Researching Relevance - Disability’s movement to mainstream

Disability In British Art (DIBA) was set up in 2022 to become a nexus for disability-focused arts research. A theme that kept recurring was the Disability Arts Movement (DAM) – a much misunderstood though highly influential and inspirational DIY movement within arts-focused disabled communities. This paper attempts to uncover DAM’s legacy, its definition of “Disability Art” and its influences on how the art of disabled artists is understood. A core question is posed regarding the treatment of disabled people during the Covid-19 Pandemic and how that would have been different had DAM not happened.

Focusing on disability as a much ignored aspect of the human condition, the paper discusses activism, art and the bloody mindedness that goes with changemaking and which influenced attitudes towards disabled artists during the Covid-19 pandemic. This is an important point of inquiry in our current era as it shows the gaps in our understanding of the value of human creativity beyond the needs of the gallery.

The contributions of the many academics and artists to DIBA will be considered, and how artists are redefining the concept of “disability art” will be discussed. This attitudinal shift is observed through the experiences of younger disabled artists as they push the envelope of disability art. The paper concludes with the intersectional gaps in knowledge yet to be addressed and the lack of presence of disabled artists from minority backgrounds.

Image caption: Ian Stanton performing next to the Piss on Pity sign hung from the neck of "Chip the Crip," an old-style Spastics Society collecting box, 1990s. Image courtesy of the estate of Ian Stanton / National Disability Arts Collection and Archive (NDACA)

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