James has shared a few words about the project- and the links to the films. They are definitely worth a watch (and are subtitled).

"Filming for the Realise! project has been so much fun! I’ve met soo many inspiring and creative peeps who are following their dreams to the letter! It has been amazing experience filming these journeys of self-discovery and creativity; witnessing the progression within the Realisees!

I am delighted to deliver my project report in the form of two short films – one following a project helping youngsters to think about their futures and careers!"

You can watch the Manor Green School film here: http://youtu.be/Vac_7Baf29I

And you can watch the Readipop film here: http://youtu.be/OIQFWTOW5z0

Liz Porter worked on Creative Landscapes as the project’s Disability Advisor for three years. She was also the Our View Project Person for this Accentuate project and had the most developed and longstanding Project Person role.

In her role, Liz guided and supported the Heritage Open Days (HODs) groups in Hastings and Gosport to make a real and practical commitment to improving access at HODs events. The emphasis was on exploring low cost solutions for access for everyone, whilst primarily considering the varying requirements of disabled people. New audiences were targeted through outreach visits and initiatives such as BSL (British Sign Language) interpreted events.

Liz was also actively involved in managing the Creative Landscapes artist commissions, undertaken in 2010 by Sally Booth, Mandie Saw and Lynn Weddle, giving three disabled artists an opportunity to create work in response to a historic location, lead participatory workshops to engage disabled people in HODs and support event organisers to consider creative interpretation. She worked closely with many dedicated volunteers and local disabled people in both locations and Creative Landscapes would not have been the success it has been without their input. Liz would particularly like to thank people such as Terry Rhodes in Gosport and Theresa Hodge in Hastings!

Liz enjoyed her role enormously:

“Creative Landscapes has been a fantastic project to work on with some huge achievements and a great team of people to work with. I have found it to be a big learning curve professionally, and the way in which I talk to museums about access has definitely changed.

The work I have done for Creative Landscapes and Heritage Open Days has led to other opportunities and recognition of my expertise within the heritage and museum sector. The knowledge and experience gained has directly fed into other projects that I’ve worked in. I spoke at the V&A In touch with Art Conference provoking the museum and gallery sector to consider the needs of disabled parents as well as children. With Shelley Boden, I jointly conducted a Feasibility study for RNIB’s Culture Link SE project - which enabled a Hastings Venue to receive training on access for visually impaired people. I am currently working with V&A Museum of Childhood helping to develop VI accessibly friendly family activity packs and I am also a member of the Brighton & Hove Museum’s Access Advisory Group which launched a new, fully accessible ‘World Stories’ gallery in June 2012.

The project has opened new ways of thinking and our Accentuate Heritage resources www.accentate-se.org/accentate-heritage offers case studies, guidance notes and tips on several low cost solutions to access and inclusion for events. The learning journey will continue.

The new Legacy Trust funding for Accentuate Heritage is also an opportunity I’m excited to be involved in as it will enable us to explore the heritage of disability in more detail and hope to generate disability heritage projects.”

Liz Porter, Disability Advisor, Creative Landscapes

I spoke to Rachel Gadsden who has been commissioned as an artist in several Accentuate projects over the last few years, asking her about how the commission for Starting Line came together.

“Starting Line was an incredibly ambitious project. Having the capacity to take on board the commission and for it to have all the layers we wanted came about due to a remarkable level of support from Accentuate. They helped us see our way through the production process and gave us mentoring to talk through how to make things work. My ability to make it happen was never questioned. They always believed in what we were trying to do.

Early on we began working with Creative Junction. They deliver massively creative projects in terms of outreach but the demand for Starting Line was to come up with a polished professional product. The two agendas, balancing community work alongside producing a major piece of work for a non-disabled audience, don't necessarily sit side by side. So immediately we had a challenge. Our remit was to work with young people inspiring a future generation to make a cultural shift. Initially we worked with young people with severe learning difficulties from Stocklake Park School as well as Shed at the Park and the Spinal Injuries Unit. There were logistical problems in terms of accommodating all of the students full-time carers, so they could be in the final performance. It was a blessing finally to work with Candoco2’s young dancers with the support of Luke Pell.

After Ryan Laight came on board as Artistic Director we began working on the narrative together. Early on we decided Starting Line had to have a historical perspective. I knew a lot of the history of Stoke Mandeville having done a few workshops at the hospital with people with spinal injuries. We looked through some key images from Stoke Mandeville’s history and looked at early day footage. During this research period a woman came forward with film of the first helicopter to bring soldiers to the facility. I had a drawing of a figure shooting out, conveying the idea of freedom. In putting the story together we created a structure around the idea of impairment not stopping you from achieving what you want to achieve.

When Abby Norris and I set about doing the animation work for Starting Line we thought about using the structure of the hospital and archival material as the basis for the film. Then Abby filmed several of the young people at workshops. She slowed down footage of their movements and we drew on tracing paper using the shapes as a backing. In all we did about 300 drawings. Each 8 seconds of footage amounted to about 80 drawings. We then set about incorporating other elements: swimming and the freedom of swimming, and Paralympian John Harris coming out of the blocks in his wheelchair. We were responding to the film and the film responded to other aspects of what we were doing.

Through the performance elements of Starting Line we were looking to create an evocative, moody piece about being restrained, contained and then let free. We thought of the live canvasses we were working on as people, as beautiful objects that had to be treated with grace. The dance and live art-making were integrated. I wasn't there creating dance movements as the dancers weren't there to create marks. But each movement and each mark became an echo of each other. In my role I became Guttman wearing a fencing costume and fencing in turn became a metaphor for being prone to medical intervention.

Freddie Opoku-Addaie choreographed the torch piece. He is a very physical performer, which was what we needed to convey sport as dance movement. We spent a lot of time working with him at every rehearsal to bring the project to realization.

It was very important to me that we make Starting Line as accessible as possible. So we created a part for Ben Owen Jones as a 1940s commentator to audio-describe the performance and commissioned Caro Parker to create a BSL interpretation.

Key to the way the piece came together was the way in which everybody supported everybody else. It shone through the project as a whole. If possible we’d like to find more opportunities to show Starting Line further. It should have some longevity to it because it tells the story of Stoke Mandeville – rather than simply of the Paralympics.

As a mark of how successful the production of Starting Line has been Artistic Director Ryan Laight have been inspired to think about the possibility of setting up a company. We’ve been thinking about producing a model, which draws on the nature of young disabled people’s impairment and physicality to produce work that plays to the individuals’ strengths.”

To find out more about Rachel Gadsden's work go to http://www.rachelgadsden.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Starting_Line.htm

As well as welcoming more than 4000 athletes to London, the Paralympic Opening Ceremony told the story of a character called Miranda. We followed her on a journey of discovery encompassing deep questions about our perception of our place in the universe posed by Stephen Hawkings, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Newton’s discovery of gravity (and a whole load of apples), a wide range of beautiful aerial stunts by 42 disabled performers and a celebration of the Disability Arts and political movement with a performance of Ian Dury’s ‘Spasticus Artisticus’ accompanied by performers (including Sir Ian McKellen and Miranda) waving placards demanding ‘rights’ in front of an oversized inflatable version of Marc Quinns’ sculpture ‘Alison Lapper Pregnant’ in the centre of the stadium.

Whilst taking part in the dress rehearsal of the ceremony last weekend when the section with “Spasticus Autisticus’ began, I began to feel excited. I had expected the important story of Sir Ludwig Guttman, Stoke Mandiville and the history of the Paralympic movement to be featured, but this ceremony was now seizing the opportunity to bring disability arts and sports together on a world stage, to speak to a UK audience about the history of the disability movement in this country and to promote disability culture which the mainstream is so often unaware of.

As discussed on this blog previously, sport and art are not always easy bedfellows. The Paralympics and Olympics both come with a range of controversial sponsors, yet again the creative, cultural space of the opening ceremony has been used as a tool for making a profound, but slightly alternative statement about life in Britain- and sharing our histories, achievements and values.

The two different Opening Ceremonies have also opened up questions about mainstreaming - if the Paralympics and Olympics become totally integrated, so Paralympic and Olympic events appear as an integrated schedule, would the identity of the Paralympics and the celebration of disabled culture we saw last night be subsumed by the whole?

So what did I do last night? I’m not a dancer, nor an actor… Through an open audition process for the Ceremonies cast for London 2012 I became earmarked for a role which largely seemed to revolve around my ability to look like I’m having a good time, that I smile a lot, am generally quite friendly and can dance (well – dance like you would on a night out, not like a dancer…). Welcome to the world of the ‘Audience Leader’. We’re there to try and get everyone involved in the party and to manage any stunts involving the audience. A bonus of our role is that we get to see the show too. Last night the crowd were great- really friendly, really enthusiastic and really excited to be there. The amount of people who thanked me on their way out for dancing inanely for hours was really generous and totally unexpected.

