a b s t r a c t
Over the past 40 years within the UK the concept of self-advocacy has gained momentum by enabling learning disabled people to speak out in order to affect change. In the same period, inclusive approaches have been taken up both in research and in the arts, reflecting a growing recognition of learning disabled people as researchers, artists, performers and communicators. Yet curation has rarely been used as an inclusive practice and then principally in museums dealing with history rather than in the context of art galleries.
Via a practice-led research approach, Art as Advocacy addressed this gap by exploring the potential for curatorial practice by learning disabled artists to act as a site for self-advocacy. It brought together members of self-advocacy group Halton Speak Out and members of Bluecoat's inclusive arts project Blue Room, to curate a visual arts exhibition titled Auto Agents. These curators developed an exhibition theme, collaborated with artists, commissioned new artwork and designed accessible interpretation for audiences.
Through curating Auto Agents, the purpose of this research has been to produce a rich account of the ways in which curatorial and self-advocacy practices intersect. This intersection, whereby tools found in self-advocacy were carried over into curatorship, provided new methodologies that enabled curating to become an inclusive practice. This attention to process results not only in curating becoming more usable by more people, but also more transparent and rigorous. By achieving this, this research delineates to understanding the processes and practices by which our cultural spaces can become democratised.
i n t r o d u c t i o n
“I went from an artist who makes things to an artist who makes things happen” (Deller, 2012).
I am an artist-facilitator who has been running participatory and inclusive arts projects since 2009. During this time, I have worked almost exclusively alongside learning disabled people to explore the intersections of art, disability and social change, often examining constructs of access, agency and inclusion. My work has primarily taken the form of art exhibitions and workshop programmes but I have also produced a number of collaborative book projects, films and zines. As this type of work typically involves vast networks of people, places, organisations and institutions, it has a myriad of possible labels. Whilst I choose to describe myself as an artist-facilitator, this practice is also akin to that of an inclusive artist, relational artist, community artist, collaborative artist, participatory artist and socially-engaged artist to name a few of the possible descriptors.
My label of choice ‘artist-facilitator’ is used to define an artist whose role requires them to enable others, often acting as a mediator, translator, catalyst and synergist. At the core of this practice artist-facilitators use their own “knowledge and skills to facilitate and enable other’s creativity” (Pringle, 2011, p. 37), often employing creative ways of looking at and engaging with art through a process that is active, experiential and one that has the capacity to scaffold learning. When effective, it is hoped that this learning is mutually beneficial and able to travel beyond ‘those in the room’ to stakeholders, and furthermore, out into the public realm.
For me, the journey to this PhD began staring into the window of a temp agency. I had moved to London in 2009 after undertaking a photography degree. To support the many unpaid internships at galleries and museums, I needed easy, flexible, paid work. Do you need flexible working hours? Can you support someone with everyday tasks? Can you offer flexible approaches to support? Apply Within. Not only was this my first job as a support worker, it was my first experience of learning disabled people all together. Needless to say the job wasn’t easy, but it was unique and challenged me creatively which spurred me to seek out more opportunities like it. A year or so later I began working for a self-advocacy organisation and was asked to run an art group, and so my two seemingly separate lives collided; art and advocacy.
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Eager to simultaneously consolidate and unravel this practice in aim to think more critically about my work, in 2011 I undertook an MA in Inclusive Arts Practice at the University of Brighton. During my MA, which focused on collaboration and studio practices in the context of learning disability arts, I discovered that there was little engagement with curatorial practices in inclusive arts contexts and specifically, how to involve learning disabled people into this process.
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This concept became my dissertation project for which I facilitated a group of learning disabled women from Barnet Mencap to curate an exhibition in East London's Hoxton Arches, titled You Are Artists, I am Curator (2013), laying the foundations for this PhD study. For my MA I focused on what practices were required to enable this group to curate. But it quickly became apparent that there was potential for this practice to speak to issues of self-advocacy and potentially contribute new approaches to curatorship.
After my MA I was keen to continue exploring this idea. After searching for funding models which were able to support collaborative research, I came across the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s Collaborative Doctoral Award (CDA) scheme which has been specifically designed to support collaborations between universities and non-academic organisations. I decided to instigate an application and began by contacting a self-advocacy group I had previously worked with called Halton Speak Out. As well as fulfilling many of the usual roles of a traditional self-advocacy group, Halton Speak Out also runs an established performing arts group called Ella Together. Ella Together has a clear agenda - via public performances - in using the arts to challenge perceptions of its largely disabled cohort. This resonated strongly with my research interests and the organisation remains keen to develop this strand of their practice.
