Disrupt Disability Arts Festival Presents
✨ Join us for our Festival Opening Party to launch Distinct on Thursday 7th March, 6 – 8pm! Kindly supported by Febvre Wines ✨
Cecilia Bullo, Yvonne Condon, Richard Forrest, Michelle Hall, Vera Klute, Ruth Le Gear, Jane McCormick, David Parnell, Aisling Reina, Katherine Sankey and Suzanne Walsh
Project Arts Centre is thrilled to present Distinct, an exhibition curated by AlanJames Burns which explores the climate crisis through the perspective of disability. Platforming eleven artists whose practices represent the diverse, intersectional voices of the disability arts community, the exhibition navigates how lived experiences of disability can help inform more sustainable ways of living.
Showing new and reformulated works by Cecilia Bullo, Yvonne Condon, Richard Forrest, Michelle Hall, Vera Klute, Ruth Le Gear, Jane McCormack, David Parnell, Aisling Reina, Katherine Sankey and Suzanne Walsh, Distinct coincides with the launch of Disrupt Disability Arts Festival, Ireland’s new annual disability-led and disability-focused arts festival.
Curated with accessibility in mind, this exhibition represents extensive research into the intersections of climate change, disability, and art. The climate emergency disproportionately affects people with lived experience of disability in various ways, including from lack of accessible climate policy information, vulnerabilities in extreme weather events, and the creation of ‘sustainable’ ways of living that don’t consider the disability experience – known as eco-ableism.
“People with lived experience of disability are routinely and systematically not considered in climate action projects, policies, and discussions,” says curator and Disrupt Disability Arts Festival Co-Director AlanJames Burns, “yet people with lived experience of disability have expert skill sets which can be harnessed as catalysts for inclusive climate action including resilience, resourcefulness, community care and the ability to navigate barriers and obstacles. This knowledge can be used to collectively address the precarious environmental position we all find ourselves in.”
Distinct coincides with the launch of Disrupt Disability Arts Festival, Ireland’s new annual disability-led and disability-focused arts festival.
Informed by universal design principles, the exhibition’s design, lighting, video and audio elements create a balanced ‘ecosystem’ where works turn on and off in sequence, giving each piece its own space, time and voice. This idea of the ecosystem informs a reflection on the challenges and difficulties of both disability and the climate emergency posing questions around interdependence, unity vs. individuality, and the relationship between time and the body. Visitors will experience the exhibition in its entirety over approximately 25 minutes, with sitting and resting points provided.
The exhibition is accompanied by a hybrid program of talks, performances and workshops.
Supported by The Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon, Visual Art Project Award, Dublin City Council, Project Arts Centre and RTÉ Supporting the Arts.
Exhibition launch and performance of Lazarus Lingua by Suzanne Walsh: 7 March, 2024, 6.00pm – 8.00pm.
The exhibition runs from 8 March – 20 April 2024 at Project Arts Centre.
Accessibility
Disrupt Disability Festival is programmed with accessibility in mind. A full list of the accessibility measures for each performance is available on the festival website.
If you have any questions related to accessibility, please do not hesitate to contact us at access@projectartscentre.ie or call 01 8819 613 . You can find the latest information about Project’s accessibility here.
Credits
Curator: AlanJames Burns
Creative Producer: Marie Farrington
Biographies
Cecilia Bullo presents a large-scale photographic work that reformulates cast sculptures of toads as a wearable assemblage on her body, exploring material cultures relating to rituals of healing and transformation through mythological, archaeological, feminist and ecological lenses.
Yvonne Condon presents a large-scale painting of a reclining figure in the landscape which will be displayed on the billboard of Project Arts Centre’s exterior.
Richard Forrest presents Transmorph, a piece of living, social sculpture in which Forrest explores growth, boundaries and material interaction. This piece will function as accessible seating within the exhibition space, inviting use and interaction from audiences throughout the duration of the show.
Michelle Hall presents a talk exploring her use of natural materials in performances, followed by a participatory workshop.
Vera Klute presents a large-scale painting exploring neurodiversity as a mode of experiencing the full sensory scope of the natural world.
Ruth Le Gear presents a projected water essence orb, developed from an iceberg in the Magdalena fjord, Svalbard, accompanied by a spray bottle of water essence. Ruth will also offer Distance Healing Sessions with Water Essences virtually, in which she works one-to-one to discern a personalised water essence to support a person’s wellbeing.
Jane McCormick presents The Museum of Broken Things, a selection from her lifelong collection of objects that have been discarded and left to accumulate in the world, lending a subversive reverence to what is often overlooked and undervalued.
David Parnell presents digital poetry assemblages exploring ideas of access through the natural environment. David’s writing utilizes the premade sentences within his eye gaze technology to craft new iterations and arrangements. His texts navigate agency and power within an ableist paradigm.
Aisling Reina presents a zine-making workshop exploring parallels between trans experience, climate change and community organisation.
Katherine Sankey’s reformulated installation Coral-ations uses coral architectural form in a cybernetic, skeletal and urban design fusing. These works reflect the artist’s disquiet about domestication, environmental construction and the great over-reach of humanity.
Suzanne Walsh presents an adapted performance of their work Lazarus Lingua on the opening night. The performance incorporates a recitation of the Latin names of extinct animals from 4000 BC to present day, using some changes in pronunciation from when Latin was a living language.
Press
‘From the disability community, we can learn skill sets of resilience, resourcefulness, community care and the ability to navigate barriers and obstacles.’ Curator AlanJames Burns ‘Platforming 10 artists whose practices represent the diverse, intersectional voices of the disability arts community, the exhibition navigates how lived experiences of disability can help inform more sustainable ways of organising society.’
Curator AlanJames Burns
Funding
‘Distinct’ is supported by The Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon Visual Art Project Award, Dublin City Council, Project Arts Centre and RTÉ Supporting the Arts.
Disclaimer
COVID-19 Safety Policy:
Disrupt Disability Arts Festival is an organisation dedicated to creating safe spaces and open access to the arts in Ireland for the disability community. We want to ensure we are a safe space for high-risk artists and audience members who want to attend our festival.
With this in mind, our events are mask-required with some exceptions. Disrupt Disability Arts Festival will provide a selection of high-quality masks at the festival free of charge. We would recommend a ffp2, ffp3, or kn95 mask.
We understand that some people cannot wear masks for a variety of reasons, and we want to assure audiences that you are still very welcome to our events. This will not affect your ability to attend any of our programme.
We will have HEPA air filtering at events and we will provide hand sanitiser free of charge.
We also encourage participants to take a covid antigen test before attending Disrupt if possible, we will have a small number of these available on request. And if you are experiencing flu or COVID-19 symptoms, we would ask you not to attend the festival.