Being a member of the volunteer cast for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies at Olympics and the Opening Ceremony for the Paralympics has been an amazing experience and an insight into what seems to be a global bandwagon of mass movement and production.

It has also been a privilege to be part of what I hope are performances that will live on in the nation’s psyche for sometime to come.

As the Look About leaflet says: you make two vertical lines to record your impression of the moment. You state the time on the left; write down what is happening in that moment and use the space between the lines to record how you feel about it. In the examples there are scribbles; wavy or straight lines; or small circles - that all give an emotive impression.

I love the fact that Look About is as much about encouraging participation in the project as it is about the artist creating artwork himself. As a process for making artwork it is presented as a straightforward mapping process. Like all simple ideas, it has layers of complexity that necessitate a much greater deal of thought than you might imagine on first inspection.

However, I remember a brilliant response from a lad from Bittern Park school who took part in of one of Jon Adams’ Driving Inspiration workshops. The result was a four foot high piece of artwork detailing a day in the life of the school, which was shown at Mandeville School in July last year, as part of the Driving Inspiration celebration day.

There is something ingenious about using a geological metaphor as an example to show how a set of tools for understanding one field can be exploited to create what is in effect a type of diary method for recording visually how you’ve spent your day.

Showing in the library in the Discovery Museum is a selection of 12 digital prints and a display cabinet of found objects, posters and postcards. These ‘fossils’ include a variety of art flyers, geological postcards and a selection of found objects; all labeled like museum artefacts. There is a battery, a small piece of rope, a metal nob amongst other items all labeled and categorized, telling a story about a specific moment.

The most intriguing of these is a broken plastic, analogue clock with letters instead of numbers, spelling out the word ‘stratigraphy’. I had to look this up, to discover it is the name of ‘the branch of geology concerned with the order and relative position of strata and their relationship to the geological time scale’. So does this represent something about how the scientific method has been broken apart to create a new way of working; mirroring how fault lines break down what is known, or recognized, in the process of decay and renewal?

As with much of Adams artwork the audience is given clues about what you are seeing and configuring meaning from those clues is a journey in itself. For example the 12 digital prints on show are like aerial views taken from an aeroplane; looking down through the clouds to see aspects of industrial, urban and country landscape. But equally, with their vivid colours and poetic, abstract quality they detail something about a state of mind. There are spotlights and highlights of colour that could convey an idea or a moment of clarity.

I couldn’t work out the relationship between the geological diagrams in the display cabinet and the resulting digital images. On asking Jon Adams about the connection between the two he said that: “The digital images are representative of details of the rocks in the layer diagrams. So as well as measuring time and collecting ‘fossils’ I look at structures; just as you would take a rock and cut it to see the structure inside with a microscope.”

So the artworks either represent or are derived from patterns in the detail from the diagrams. The images are then scanned and manipulated on the computer. Some end up as sections; some as elements of the final map. And Jon says “some that look very map-like are, in fact, very small stains.”

I look forward to seeing this multi-layered project presented as a whole. I find myself wanting to piece it all together and find the narratives the images are telling. There is an exceptional determination inherent in the work, but finding out what it means is another story.

As part of the showing of the work I’d love to hear Jon Adams on audio giving his audience a coherent response to the making of the work and how it fits as a response to Accentuate.

Ultimately there will be four distinct aspects to the project unfolding as film, animation and sound works as well as the other elements. I look forward to seeing how the project progresses.

My passion and commitment has always been in removing barriers to access for all to all that society has to offer, whether it is employment, leisure, events, performances or exhibitions. I have been fortunate in having had many opportunities to demonstrate that commitment in my work and one of those opportunities was to be invited on to the Access Advisory Group for Brighton & Hove Museums. This is a group of disabled people and people who work with disabled people who have a range of conditions and many relevant professional skills. Its purpose and function is: • To make sure that Brighton & Hove Museums are accessible to all • To share personal and professional experiences of disability and of barriers faced • To have input into the exhibitions so that everyone can have access to them

The group has been in existence for almost two years and the World Stories Gallery is the first project for the group, with more planned. This gallery, opened to the public June 23rd 2012 to mark the 2012 Olympic Games, displays Brighton Museum’s collections from Africa, Asia, the Americas and the Pacific alongside contemporary art. The gallery is primarily aimed at young people but is of interest to all museum developed in partnership with young people from Brighton & Hove, together with active involvement from communities around the world. The main aim of the gallery is to increase understanding of different cultures and explore ways in which we are similar and ways in which we are different.

World Stories has an amazing array of technical support to meet the exacting standards of the Access Advisory Group and offers an exciting and interactive gallery experience.

With another group member, I also devised and delivered a training programme for frontline staff to support them to feel confident in explaining the gallery’s accessibility and demonstrating the technology.

• All films in the gallery have BSL In Vision • All text is in plain English
• QR codes have BSL version
• User tested computer terminal in gallery with BSL, screen reading software and enlarged text
• RNIB PenFriend gives audio-description for blind and partially sighted visitors and those with learning difficulties

The World Stories Gallery is an example of what can be achieved by effective consultation and involvement from the start of planning. The museum staff were receptive and made frequent changes to original plans to meet our suggestions for accessibility. It would be a very different world for people who experience barriers in everyday life if the same process was mandatory for all new projects.

Sarah Playforth

Travelling down on the train together, we caught up on many things Accentuate, as Jon logged our journey in his notebook- taking account of the stops the train made, as well as points of our conversation. Although I had many questions for Jon, he also turned the tables on me, asking me to pause and think about what I’d learnt over the past 12 months?

His show at the Stour Valley Arts Gallery is a mix of digital artworks, showing details taken from his vast Accentuate mapping exercise, accompanied by cases of ‘fossils’, items found along Jon’s travels, meticulously displayed, pinned in place within wall mounted frames, or huddled together in a 3 tiered, glass fronted wooden cabinet. The show also features a few installations and video work- including an interview with Jon, and Transmission 1 & 2, drawing out the faults and geological formations around in the everyday, most of which go undetected by me and you.

What becomes clear as you see the work is how the personal and professional are intertwined, and how that Look About has expanded to document all of this- the interplay- where the personal butts up against the professional. Edges also become very important- the edge of the rockface, the point where one material joins another; the more you look, the more the small interventions seem to be the important ones, where the pressure is greatest.

Hearing Jon speak about his work is when it really comes alive, and you get an insight into his coding and language he uses in his artworks, how the language which at first glance may appear to Latin and geological, actually relates to how he was travelling that day, who he was talking to and where he was.

My favourite point is hearing Jon using geological/ geographical language to describe the everyday- talking about the ‘harsh environments’ we are now facing, how things used to be ‘lush’ and where we are now is more like ‘a desert’ although sometimes broken with the joy of the ‘fortunate things the sea washes up’.

What do you expect to get when you ask an artist to evaluate something? It’s certainly not a report that will be filed on a shelf… Look About has gone beyond what was originally anticipated in terms of volume and scale and has burst it’s Accentuate boundaries to include projects with the Inspire Mark and as mentioned before, events from Jon’s life. I’m looking forwards to seeing the final outcomes, and an opportunity to share an overview of the Accentuate vista and surrounding territories - created from an artist’s viewpoint.

On my way back to the station I notice the signs for a nearby wine bar and restaurant ‘Platform 5’ have been crudely doctored to disguise their use of the old British Rail symbol (now used by Network Rail). Horizontal red lines now flank the wine bar’s name. My camera comes out, and I take this slippage home with me.

The exhibition included the designer of the Paralympic Medals for London 2012, Lin Cheung who is a Senior Lecturer in Jewelry at Central Saint Martins. She spoke eloquently about her inspiration- Nike, the goddess of victory and described how she worked alongside the Royal Mint and the British Museum to take an impression for the medal directly from a cast of Nike of the Paionios – the original resides in Greece. http://blogs.arts.ac.uk/ual2012/2011/10/10/csms-lin-cheung-has-designed-london-2012-paralympic-medals/#more-3473

Other highlights for me included:

• Kerry Dean’s fashion photography featuring Paralympic athletes Jonnie Peacock and Stefanie Reid for i-D magazine as part of an ongoing collaboration “i-Sustain” between the magazine, and London College of Fashion.

http://i-donline.com/magazine/the-winter-warm-up-issue/a-healthy-mind-is-a-healthy-body/

• Wiff-Waff, an interactive 3m long gilded ping-pong table by sculptor Susan Forsyth, which proved to be rather popular on the night.