However, as the focus of the project was curation, I was also keen to collaborate with a second organisation to draw in additional expertise in Inclusive Arts and curatorial practice, ensuring the broadest reach and impact for the exhibition and research. The second partner I approached was Bluecoat, an iconic arts space in Liverpool. Bluecoat was approached not just because of its well- regarded art gallery and engagement programme but primarily because of Blue Room, an award winning inclusive arts project for learning disabled people. Whilst the Blue Room members create a breadth of art work, they had yet to engage with curatorial practices which presented a key area for the groups development.
Helen Graham, Associate Professor in the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies at the University of Leeds took the lead in supervising along with Fine Art Lecturer Emma Rushton, and drawing upon these partners’ expertise resulted in a successful bid in March 2014.
After my MA I was keen to continue exploring this idea. After searching for funding models which were able to support collaborative research, I came across the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s Collaborative Doctoral Award (CDA) scheme which has been specifically designed to support collaborations between universities and non-academic organisations. I decided to instigate an application and began by contacting a self-advocacy group I had previously worked with called Halton Speak Out. As well as fulfilling many of the usual roles of a traditional self-advocacy group, Halton Speak Out also runs an established performing arts group called Ella Together. Ella Together has a clear agenda - via public performances - in using the arts to challenge perceptions of its largely disabled cohort. This resonated strongly with my research interests and the organisation remains keen to develop this strand of their practice.
However, as the focus of the project was curation, I was also keen to collaborate with a second organisation to draw in additional expertise in Inclusive Arts and curatorial practice, ensuring the broadest reach and impact for the exhibition and research. The second partner I approached was Bluecoat, an iconic arts space in Liverpool. Bluecoat was approached not just because of its well- regarded art gallery and engagement programme but primarily because of Blue Room, an award winning inclusive arts project for learning disabled people. Whilst the Blue Room members create a breadth of art work, they had yet to engage with curatorial practices which presented a key area for the groups development.
Helen Graham, Associate Professor in the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies at the University of Leeds took the lead in supervising along with Fine Art Lecturer Emma Rushton, and drawing upon these partners’ expertise resulted in a successful bid in March 2014.
summary
Over the past 40 years within the UK the concept of self-advocacy has gained momentum by enabling learning disabled people to speak out in order to affect change. In the same period, inclusive approaches have been taken up both in research (Walmsley and Johnson, 2003) and in the arts, reflecting a growing recognition of learning disabled people as researchers, artists, performers and communicators. Whilst this has resulted in a proliferation of work by learning disabled people in the performing and visual arts (Fox and Macpherson, 2015), curation has only rarely been explored and then principally in museums dealing with history (Open University, 2008; Museum of Liverpool, 2014; Access All Areas, 2017) rather than in the context of art galleries. This gap in the practice led me to develop this research; Art as Advocacy. Via a practice-led approach, this research explores the potential for curatorship by learning disabled artists to act as a site for self-advocacy, examining whether curating can be an effective way for this group to communicate collective political concerns out into the public realm.
Importantly, Art as Advocacy is underpinned by collaborating with two organisations: Halton Speak Out and Bluecoat. From these organisation’s memberships I recruited five learning disabled people who had all applied to take on the role of a curator; Hannah Bellass and Leah Jones from Halton Speak Out, and Tony Carroll, Diana Disley and Eddie Rauer from Bluecoat’s Blue Room. By strategically recruiting the curators from both of these organisations, I was able to bring together knowledge and skills in self-advocacy into dialogue with knowledge and skills in artistic expression. Once the research team was in place, myself plus two support workers met the curators weekly at Bluecoat over the course of a year in order to curate an exhibition.
The result was Auto Agents, a visual arts exhibition which opened at Bluecoat on 26th November 2016 to 15th January 2017, and then went on to be displayed at The Brindley in Halton between 4th March and 15th April 2017. Significantly, both the participatory process of curating and the exhibition theme itself came together to address an issue that is at the heart of advancing the rights of learning disabled people; autonomy. Autonomy, or in the words of the curators “what it means to be independent by making your own decisions”, is a central concern for self-advocates and emerged from the curator’s personal experiences gained through research around the continued lack of autonomy faced by many learning disabled people. With the support of an Arts Council England grant, Auto Agents featured two new commissions by local artists James Harper and Mark Simmonds made in close collaboration with the curators. In addition to these commissioned pieces, work by London-based artist Alaena Turner was also included. As well as developing an exhibition theme and commissioning and selecting the artwork, the curators planned the install and designed accessible interpretation for audiences.
