central pillar of oppression. The oppression of/protest against unique identities demonstrates the detriment to our high dependence on the capitalist system. This same system which is whittling away the planet’s natural resources/Earth’s ability to feed/home us. Moreover, it is an inevitable outcome of the capitalist system to divide and disillusion diverse individuals and communities, opposite to the urgent aim to sustain the natural world and create a more equal society – a hand in hand outcome. Hegemonic narratives feed contempt and promote ‘othering’ by blaming those who have the least resistance. This in turn focuses criticism away from the institutions which are causing the climate to change. News article after news article distract the unwary reader to blame communities who do not prescribe to the hegemonic ideals – gender neutral toilets, disability rights and benefits, equality acts and refugee protection etc. (Novara Media, 2022). It doesn’t have to be this …!
As individuals, particularly those with historical/current wealth, we have immense power to change the direction of a dying natural world. Reducing our own carbon-footprint by rethinking how we travel, eat and reduce what we use, all help to spread a culture of putting the planet first. The biggest impact we can have is to put pressure on decision-makers who can act now (WWF, 2022). Yes, being aware of our own carbon footprint is empowering, but the destiny of how we mitigate global warming is in the hands of billionaire CEOs, fossil fuel companies… and the governments who subsidise them (Carrington and Taylor, 2022). Undermining and infiltrating the capitalist system is possible – some ways of doing this are: making and creating gifts, ‘selling’ stories/making theatre, sharing experiences and buying donations, or banking ethically by not saving with banks who pay their CEOs with profits of digging up oil, coal and propping up fossil-hungry corporations - make a pledge with Bank.Green.
Pronouns matter
If we apply the idea that climate change and social justice overlap and merge, every time we consciously include new identities, we are fighting systems that cause both oppression and global warming.
As Holmes (2007: 1) illustrates, ‘[w]e live in a world which is organized around the idea that women and men have different bodies, different capabilities, and different needs and desires’. This suggests political and social landscapes gear towards catering for either female or male identity… But this clearly does not work for everyone. Juhasz (2008: 54) states, ‘gender and sexuality [are] more like shifting sand than granite pillars’, in this seemingly fluid landscape, new identities are forefront of challenges to previous gender ‘normalities’. A widespread persistence on only recognising or using she/he terms ‘others’ non-binary people. The idea of not belonging in societal structures is raw and using non-binary language is a direct way we can support the fight against climate justice.
Every time we take a stand that pronouns matter, we release the power of empathy by legitimising people to be themselves instead of trying to ‘fit’ into systems which do not serve communities or the planet. Seventeen (2017) records an interview with Leah Juliett who states, “in using preferred pronouns we’re validating that, ‘yes, you are right in your identity and you are important and we’re respecting you’.”
Let’s directly reject systems and languages which ‘other’ and use more inclusive language - getting used to the idea that pronouns matter and allying with non-binary individuals is important.
STONEWALL have created a straightforward guide on how to ‘step up’ support for non-binary people.