Of interest may also be the work of MA Narrative Environment students from Central Saint Martins who undertook a brief to develop the visual identity for Paralympic training camps and the athlete’s village at the games.

http://blogs.arts.ac.uk/ual2012/2010/10/20/paralympicsgb-visual-identity-extension/#more-1982

To see and read more about the UAL Celebrating 2012 event itself, see:

http://blogs.arts.ac.uk/ual2012/2012/05/11/celebrating-london-2012-evening-reception/#more-4251

Photo credit: Paul Cochrane

Set in darkness, The Museum houses a line of 20 spot-lit, wooden boxes, with peep holes that invite you to look inside. Each box is accompanied by a feely bag and several have headphones playing original music composed by the students. The models and collage inside the boxes tell a story described by Creative Junction as, ‘ the building of a new civilization which is then torn apart by rejection and the inability to accept difference.’ My overriding memory is of a broken baby-making machine, a gruesome and bloody war, and being taken through a whole range of emotions.

I had the pleasure of speaking to some of the students who had participated in the project. All were very excited to have finally seen all the component parts assembled together for the first time, a culmination of 10 weeks work. The students had worked with visual artist Lisa Ducie and musician Tom Arnold. All the students raved about the fun they’d had developing this project. One student told me he had made so many little baby figures for his box, he was even dreaming about them! Another shared with me the lyrics to the song she wrote, and sang for us whilst we sat in the sun on the lawn.

The young people who have created this piece of art now want to share the experience with as many people as possible and to keep posing their initial question and gathering answers. There was talk during my visit of ways to make the installation even more accessible, and of taking it out into the community. It would serve as an excellent, interactive springboard, initiating discussion around the barriers and rejection faced by different people. I do hope they get the funding they need to pursue this!

This was the question posed to me on arrival at The Orpheus Centre on 29th March. Actually, my welcome was far warmer than that, but on introduction to the students, it was the first thing they wanted to know! In fact, I was asked to log my answer, as an entry in their book.

The question was being asked as a part of Campaign! A project delivered in partnership with Creative Junction. It aims to work with young disabled people to build campaigns raising awareness on issues that affect them and young disabled people in other countries.

Whilst the question was innocent enough, I actually found it quite exposing. I scanned the previous entries to see what others before me had put, and it was quite an interesting list: loud noises, no money, fear of failure, tiredness, nothing, not being old enough, dissertation word counts, red lights, social services, a beautiful sunset, people making fun of me, and kryptonite to name but a few. There were over 300 entries in the book. The students had asked the same question of people in Australia, USA, Germany and other countries around the globe. The connections had been made through the friends and families of students and overseas workers from the Centre.

I was keen to know whether there had been any noticeable differences between the answers coming out of different countries; do different things stop you in different culture settings and political climates? I was told there were no noticeable differences; “having no money in one country stops you just the same as it does in any country”. But, perhaps a wider and more thorough survey would give different results? It would make quite an interesting project, I think.

It is a question that I have pondered on a lot over recent years. What does stop me? What are the barriers? We have talked a lot in Our View about the benefits and limitations of the Social Model. Making my entry in the log book was again getting me to address this issue. On the one hand I wanted to say ‘nothing’ stops me. That’s the Paralympian in me speaking. It is also the voice of someone determined to push through the boundaries of marginalisation, as both a woman, and as a disabled person. But then I think again, and recognise that sometimes I am too fatigued to keep pushing. There are some things I just cannot physically do, and the biggest thing stopping me from doing anything, is severe and chronic pain.

There are lots of ways to change working practices, and be more flexible to accommodate the debilitating effects the pain has on my life, but even when all the external barriers are removed, the pain is still there. It still sometimes stops me from doing things: sleeping, concentrating, and laughing, for example. So it was interesting for me to see all the different entries people had made. It left me wondering how hard had other people thought about what they would choose as their entry? What message were they trying to relate, or point did they want to make?

I guess as a provocative project, this has really worked. I would like to thank the students at Orpheus for really inspiring me to think on a more international basis, about the similarities and differences faced by disabled people. In an earlier blog, Room 101, I referred to Dr Soldatic’s findings that disabled people in the UK are far better connected and better at sharing information with each other, than in Australia. It seems that there is a growing interest in the motivations, practices and cultures of disabled people around the world, and how they compare. I think it would be really interesting to record the progress, and heritage of the disabled movement in an international context. I know we have touched on this in our Our View meetings before, but I think Accentuate would be very well-placed as a cross sector organisation linking in with international events like London 2012 and Rio 2016, to instigate such a project...

Save for Mark Ware’s art film ‘The Dog That Barked Like A Bird’ and Extant’s art/science project ‘The Question’, I don’t recall ever having seen an art installation that explored a visually impaired persons’ perspective on encountering the urban environment. Blind culture has lacked much creative input into the visual arts. So the idea of the work incorporating biomedical visual data to convey a blind person’s ‘journey’ was novel and intriguing.

Introducing the work at the Private View, Zoe went into how her starting point had been the idea of how new tactile feedback technologies could be employed to create better access for visually impaired people. In recent years we’ve seen a growing use of satnav technology in providing descriptions of how to get from ‘a’ to ‘b’. But what if these advances could be used to create interpretations of the actual environment in real-time? Could a device be used to aid better understanding of the terrain a VIP is likely to encounter in any given environment?

The ‘First Impressions’ installation explored an individual’s journey across a shopping centre; highlighting the problems someone with sight loss encounters in these spaces. The installation itself is a large white cube. A map of High Wycombe is projected onto the sides of the canvas structure. A red heat marker, moves across the map, describing the actual journey taken by a VIP. Here, there could have been more documentation made available. Using a busy public space with a stream of people persistently passing through, meant that the more subtle elements of the work were lost to much of the audience.

Inside the canvas installation itself, was space to fit half a dozen people, comfortably. The film is projected onto a back-lit wall and comprises of a journey across the blue pixilated floor surface of a shopping centre. The film allows us to look through the eyes of a visually impaired person, who is describing how he experiences the environment. His narrative includes comments that give insight into how he feels about the journey we are seeing: “Shopping is the bane of a blind person’s life.” He tells us that the marble floors and glass walls amplify the sound adding to his disorientation. He also talks about having to stay close to the walls: “Lose the walls and I can’t find my way out.”

We experience his stress, in the moment, as he orientates himself, watching the floor move below his feet. There is a persistent trepidation about tripping and falling added to the worry that he could be walking in a circle and not actually going where he intended at all. As viewer we get a sense of how we are looking for clues to navigate this journey; white lines that stick out as markers; car sounds that herald the proximity of roads.

‘First Impressions’ would sit well in a large gallery venue. Experiencing it on a cold night in a side-street annexing the university, wasn’t the best location for appreciating the film fully. It was great to see large print surtitles that relayed the speech, although there were gaps in how much of the narration was relayed in text. The citing of the installation was a noisy, echoey space, so I was reliant on the transcription to pick up the words.

As far as the aesthetic of the piece was concerned, ‘First Impressions’ could have incorporated a more naturalistic style. It’s hard to imagine that the partially sighted narrator, navigating through the space as an ordinary occurrence, wouldn’t have stopped to check out reference points; that from his point of view, we wouldn’t have seen other landmarks; changes in perspective; other people moving as blurs or shadows, into his limited field of vision.

However, the setting did afford an outing for the collaboration that has taken place between Signdance Collective and Zoe Partington. Signdance worked with performing arts students from New Bucks University to interpret ‘the journey’. Signdance do this kind of work so well – and conveyed an energetic sense of connection with what Zoe was trying to do.

In a twenty minute piece, all dressed in white, the performers described what the journey was like for them. They conveyed a host of feelings and associations, which occasionally had echoes of the blind narrator. One student, who really stood out, used repetitive words and movement to describe poetically, his sense of connection and disconnection as he made his way through the shopping centre, past seats that looked like sculptures and slippery floors.

What impressed me about this piece was the way it got the students to think about audio-description as an intuitive part of theatrical performance. It’s a subtle process, but so much writing for theatre could be revolutionised by incorporating description into the dialogue; allowing the audience to have a picture of what’s in the frame through hints implanted in the speech.

Several characters took the limelight during this performance. Their descriptions took on a mix of the inner and the outer world. They got into the spirit of ‘First Impressions’ and would be a great asset as a performative element to the work, wherever it is shown.

On a final note I should mention that 'First Impressions' was shortlisted for the 2011 Adam Reynolds Memorial Bursary. Let's hope Zoe Partington gets other opportunities to develop this work.