Curating Auto Agents presented an opportunity to bring the two seemingly disparate fields of self- advocacy and curatorship into dialogue, investigating if there were practices and discourses which could cross over and move in between. Through the research, we experienced how ideas of autonomy and authorship are complex and contested for both self-advocates and curators, and throughout this thesis I draw out how this became lived and visible during Auto Agents. By devising accessible and inclusive approaches to curating during this project, this research demonstrates that curatorship can be broken down to include a wider demographic of people. It is this process, developed using approaches and tools found in self-advocacy, that not only makes curating usable by more people but also more transparent and rigorous. I hope to demonstrate that there are ways to critically engage a wide demographic of people with what is often considered an exclusive job for the privileged few. By achieving this, it is hoped the research has contributed to understanding the process and practices by which our cultural spaces can become democratised.
Importantly, Art as Advocacy is underpinned by collaborating with two organisations: Halton Speak Out and Bluecoat. From these organisation’s memberships I recruited five learning disabled people who had all applied to take on the role of a curator; Hannah Bellass and Leah Jones from Halton Speak Out, and Tony Carroll, Diana Disley and Eddie Rauer from Bluecoat’s Blue Room. By strategically recruiting the curators from both of these organisations, I was able to bring together knowledge and skills in self-advocacy into dialogue with knowledge and skills in artistic expression. Once the research team was in place, myself plus two support workers met the curators weekly at Bluecoat over the course of a year in order to curate an exhibition.
The result was Auto Agents, a visual arts exhibition which opened at Bluecoat on 26th November 2016 to 15th January 2017, and then went on to be displayed at The Brindley in Halton between 4th March and 15th April 2017. Significantly, both the participatory process of curating and the exhibition theme itself came together to address an issue that is at the heart of advancing the rights of learning disabled people; autonomy. Autonomy, or in the words of the curators “what it means to be independent by making your own decisions”, is a central concern for self-advocates and emerged from the curator’s personal experiences gained through research around the continued lack of autonomy faced by many learning disabled people. With the support of an Arts Council England grant, Auto Agents featured two new commissions by local artists James Harper and Mark Simmonds made in close collaboration with the curators. In addition to these commissioned pieces, work by London-based artist Alaena Turner was also included. As well as developing an exhibition theme and commissioning and selecting the artwork, the curators planned the install and designed accessible interpretation for audiences.
Curating Auto Agents presented an opportunity to bring the two seemingly disparate fields of self- advocacy and curatorship into dialogue, investigating if there were practices and discourses which could cross over and move in between. Through the research, we experienced how ideas of autonomy and authorship are complex and contested for both self-advocates and curators, and throughout this thesis I draw out how this became lived and visible during Auto Agents. By devising accessible and inclusive approaches to curating during this project, this research demonstrates that curatorship can be broken down to include a wider demographic of people. It is this process, developed using approaches and tools found in self-advocacy, that not only makes curating usable by more people but also more transparent and rigorous. I hope to demonstrate that there are ways to critically engage a wide demographic of people with what is often considered an exclusive job for the privileged few. By achieving this, it is hoped the research has contributed to understanding the process and practices by which our cultural spaces can become democratised.
thesis structure
It was important to me to write the thesis in a way that best reflects the practice. As I often use storytelling and narrative as a facilitation tool in my work, I wanted to draw upon these approaches in the written work. The structure of my thesis is premised on a play, utilising the structure of Freytag’s Pyramid (2012). Gustav Freytag was a 19th Century German novelist who saw common patterns in the plots of stories, plays and novels and developed a theory to analyse them. Freytag’s Pyramid identifies five key moments or ‘acts’ to a story which I have used to underpin the five key chapters in this thesis. Aside from the use of storytelling and narrative in my own work, there are other benefits to using this approach. This attention to narrative approaches is part of a growing trend in which narratives are regarded as an important means of access to knowledge in human and cultural sciences (Polkinghorne, 1988). More specifically, by presenting this research in a predominantly narrative form I intend to offer a rich descriptive account showing the ways in which the practice was filtered through my own perspective, and how I elicited meaning from particular interactions. Like other scholars in disability studies, the integration of the artists and curator’s literal voices and actions via the scenes is a method by which to capture a more robust picture of people's lives and crucially, to explore and illuminate relational dynamics (Roets, Goodley and Van Hove, 2007; Roets and Van Hove, 2003). Additionally, story approaches - namely life story, have been a key method in including learning disabled people into research (Hewitt, 2003), and furthermore, are often used in self-advocacy contexts as a way to engage learning disabled people in social and political work (Open StoryTellers, 2017). By employing a story-telling approach in my thesis, it is also hoped that it will enable this research to be reconfigured more easily into useable inclusive formats.
However, before the ‘play’ begins we must first introduce the Cast. This section of thesis outlines the network of participants involved in this study which includes two organisations, five learning disabled curators, two support staff and the three artists whom exhibited in the exhibition.
Act 1: The Prologue acts as a review of the literature. Traditionally prologues are the opening to a play or story that establishes context and gives the audience a sense of history and background in order to contextualise the main events of the drama. For this thesis, The Prologue begins by Setting the Scene. Here I have identified Inclusive Arts as the ‘backdrop’ or landscape in which this research took place. The Prologue then introduces the critical ‘characters’ of the play, The Self-Advocate and The Curator, and examines them in relation to autonomy and authorship; identified as the ‘golden threads’ running between the two sites of self-advocacy and curatorship. The following three acts then set out and reflect upon the methodology.
Act 2: So, What Is a Curator Anyway? explores the first phase in the field work in which I worked with the group to think about what a curator does through visiting art galleries across Liverpool. Here we encountered different approaches to curatorship across different types of institutions and through collaging and zining practices, identified a collective theme which was taken forward as the starting point for their exhibition.
Act 3: The Commissioners and The Commissioned details how we networked with, interviewed, selected and collaborated with artists to produce commissions. Many collaborations take place in this phase of the research and questions of interdependency, authorship and agency emerge as key themes of this project. In Freytag’s Pyramid, the third act is described as the climax; the moment of greatest tension, realisation or conflict where there is a critical turning point.
Act 4: Auto Agents explores the development of the exhibition’s interpretation which took the form of a collaborative film rather than traditional textual interpretation. This act also describes and explores the completed artworks in the exhibition, as well as the groups reflections on the final show. It also explores the exhibitions move from Bluecoat to The Brindley and several of the engagement events organised as part of the exhibition.
The final act, Act 5: Epilogue, is the conclusion and lessons learnt or an attempt “to tie the many dramatic, political and didactic threads together” (Ping, 2006, p. 177). This presents the means by which autonomy and authorship have been explored in Auto Agents and wider project research, as well as drawing attention to the value of risk taking.
However, before the ‘play’ begins we must first introduce the Cast. This section of thesis outlines the network of participants involved in this study which includes two organisations, five learning disabled curators, two support staff and the three artists whom exhibited in the exhibition.
Act 1: The Prologue acts as a review of the literature. Traditionally prologues are the opening to a play or story that establishes context and gives the audience a sense of history and background in order to contextualise the main events of the drama. For this thesis, The Prologue begins by Setting the Scene. Here I have identified Inclusive Arts as the ‘backdrop’ or landscape in which this research took place. The Prologue then introduces the critical ‘characters’ of the play, The Self-Advocate and The Curator, and examines them in relation to autonomy and authorship; identified as the ‘golden threads’ running between the two sites of self-advocacy and curatorship. The following three acts then set out and reflect upon the methodology.
Act 2: So, What Is a Curator Anyway? explores the first phase in the field work in which I worked with the group to think about what a curator does through visiting art galleries across Liverpool. Here we encountered different approaches to curatorship across different types of institutions and through collaging and zining practices, identified a collective theme which was taken forward as the starting point for their exhibition.
Act 3: The Commissioners and The Commissioned details how we networked with, interviewed, selected and collaborated with artists to produce commissions. Many collaborations take place in this phase of the research and questions of interdependency, authorship and agency emerge as key themes of this project. In Freytag’s Pyramid, the third act is described as the climax; the moment of greatest tension, realisation or conflict where there is a critical turning point.
Act 4: Auto Agents explores the development of the exhibition’s interpretation which took the form of a collaborative film rather than traditional textual interpretation. This act also describes and explores the completed artworks in the exhibition, as well as the groups reflections on the final show. It also explores the exhibitions move from Bluecoat to The Brindley and several of the engagement events organised as part of the exhibition.