To be honest I wasn't sure if I was really understood the meaning of the title so was a little apprehensive of what it would all be about. Added to that was the discovery that it was to be held in Room 101, which did make me giggle at the time. Little did I know that I really would find my darkest fears revealed within!

Dr Soldatic explained that we have an abstract notion of time as a rigid structure. It is taken for granted that it is an easy thing to work to. There is an assumption that making appointments and keeping them is an easy task. But not all of us have the same concept of time. Young children and some disabled people may not be able to 'see that far ahead', others may not be able to process and finish tasks in an 'expected time'. Unfortunately, welfare appointments, and benefit payments, are dependent on people being on time.

Highlighted, was the universal focus of Welfare Reform, on the importance of meeting appointments to avoid sanctions. Under ESA, if you are assessed as being very work-able you are required to attend appointments at the Jobcentre every month. These repeated appointments left people justifying again and again why they were worthy of this benefit. This inevitably had an effect on their feelings of self-worth.

Appointments and the ability to meet them, were being used as a tool to measure whether the claimant was a 'good person'. Dr Soldatic found that this was becoming more common through the privatisation of assessment processes, and workfare-style programmes.

An individual's non-compliance of clock time was seen as a result of rational decision not to comply with a national requirement. This in turn indicated a that they were someone to be suspicious of. There seemed to be no allowance for any other reasons for the appointment having been missed.

This research highlighted the voices of disabled people who talked about the extra time they needed to attend to daily personal care, and organising the timings of other people who they relied on for support. When childcare was also brought into the equation there were even more timetables in play. Suddenly the disabled parent is having to balance and prioritise care for herself and her children alongside the good of the nation. Those who make the workfare appointments are considered valued and morally worthy citizens. They are therefore deserving. Those who don't, are not.

For me the most interesting part of the lecture was probably also the most worrying. It is useful to have what we all already know, backed up by academic research, but depressing given the implications on people's lives. Prior to this I had heard individual horror stories, and many were reminiscent of the standard DLA application and assessment process. What I learned from Dr Soldatic's lecture about ATOS assessments, not only gave weight to my cynicism about The System, but it also showed our welfare system as completely undermining and nothing short of immoral. Beveridge would be turning in his grave!

Dr Soldatic shared with us some of the stories of those she'd interviewed after an ATOS assessment. it transpires that the assessment actually begins from the moment you receive your appointment letter. You are being tested from the word go but you will know nothing about it. With your appointment time, comes directions, instructions, bus timetables etc. Seemingly helpful, but not necessarily easy to navigate if you are disabled. There are times to be met, perhaps other support systems to put in place, alternative transport to find if the suggested method is not accessible or appropriate...and that's just to get to the building. There were reports of buildings not having signs up to indicate you're at the right place, of doors being extremely heavy and difficult to open, of there being no wheelchair access etc.

The task to arrive at your appointment has been made purposefully difficult. Underlying all this, is the pressure that if you don't make this appointment your benefit will be stopped. Those who struggled desperately to make the appointment and succeeded were rewarded with a cold and impersonal welcome, and questionning on how they managed to get there. Had they followed the instructions, how easy was it to find, did they need to ask for assistance? There was no medical assessment.

If they had made it to the appointment they were seen as resourceful and good at problem-solving, so were deemed capable of work. Their benefit would be stopped, and the monthly appointments at the Jobcentre, triggered. To actually qualify for benefit, claimants were having to perform 'absolute disablement'. Dr Soldatic concluded that the ATOS assessment was not a medical assessment but rather an evaluative test of morality.

Equally worryingly, the research found that many of those who had made it to the assessment, had left it very distressed and emotionally scarred. Others came out angry rather than distressed and Dr Soldatic believes this was because they knew what was going to happen beforehand and had mentally prepared in advance. She pointed out that disabled people in the UK seem to be far better connected and good at sharing information and campaigning for change, than in Australia.

Many of those who'd been sent an appointment reported high level anxiety the moment the envelope arrived. They attributed this to the media portrayal of benefit claimants as scroungers and frauds. This level of stress and distress has been seen to result in the breakdown of other support relationships that are essential to the claimant's well-being. There is also an underlying fear that if this benefit is withdrawn there are other benefits that will also be lost as a result.

Dr Soldatic relayed the story of one woman who because of an overriding fear of being under surveillance, and of being dobbed in by neighbors, has chosen not to partake in outdoor activity any longer. Despite this activity bringing well-being to her, she would rather forgo it than risk the lack of well-being that would arise if she were to lose her benefits.

This is echoes another disturbing article I read recently about the threat to life and welfare of disabled people in light of the government's reforms. http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/14675 It is worth a read.

I know at Accentuate we have talked of the need to stay non-political, but I think this is going to become harder than we think. Our pursuit of a media and disability project is timely but the subject matter is becoming inextricably woven into the political and social welfare domain. In this climate it is hard for the political not to become personal, whether we want it to, or not!

Hello my name is Hillie

I’m the Our View Student Rep.

I’m 19 years old, and I go to Windsor College.

I like spending time on computers and going to meetings to find out what other people are doing. I like drawing, dancing, and going to college. I enjoy listening and understanding other peoples ideas, and how to talk to people and how they learn.

I was asked by Accentuate to make a film about my CAMPAIGN! project and other projects.

My film is about getting people together to talk about their Campaign project and to be happy. It’s about helping one another.

To make my film I visited other CAMPAIGN! projects to meet new people and find out what their projects was about. Here are some of the places i visited:

- Pebble Brook school

- Channel 4

- Houses of Parliament

- Sign Dance company

- Halow Project

When I first started the Campaign project I wasn’t sure what to do, I was a tiny bit nervous but I felt confident doing it.

What did I enjoyed the most about being an Our View Rep?

- Doing the friendship dance.

- Meeting new people.

- Being the Our View Rep.

- Going to the meetings.

- Learning to make a film.

Every morning at college they ask me for a copy of my DVD, I would like to show it to everyone who would like to watch it.

I would like to teach children how to dance. I would like to show everyone what I can do – I can dance, be part of meetings, make films, and interview people.

This is what my Campaign project was about and feedback from my friends……..

“Our project was about bullying, anger and friendship, about stop bullying and being friends” (Arbour Vale Dancer).

“I was nervous at the start of the performance, but I found it easy dancing with my friends in front of the parents.” (Arbour Vale Dancer).

“I felt a bit nervous talking out loud at the start of the presentation, but it made me stronger to talk. The dance was fun” (Hillie)

“A bit shy at first then it got easy. I made new friends that I could talk too.” (Hillie)

"I enjoyed the project and dancing on stage.” (Hillie)

I enjoy being an Our View Rep, I got to help people who are different; I want to help other people when ever I can. It doesn’t matter if you are disabled or blind, because we are all as one.

I remember when i started school i couldn't talk, so thank you to Everyone who helped me get stronger and confident in is project.

Special thanks to : Rachel Camilla Elaine Dom Conner Kristina Pebble Brooke pupils Arbour Vale school friends My college Sid

KEEP BEING FRIENDS : )

Click on the link below to see the film Hillie made.

I am all for supporting individuals, I know there is some great work being done and we did hear about some of this at this event. I was interested in the programmes run by Reigate and Banstead Council to get young people into employment – although when I asked how many were disabled, he couldn’t tell me. But he was apologetic and did ask me to contact him – which I intend to do.

In the workshop I attended, I was a bit taken aback to hear one stout chap declare that it was time to stop “pink and fluffy” organisations doing their stuff and get in to the real world. This followed my suggestion that work is not the be all and end all of existence and that supporting people to gain greater self esteem and self worth was a good end in itself and would also help them to be more “employable”, without that being the only reason for the support.

The “black box” approach often referred to at this event means that companies providing welfare to work can do whatever they like as long as they get people into secure jobs. They don’t get the minimum payment until someone is in work and only get the maximum if that person stays in work and claims no benefits for two years. So the business is hardly a secure one to run and jobs have to be found for people to stay in to keep the businesses going.

I was intrigued by the slide put up by Neil Couling, Director Benefit Strategy, Department for Work and Pensions to show that people fall into eight attitudinal groups in relation to employment, divided into three sections – Seeking, Believe Can’t Seek and Choose not to Seek. Looking at the “Believe can’t Seek” section, where two groups were shown:

Constrained by circumstance – Feel trapped by personal circumstances that make ‘normal’ work impractical - desire the job ‘in a million’ that can fit in around them

Defeated by circumstance - Lack of belief in their capability means they are resigned to an existence without work

I asked how the external factors affecting a disabled individual (barriers put up by employers and the lack of jobs) could be dealt with – the very point picked up in the Guardian article on February 1st by Amelia Gentleman “After all the pep talks and CV workshops, where are the jobs?”. I was told it was down to individual’s perception of their circumstances.

To conclude, I believe this work programme – about the outcomes of which we still know very little due to the non availability of statistics (no figures will be released until the various schemes have been in existence for 18 months) – will have both success stories and failures; some people will benefit, many will not; it will not overcome the effects of the social and economic reality in which many unemployed disabled people live. The people who will definitely be employed are those running the schemes. It is not in my nature to be cynical and I do believe that individuals are often capable of more than they realize and should be encouraged to stretch themselves. The difficulty here is that I struggle to see the balance in this approach that focuses so strongly on improving the individual (without necessarily having recognition of, and empathy with, their specific personal issues and circumstances) and not sufficiently on the external circumstances (so much worse in some areas of the country than others) to improve the numbers of people in work. Why not reduce the hours of some of those working too many and becoming stressed – creating more jobs at a stroke? I also don’t believe in work as the only panacea for all ills.

More positively, for Accentuate, there are real opportunities to provide support – mentoring, volunteering and internships, work experience and other opportunities for young disabled arts and sports people and for employers and potential employers that can improve the situation.

The Centre analysed 2,276 print articles, focusing on the Express, Mail, Sun and Mirror plus the Guardian newspaper as a counterpoint. They chose to look at all articles published between October 2004 and January 2005, [when Blair was making significant changes to DLA], comparing them with articles published between October 2010 and January 2011.

Talking about why Inclusion London had commissioned the research, Nick Watson said that there was a general consensus that attitudes in reporting had changed, but no firm evidence outside an anecdotal awareness of continual assaults on disabled people in the media. The research set out to develop an overview of how the change was impacting on public attitudes and how disabled people feel about the change. To this end the research instituted two focus groups of non-disabled people and six with disabled people.

The Centre found a significant increase in the number of articles published, which referenced disability, accompanied by a shift in the content of the reports. Typically state benefits are a major theme in the tabloids. During the 04/05 period, headlines like "Labour's failure to tackle the spiralling sicknote culture" [Daily Mail December 2004] typified attacks on the government in the handing of disability benefits. Although a portion of these articles claimed that a large percentage of disabled people on benefits could work if they wanted to, many couched these accusations in terms of ‘the benefit trap’.

This compares significantly with the 2010-11 period in which the tabloid articles’ repeated arguments defending government policies in relation to disability. There was a huge increase in stories presenting the incapacity benefit claimant as 'undeserving' and using far more pejorative language. The use of the words ‘workshy’, ‘scroungers’ or ‘cheats’ or talking about ‘handouts’ and the ‘sicknote culture’ doubled in this period. Interestingly, the word ‘cripple’ has disappeared completely. This supports the implication from the findings that it is not so much ‘disabled people’ who are being attacked, as the idea that claimants are ‘non-disabled’ people who are pretending to be disabled.

Some articles even claimed that incapacity benefits were not only a drain on the economy, but were actually to blame for the current financial crisis [taking the onus away from the bankers]. At the same time the stories that imply disabled claimants are deserving of support, has greatly reduced. Nick Watson went on to say that although the disability studies movement has been very critical of ‘sympathetic biographies, the question we have to ask ourselves is ‘what are they replacing that representation of us with?’

A high proportion of impairment-focused stories or those that gave sympathetic accounts, introduced the reader to particular conditions, even if those accounts were often written in terms of triumph over tragedy. Many will welcome this drop in triumph stories - but as benefit and service cuts bite deeper, so the attitudes which could have served as a counterpoint, are disappearing.

What we are seeing now is a backlash to the Thatcher era when the numbers of claimants for incapacity benefit grew massively so the government could hide the disastrous unemployment figures of the time. And with that is an implication that the state is once again rewriting who is and who isn't disabled. Nearly 50 per cent of incapacity benefit claimants are registered for claims under mental health grounds. Mental health is attacked persistently and is rarely mentioned in articles as a ‘deserving’ impairment issue.

There has also been a rise in the number of invisible impairments that have been recognised by health services in the last ten years or so. With many of these impairments there is a fluctuation in the individuals’ capacity to function, which the tabloids do not acknowledge.

The tabloids never talk about the realities of benefit fraud. The headlines simply repeat that as much as 75 per cent of incapacity benefit claims are bogus, despite the fact that the DWP estimate for total overpayment is put at 2.5 per cent and actual DLA fraud at 0.5 per cent.

Worryingly, the focus groups of non-disabled people engaged in the research regurgitated what they had read in the tabloids, putting fraud at between 40 - 70 per cent of claims. Nick Watson said he was shocked at the level of belief that came across. Although all of those who took part talked about friends who've been denied benefit who are ‘deserving’; they continued to repeat the idea that it is the ‘undeserving’ who actually get benefits.

On the positive side of things no one from the focus groups questioned the idea that disability is an equality issue. Many people talked about access as an essential consideration. No one believes it to be a product of political correctness when Cameron talks about the importance of disabled people having ‘equal rights’. It is just that no-one challenges how what the government are doing is undermining those rights.

Overall the research gives some hard evidence for a marked shift in the way that disability is being reported. Discrimination as an equality issue is barely being mentioned, even in the Guardian.

So what can we do? There is more of a need than ever, to write to the newspapers and the press complaints commission to challenge the attacks being made on disabled people.

To read the report go to www.inclusionlondon.co.uk/bad-news-for-disabled-people-report-reveals-extent-of-media-misrepresentation

A bigger part of DAOs Arts Council Award engaged us in building a new website for the Creative Case for Diversity, which was launched at a conference at the decibel showcase. We streamed the conference, live and have been publishing case studies, articles and blogs over the last two months that explain and give examples of how a range of arts organisations have diversity at their core.

In short, the creative case is a conversation about Art, foremost; but Art that is driven by a wide range of experience that encompasses responses to issues around race, ethnicity, faith, disability, age, gender, sexuality, class and economic disadvantage.

I’d recommend a browse. I recently published an article by Jo Verrent on the painter Chuck Close. She gives a fascinating insight into how the artists’ originality has been motivated by living with impairment. As an artists Close has always looked for innovative ways to challenge himself. At the beginning of his career, his amazing large-scale portraits were inspired by experience of ‘face-blindness.’ Further impairment after he had already achieved recognition pushed him to develop a new style of portraiture. Up close the paintings are a series of small abstractions. As you move away to a distance of 5 foot or more, photorealist portraits come in view, defying the imagination.

You'll find it at http://disabilityarts.creativecase.org.uk/

Drawing together past and present athletes, composers, musicians, film-makers and community groups, the ambition and scale looks set to make a vital contribution to the Cultural Olympiad. The initial presentation followed a 3-day residency and included a series of performances, artworks and reflections. The Paralympian motto, ‘spirit in motion’, was strongly evoked throughout, and whetted appetites as journeys and stories began too unfold.

Working with over 100 disabled and non-disabled young people from Buckinghamshire and around the world, including South Africa, USA, Ecuador, Brazil and Australia, legacy and transformation are at the heart of this project. The UK and International Partners are communicating with each other and the artistic team via the Create, Compete, Collaborate e-community (www.cccecommunity.creativejunction.org.uk); a resource which can be utilised by any project with the aims of CCC.

The Paralympics offer new and unique opportunities for bringing disabled artists and sportspeople together, encouraging shared understandings and profiling the talent within both communities. The work, achievements and experiences in both sector will inspire, and ensure that disabled young people are beneficiaries of, and central too 2012 and beyond. Numerous examples of the creative and sporting mix were on show, including the insights of discus gold medal winner (1984) John Harris, accompanied by a stirring soundtrack and against a backdrop of artwork celebrating unique bodies. Similarly, the different dance styles and routines choreographed by Mark Smith incorporated movements associated with sport, with sign-language providing further clarity and theatricality. The holistic and inclusive ways of working and engaging, and work created, was thought-provoking and offered a sense of what could be achieved. The interaction of the sporting and artistic communities, hitherto ploughing their own furrows and often confined to their own silos, opens up a whole world (literally!) of possibilities, and these were very much in evidence today.

Central to the work was the body and, as an artist, I was fascinated by the different interpretation placed on the human form in the sporting context, and within Stoke Mandeville itself. Trauma is often part and parcel of the experiences of those passing through the hospital and sport is often integral to recovery and re-invention. The pursuit of medals and personal bests provide important tangibles, but I was struck by how the intangibles such as camaraderie, resilience and self-determination underpin the Paralympics’ Movement. There are perhaps more parallels with my own community than I originally imagined.