The final act, Act 5: Epilogue, is the conclusion and lessons learnt or an attempt “to tie the many dramatic, political and didactic threads together” (Ping, 2006, p. 177). This presents the means by which autonomy and authorship have been explored in Auto Agents and wider project research, as well as drawing attention to the value of risk taking.
data collection
Included within all five acts are scenes. These scenes are real moments taken from the practice which aim to act as vignettes; windows into the process, giving the reader a sense of what took place ‘in the room’. This data was collected during workshops via recorded interviews or group conversations and then later transcribed. In addition to these transcribed interviews and conversations, data was also collected via the artworks generated in the workshops, my own observations recorded in writing after every workshop, as well as zines created by the group.
ethical approval and informed consent
This study gained ethical approval from the University of Leeds ensuring informed consent was gained from all those whom participated in this research. Many aspects of participating in research such as interviews, copyright forms and photography waivers, relies on the idea that individuals are able to give consent and that consent is informed. Informed consent means understanding what is being asked, understanding the consequences of involvement, freely giving agreement and documenting this agreement. While traditionally this was seen as a simple form signing exercise, increasingly informed consent is understood as something built over time and, therefore, as a process (Graham, Nayling and Mason, 2011, p. 7).
With this in mind, the curators on this project were recruited over several months. The recruitment process was important with regards to building informed consent and was undertaken in stages to firstly build up knowledge, and secondly to provide potential participants with time to think about what is being asked of them. Firstly, I spent three months at both Halton Speak Out and Bluecoat’s Blue Room getting to know the staff and members. During this time, I developed accessible information sheets about the project and with the support of staff, circulated them to the members and invited them to apply. All those who applied to take part in this study (nine in total), were invited to attend a ‘taster’ workshop. This was a day-long participatory workshop hosted at Bluecoat that gave those who had applied tangible experiences of what the project would be like. Staff from both organisations also attended. The potential curators had the opportunity to meet the team, to visit the research location, to hear more about the study, to meet others who may be taking part, and to try out some of the activities they would be expected to do during the research. This taster workshop was important as it provided people with real experiences to base their decisions on as opposed to imagining what research might be like. After the taster workshop two people withdrew their application, leaving seven candidates remaining. With the support of staff from both organisations, five people were selected as curators for this research. The selected participants were then given an accessible information sheet containing all research information such as timetables, how to withdraw, my supervisory arrangements, contact details and how the research will be stored. This sheet was given to the curators and their support in person before the study began in order to give them opportunity to ask any questions and have it explained to them face to face.
Throughout this research informed consent was viewed as an ongoing process, whereby 'checking back' with participants was vital to ensure that they were still informed and willing to take part, understanding that consent may vary activity to activity. Crucially, the curators were only able to withdraw their data up to exhibition phase of the project and therefore much work was undertaken to explain during recruitment process and throughout that once the exhibition has taken place, it would not be possible to withdraw their data as their input would be part a public exhibition.
With this in mind, the curators on this project were recruited over several months. The recruitment process was important with regards to building informed consent and was undertaken in stages to firstly build up knowledge, and secondly to provide potential participants with time to think about what is being asked of them. Firstly, I spent three months at both Halton Speak Out and Bluecoat’s Blue Room getting to know the staff and members. During this time, I developed accessible information sheets about the project and with the support of staff, circulated them to the members and invited them to apply. All those who applied to take part in this study (nine in total), were invited to attend a ‘taster’ workshop. This was a day-long participatory workshop hosted at Bluecoat that gave those who had applied tangible experiences of what the project would be like. Staff from both organisations also attended. The potential curators had the opportunity to meet the team, to visit the research location, to hear more about the study, to meet others who may be taking part, and to try out some of the activities they would be expected to do during the research. This taster workshop was important as it provided people with real experiences to base their decisions on as opposed to imagining what research might be like. After the taster workshop two people withdrew their application, leaving seven candidates remaining. With the support of staff from both organisations, five people were selected as curators for this research. The selected participants were then given an accessible information sheet containing all research information such as timetables, how to withdraw, my supervisory arrangements, contact details and how the research will be stored. This sheet was given to the curators and their support in person before the study began in order to give them opportunity to ask any questions and have it explained to them face to face.
Throughout this research informed consent was viewed as an ongoing process, whereby 'checking back' with participants was vital to ensure that they were still informed and willing to take part, understanding that consent may vary activity to activity. Crucially, the curators were only able to withdraw their data up to exhibition phase of the project and therefore much work was undertaken to explain during recruitment process and throughout that once the exhibition has taken place, it would not be possible to withdraw their data as their input would be part a public exhibition.
project website
I have created this website as a portfolio evidencing the practical work of this practice-led research. The website features this written thesis alongside an archive of project material organised via the thesis chapters. Together with the text, each chapter on the website contains images, videos, transcripts, workshop plans, zines and hyperlinks illuminating the projects networks, as well as the inclusive and participatory approaches underpinning the research. Post-submission of this thesis, the website will be further developed through the addition of a summary film created by the curators and artists. This video will aim to summarise the completed study in an inclusive and accessible way.