The history, ethos and facilities of Stoke Mandeville provide a fitting backdrop as our cultural and sporting heritage and aspirations. With Stoke Mandeville Stadium was birthplace to the Paralympics’ Games in 1948, and the journey and celebrations of the 2012 Para-Olympic torch, athletic and artistic endeavours are very definitely ‘coming home’!

The event had a media focus. With the Paralympics rapidly approaching and the impact of government cuts to benefits and services becoming visible, the coverage of disabled people in mainstream media is high.

Not all of this is progressive, and the media still has a tendency to revert to stereotypes, portraying disabled people as either brave heroes or fraudulent scroungers.

This depiction has a huge influence over the general public’s knowledge of disability and attitudes towards disabled people, so exploring and attempting to influence the relationship between the media and disability could be an important step towards Accentuate enabling a cultural shift.

The event kicked of with three keynote speakers:

Maggie Woolley spoke about being one of the original presenters on the BBC’s See Hear program and how as a Deaf person, her consumption of media has changed radically over 30 years. As a result of advances in technology and legislation, with subtitling now routinely available, her TV choice is extended beyond watching Coronation Street or signed programs at 2am in the morning. With Deaf people now leading the creation of output for TV, a real shift in the production of media is beginning.

Andrew Dickenson, theatre critic from the Guardian gave us an insight into working in the mainstream press and the debate about how a broadsheet newspaper’s arts section should cover disability arts. If it’s good and would appeal to their readership- surely they would know about it? Or do they? Andrew spoke positively about the Guardian’s desire to broaden its networks and the opportunities it creates for new voices to break into journalism.

Allan Sutherland shared with us his varied experiences of working as a journalist and scriptwriter. He spoke about the changes in commissioning which have made some involved in TV and radio less willing to support the unknown or risky. So whilst time moves forward, we may not always be making progress. Allan also raised concerns around the absorption of disability programming into mainstream content. We have moved away from the ghetto of a ‘disability magazine’ program on a Sunday afternoon- what has replaced it?

These presentations gave much food for thought and informed the discussions in the next section of the afternoon.

Lasting questions for me surround the ‘dumbing down’ of content mentioned by both Maggie and Allan, with the See Hear anniversary program featuring a slot on her changing hairstyles and Allan seeing C4’s recent program ‘7 Dwarves’ as an example of a step back in the portrayal of disabled people on TV.

I wonder if both examples are symptomatic of the modern media’s desire to avoid serious content, to sensationalise, to trivialize, to entertain, to get ratings rather than educate. Over the last 50 years, TV has become much more informal, newsreaders can now joke with their weather presenters instead of reading the news with a stiff upper lip in BBC English. Whilst I like this, is it part of TV positioning itself as a less serious medium? Apart from designated high brow programs and channels like Newsnight and BBC4 or programs with high production values like C4’s ‘Inside Incredible Athletes’, the majority of TV is now delivered in a tabloid format. Reality TV (such as 7 Dwarves) is another example of this- we are now the actors yet what is portrayed is far from reality, it’s a modern freak show designed to entertain.

However, I’m not letting the media off the hook so easily as it has an amazing power to influence the general public’s attitudes and opinions. It is important to remember the link between editorial and commissioning decisions and people’s everyday experiences of the real world.

Where do we go from here? The media won’t change overnight, or probably won’t appreciate or listen to being told how to behave, but opening up the debate and actively engaging with those who have influence over its production may begin create shifts.

First, a day out in Hastings with Project Manager, Camilla Brueton, sampling the Heritage Open Day particularly, and seaside delights generally. In Gosport and Hastings, Creative Landscapes have been working with local disabled people since 2009 to insure access, inclusion and visibility are built into the Open Day programs. By facilitating ‘accessible and creative approaches’, disabled people are encouraged to interact with, and impact upon their local environment and heritage. In tandem, disabled artists and organisations have undertaken workshops, residencies and exhibitions. This two-pronged approach is crucial in raising the profile and aspirations of disabled artists and non-artists alike.
Liz Porter, Disability Advisor for Hastings and Gosport, provided advice as to where Creative Landscapes had exerted their influence. Their task is huge, and until inclusion become enshrined in event management and planning, outcomes will continue to remain dependent upon prevailing local conditions. Access should not be based on goodwill, but a right of disabled people, and of benefit to all.

With the sun beating down, we were drawn to the Fisherman’s Museum by music wafting over the beach and seaside shacks. A pop-up community choir had evolved as passers-by joined the Sa Shanty Singers, in joyous renditions of lusty local tales of smuggling, drinking and the sea. Large-print song-sheets provided – simple, cheap and inclusive. We even bumped into renowned disabled artist, Penny Pepper – I never thought we’d end up singing together!

A short hop to the Stade Gallery to view the work of disabled visual artists Sally Booth and Lynn Weddle. Sally Booth’s exhibition – ‘Stade Huts and Fish and Chips’ – was a series of compositions capturing the essence of Hasting. Made from Indian Ink, pen and gouache on balsa wood, the local community and environs seeped from the work with spectacular vibrancy. Lynn Weddle’s photographs portrayed the hidden people and workers of Hastings – boatmen, fishermen and café workers were evocatively captured. Both artists had worked with local disabled groups and children, and audio description and context was provided. Just as the work brought together community and artists, so access and creativity combined beautifully too create a moving exhibition.

Cable-cars up the cliffs, miniature railways along the beach, a film screening in tanker container, fish rolls and Kentish beer were all welcome add-ons. Meandering down the A21, I couldn’t resist a trip down memory-lane, and a stop-off in Tonbridge to visit my old ‘special school’. Long since demolished, and transformed into a millionaire’s gated community. I broke in which made a change from breaking out! All memories were tarnished by the ghastly edifices swamping us, and I wondered how one community could so readily be replaced by another, and who had stood to benefit and where the money went. Answers on a postcard, please. To Hastings!

Kristina talks about leadership, positive disabled role models, sport and Accentuate.

http://youtu.be/SkCznJ-ked4

Well worth a watch!

Find out what Colin has experienced on DAO

http://www.disabilityartsonline.org.uk/?location_id=1478

I went along to work with some of the children to give them an opportunity to blog on DAO [http://www.disabilityartsonline.org.uk/Accentuate-blog?item=983&itemoffset=2 ] about their experience of being part of Driving Inspiration and to talk to artists and teachers to get their impressions of the benefits of the program.

One of the obvious benefits is providing non-disabled students a real experience of working with disabled people. A typical comment from a young lad seems to sum up a lot of what the program has been about: “You don’t have to treat [disabled people] like you feel sorry for them or anything. You can treat them like a normal person.” I got a strong sense of how in a down-to-earth way through experience of working with disabled artists and sportspeople, Driving Inspiration is giving these children a unique – if individualised - opportunity to see another side to the sterotypes promulgated by the press and media about what disability and impairment mean to those of us who live with it.

Kat – a teacher from Beaconsfield School explained to me how working with artists and sportspeople had impacted on her work with students from Beaconsfield School: “I think what’s been interesting is that the project is that has given the children the chance to learn practical things about art-making and the Paralympics, but also about wider issues about how people develop resilience and adapt to their circumstances. It has been an eye opener at different times and has been really useful in turns of their learning.”

From the other side of the coin artist Anya Ustaszewski, talked about how Driving Inspiration had given her encouragement about a change in perspective: “It’s been very useful to have had the chance to talk to students about disability. I had a pretty lousy time at school. If disability was spoken about at all it was euphemistically. It was always in terms of being ‘the special needs kids from the special needs unit.’ This project has given me an angle on how attitudes have changed; how much more open you can be with children in talking frankly about disability.”

Another achievement of Driving Inspiration has been the cross curricular format the programme has developed. It challenges the conventional way education works, by cutting everything into isolated subjects and gives a much more realistic experience of how the world works in combining processes. So for example a music score created in one series of workshops, inspired art-making in another set of workshops. The music and art were then used as a starting point for choreography with dance students. And finally T-shirts were printed of two of the central images worn by the dancers.

The day itself felt very enjoyable if chaotic. All the students I spoke to got something out of the art and sports activities. At the same time they have also taken on board some real-life experience of how impairment impacts on individuals lives. There may or may not be revelations, but it is a starting point for breaking down the fear that difference engenders. Driving Inspiration is having a big impact and will continue to be a unique opportunity to give schools the chance to engage with disabled artists and break through taboos.

To read a fuller overview of the day in Word, click on the link below

There was also a big shout out about disability, and peace and love too, if the songs emanating from the Blue Touch Paper Horn were anything to go by. The song had been created by members of The Strawford Centre who have been involved at every stage of the Blue Touch Paper project. The aim of the project is to make carnival accessible and the song, costumes and dance were the culmination of skills learned from collaborations with carnival professionals over the last year. I have to say the song was incredibly catchy and I have enjoyed listening to it through the website too http://www.btpcarnival.co.uk/?location_id=151

If you want to know more about Blue Touch Paper you would do well to visit their very accessible website www.btpcarnival.co.uk There is an Easy Read tab at the top of every page, concise and informative text, and lots of photos to take you through the ideas, objectives and creations of this journey. There are also a couple of videos showing the collaborative processes of designing and creating different aspects of the carnival, and also the planning and design of the website itself - a great learning tool for any organisation looking to engage in an accessible and empowering way! I have to say though that on a personal note, the key feature of the website was the map – I would have been quite literally, lost without it!

Horsham Park itself is massive and we enjoyed exploring the quieter sections, such as the maze and the pond area, when the whirl and bustle started to get too much. Fortunately the funfair which had some of the fastest most terrifying rides I have ever seen was situated to one side of the main fete/carnival areas allowing those who wanted to, to give it a miss. It also avoided it overshadowing the less commercial nature of the rest of the event. I was grateful and pleasantly surprised to find that the central area had been set up around an area with good paths. This was a relief after toughing it through the grass on my hand cycle (next time I will check the battery before leaving home!). Everything had been well spaced out, so despite the huge number of people, the event felt lively but not squashy or claustrophobic.

There were separate sections for the sporting displays and competitions (part of Set4Success) and as an athlete I was encouraged to see so many young people engaging in so many different sports. As we waited for the parade to arrive we lay back in the grass and enjoyed watching young people having some real belly-laughs whilst enjoying a game of volleyball. It was all quite idyllic really. My only disappointment on the sporting front was that there were no disability sports on offer or, as far as I could tell, any provision for disabled athletes to take part - a shame really. I would have thought it would have tied in nicely with the accessible carnival theme, the London 2012 celebration, an opportunity to increase public awareness around disabled people, and for promoting opportunities for disabled young people to participate in sport. The apparent lack of inclusion became more bizarre when I spotted fellow Paralympian, Sascha Kindred, revealing anecdotes of his swimming career on the main stage! So, I’m not really sure what happened there - a bit of a missed opportunity.

Still, the sheer size of the event was impressive and in general there had obviously been a lot of thought into accessibility and inclusion. The layout of the event really worked well, so a big pat on the back to the team that thought that through so successfully. However, a bigger thanks and congratulations has to go to all those involved in Blue Touch Paper who have developed the ground-breaking and wonderful map that allowed me to arrive informed and reassured. This is really a great legacy from the project, and it is hoped that accessible maps like this will be used at all festivals and large public events in the future.

Designed with disabled people this is an electronic map of the location with key areas and facilities marked by symbols and/or photos. When a symbol is clicked on, text appears giving further details. An example is: ”Good View From Here Last Updated by Helotrix on Jul 12 This would be a good place to see the carnival as it is normally less crowded and you have more space.”

Until this day out I hadn’t really realised how much I felt the inherent anxiety of making a journey out to an unknown destination and not knowing what barriers I might find when I got there. From this map I was able to plan in advance where I could find free and accessible parking, where I would find my colleague Suzanne Bull to quiz her over her role with BTP and Accentuate, and a photo of the cafe serving refreshments and which had an accessible toilet! Brilliant!!!! This is as close to being there as you can get, a real first- hand perspective from other disabled people.

So, all in all it was a really enjoyable day. There is no way I could do justice to the colour and vibrancy of it all so I do recommend having a look at the BTP website and seeing the photos posted on there from the day, and indeed from the project as a whole. It was all a bit of a whirl and the BTP carnival participants were fairly preoccupied so I didn’t get much opportunity to find out their feelings on it all. However I know Suzanne has been busy interviewing them all so I would be keen to hear more from her on what she has learned. Perhaps a blog response on that note would be possible?

The publication explores what motivates and inspires both athletes and artists, looks back at the historical timelines of disability arts and sports, and forwards to London 2012.

Art and Sport was launched at the Accentuate event at the Houses or Parliament on June 8th.

The publication is available to download from the Accentuate website as a pdf or word document.

Please follow the link below.

http://www.accentuate-se.org.uk/resources

Accentuate has created 185 jobs and employment opportunities, engaged 552 volunteers, provided 100 showcasing opportunities, increased visitor numbers at visitor and cultural destinations by 10,407 and delivered international sporting events. This is quite an achievement and I have enjoyed being a part of the journey so far.

In addition, tomorrows' event will be a chance to launch the disability sport and art publication (fondly nicknamed SPART) that the Core Our View members have been busily beavering away at and compiling, for the last few months!

This publication has, for the first time, brought together, in one place, the journeys, commentaries, and personal experiences of disabled people from both the sporting and art communities. In this publication we have looked at the similarities and differences between the two sectors: their approach to disability, the opportunities, the barriers, and what it is that drives our artists and athletes to pursue these careers.

This is an exciting, publication which should provoke questions and interest, and highlight the value and achievements of disabled people in both sectors. For more background on the debates and discussions that gave rise to this publication, do browse the other blogs on this site.

The weekend was spent in St Margaret's Bay, just outside Dover, the local village hall and the lovely Pine Gardens where we spent some time with a labyrinth that had been designed in a carefully mown grassy area. The idea behind the programme was to make some gentle exploration into the feelings that emerge from getting into yoga postures and expressing those reflections using art.

We began the weekend in the village hall being taken through our paces with a mornings' session learning a sequence of yoga postures. Sarah Scotts' approach was gentle and supportive. Many people in the room had difficulties with movement and so the emphasis was on doing what you could without pain or discomfort. This was yoga with access in mind, adapted for people with impairments to join in at the level they could gain something from it.

At the same time as explaining the postures, Sarah encouraged the thirteen participants to think about how getting into the postures made you feel. Rachel came in at that point and got the class to take out the drawing equipment she had supplied. She demonstrated her approach to drawing; sitting so the arms and hands are free; adopting an expressive attitude to mark-making.

Both workshop leaders had clearly put a lot of thought into working together. Throughout the weekend there was something very fluid about how they took us between the yoga and the art. In many ways it reminded me of a sophisticated version of an exercise I remember from infant school - of painting to music. In fact, throughout the weekend of drawing what it felt like to be inside your own skin, I was taken back into childhood memories on several occasions.

Touching the ground with both hands and feet at the same time was somehow a humbling experience. We began with the cat and then moved on to the dog position - which involves moving your hands down onto the ground and raising the back in an arch. At every step, Sarah would encourage participants to adapt the movement to the limitations of their body. This wasn't about contorting your body into unnatural shapes, but about experiencing it in unfamiliar ways and discovering something new about yourself.

In the afternoon we went to a labyrinth in The Pines gardens - an area of grass cut into a series of paths, which lead out and around in spiral shapes which eventually lead back to the entrance. Walking the path was a meditative experience. I wrote that walking with no other aim aside from feeling the feet on the earth, takes you back into your breathe and is a reminder of the priorities in life. Slowing down I saw things I might not have otherwise noticed: a horsefly feeding on a decayed slug, a ladybird and a holly blue butterfly.

The second day we continued with another series of yoga postures. We were encouraged to write down reflections the positions invoked in us. I wrote that the dog position gave me that feeling of being about to leap into a void; the warrior position gave a feeling of assertion and confidence; the camel position gave me a sense of having a choice between reason and unreason; the bridge gave me a feeling of the foolishness / sanctity of everything. I wrote about childhood memories of a relationship with a pet rabbit, when in the cat stretch – and was delighted to realize later that it was also called the ‘hare’ position.

Drawing using charcoal, pencil and inks, added to the experience of reflection. I filled a beautiful concertina sketchbook with quickly made visceral images of the body adopting these poses. Rachel's guidance and encouragement gave us all another way into experiencing art-making as a form of meditation.

The weekend reminded me how important it is to find space in life for just 'being.' The 'doing' mind is so all-pervasive. We put constant pressure on ourselves to attend to things. Even leisure time is so often taken up with many kinds of passive 'doing' - watching, listening. Time spent stopping the mind from its persistent grasping is so very valuable. It helps to weedle out what are the real priorities aside from the apparent ones that take up so much energy.

In terms of learning something new, the weekend gave me an exciting approach to art-making in direct response to the body. Self-portraiture is an important part of my artistic practice and this gave me a new string to my bow – a way of reflecting on the body, using art, in a meaningful and powerful way.

I think all the participants gained something valuable from the weekend. There was a lot of enthusiastic interaction between everyone taking part. Everyone worked very hard on what could have been a difficult and potentially upsetting experience. And it was great to meet people from other disability groups in the region who I’d heard about but not met before. Skillnet also supported a disabled person to come and experience the weekend by taking photographs, adding another layer to the experience. Above all, Being Me Being was a lot of fun, primarily because of the supportive and encouraging approach the workshop leaders adopted.

I will add an image from my sketchbook later, thanks.

This promises to be a fantastic opportunity to become immersed in the creative works of some the South East's finest talents. Forming part of the cultural olympiad, this Accentuate project is being run by the arts organisation, Dada-South and is supported by Arts Council England. It is featured as part of the Brighton Festival.

11 artists will be showcasing their work, including Our View's very own Jon Adams and Colin Hambrook! To find out more about what's involved and the other artists featured visit http://www.up-stream.org.uk or http://www.disabilityartsonline.org.uk/?location_id=1219&item=1517

I look forward to reporting back on what I am sure will be a most enjoyable and inspiring evening. Hope to see you there!

In crude terms, I make a meagre living though art, whilst blowing much of my ‘not so’ disposable income watching sport. Unfortunately, it’s not the other way round. I would be a good deal richer, and slightly more refined. However, due to a complete lack of sporting prowess I was destined to inhabit a humble artist’s garret, rather than enjoying the excess and vulgarity of a palatial ‘Hello magazine’ pad.

I try not to think about, or quantify the time, energy and money spent following football for fear that intervention may be required to ‘cure’ me. Watching grown men haplessly kick a pigs-bladder around a muddy field, could well be interpreted as a self-fulfilling desire for disappointment, an eroticisation of the non-disabled form or simply a chronic waste of time. Having undergone a number of unsuccessful and pointless ‘interventions’ in my past – leg-straightening, voice improving, buoyancy aiding - this particular one may actually have real benefit. In the meantime, I shall continue to spend Saturdays traipsing around the country, witnessing sad spectacles I would never contemplate taking part in myself. Where are ‘the men in white coats’ when you need them!

In many ways, it is the apparent senselessness of finding yourself stranded at Doncaster station at midnight following another tepid defeat that keeps me hooked. Sport, and the associated experiences, have an immediacy and transiency that allows us to escape our daily grind or worries, or in the case of Doncaster incident, replace these with a completely fresh set of interesting problems and hurdles. Rather than worrying about money we hurl abuse at hapless referees, rather than upsetting the applecart at work we jump around like 4-year olds when the ball hits the back of a net. We are offered the chance to forget, to shout and to escape, lost in a visceral soap opera being played out in real time, infinite in possibilities. And, of course, we are part of a crowd, a community with all that can entail; collective strength, anonymity, devolving responsibility, hysteria and camaraderie.

Arts too is ‘infinite in possibilities’, but as an artist my work is about making sense of the world I inhabit, saying what is important to me and attempting to impact on the enormous world around me. I am, to a certain extent, controlling the possibilities, picking and choosing the materials and means that will best convey my message. Good art is introspective, soul searching and, dare I say it, brave. It is the individual drawing back from the crowd, putting their marker in the sand, saying ‘this is what I believe; this is what I stand for.’

I have been asked to make theatre about my sporting passions; a marriage made in heaven, enjoyment under the auspices of work. However, despite my best endeavours, I have singularly failed to connect these two passions which fulfil such different roles in my life. They operate in different parts of my psyche – one part needing to be lost in the crowd, the other needing to step away from the crowd. They appear mutually exclusive, and yet equally important and to my day-to-day life. An actor friend has a clause in his contracts stating that he will not perform while Wales are playing Rugby Union. Unfortunately, my relative lack of artistic success precludes such riders in my own contract negotiations.

Whilst writing this article I put a Sports v Arts question on Facebook. In straightforward terms, Art won 12-10, whilst the debate provoked pearls of wisdom including, ‘need you ask’, ‘art is coveted and hoarded as a commodity’, ‘sport divides people into winners and losers….in art everyone’s a winner’, ‘good sport is art’, ‘spart’, ‘each can be uplifting or tedious’, ‘I’d like to hear a gallery crowd singing ‘Who’s the sculpture in the black…’, ‘coffee is better than tea…except for old people’ . Of course, the beauty of the world we live is the subtle shading, interweaving and fluidity of our ideas, identities and preferences. Art and sport are not mutually exclusive, and interact with people on numerous different levels, and play crucial roles in enabling us to make sense, and enjoy the world around us.

Who would ask such a daft question as, ‘Which is better – Sport or Art?’!

I have a friend who works in an office where a colleague was disciplined for putting up a poster advertising 'a girls' night out' as this was both excluding men and self-diminishing for woman-kind. I thought I was pretty pc until I heard that!

In a former work role I was advised I shouldn't use the word 'lady' and that 'woman' was more appropriate. I find this quite difficult as I was brought up to see the word 'woman' as rude and 'lady' as polite. It was nothing to do with suggesting 'ladies' were fragile beings who needed protecting and pampering and who had no rights or real worth. It is not something I find particularly offensive but should I respect that others do and tailor my language accordingly?

My children tell me 'Spaz' is back in the playground as is 'retard', and 'gay' is still an insult being thrown about by kids. My heart sinks and I can't help but blame American comedies which seem to bandy these terms around all over the place.

We have to consider how we define ourselves. What words do we use? What words do others use? I have in the past been told I would only qualify for a benefit if I was 'wheelchair-bound'. When I asked what this constituted I was told it was being unable to get out of your wheelchair (as if it was going to somehow morph itself onto my bottom permanently). I was frustrated and somewhat baffled by the use and interpretation of this word being the deciding factor in my entitlement to support.

I am often told I shouldn't get so hung up on language and that people don't mean to offend, but I feel myself boiling inside. Are they right? Should I just chill out about it all? Does language really matter?

Whilst I welcome the work and mostly feel satisfaction in appeasing my campaigning urges and hopefully helping to bring about change, I often feel fatigued by the need to do it at all.

Are we really such a world away from being able to just do things because it is the right thing to do? Money and vanity: the scourge of a capitalist society. I long for a time when people are no longer making decisions based on 'what's in it for me?' and start asking 'what's in it for everyone?' How refreshing would that be?

I may be a hippy at heart but sometimes I think that the changes we are making, will in reality, only be a scratch on the surface. Real change comes with a change of hearts and minds as well as action. At the moment it is easy to feel that any change is better than no change, but will that make a real cultural shift and one that is self-sustaining?

Sometimes I feel a bit like I'm adding a pretty bow to lions' neck; it hasn't tamed the lion or removed its capacity to bite but it has made it look more friendly.

As people with impairments - we are disabled by the barriers that prevent us from taking a full and equal part in society. We live with disability in our day-to-day struggle to combat discrimination - but it is a mark of the barriers society presents - not something we actively possess.

Since the successful Our View meeting at Channel 4 on 8 November I have been thinking about the conundrums Accentuate faces in steering the 15 projects and making a cultural shift in perceptions. Getting my head around the problem we face in finding points of commonality between two very different agendas - Sport and Arts - has been at the heart of it.

We talked through issues that arose from the Channel 4 documentary Inside Incredible Athletes. The documentary made a general concession to the medical model idea of 'having a disability' - albeit using inside stories of the athletes themselves and their quest for excellence. The sports agenda is changing - as more inclusion happens in specific competitions - but it is still rooted in framing and categorising by limitation. So the body itself becomes the marker by which individuals seek to push their boundaries and achieve 'personal best.' Possessing and utilising the deficit model (ie identification through loss) is a key qualification for entering any specific competition.

But the most interesting thing about the discussions that took place on 8 November, was thinking about what values would underpin the games if the Paralympics were to suddenly be reinvented now. You have to remember that the ideas which formed Paralympics were fermented in the aftermath of World War II. Their founder was a German Jewish neurologist Ludwig Guttmann - who was forced to flee to Britain in 1939. Guttmann's initial pioneering work was with veterans with spinal cord injuries.

Stoke Mandeville was dedicated to rehabilitation. So with ideas of therapeutic intervention and motivation as the basis for the games - the whole notion of the Paralympics being a 'Parallel' sports programme was innovatory in 1960 when the first games were held alongside the Olympics in Rome. During those decades the priority was focussed on physical impairment; it was about raising levels of self-esteem; and creating positive role models when disability meant a total lack of self-determination. But if you think about it, the 'Para' in the Paralympics was a nod towards an idea of inclusion and access.

We still fight those battles now - but there has been some shift in understanding. There would now be much more meaningful talk about inclusion and access at the heart of any endeavour to establish new programmes of sports activity. Individuals would be categorised by their level of competitive excellence, rather than specific impairment. There would be a far bigger challenge to the notion of segregating competitors by the level to which you are deemed to possess an impairment. 'Deemed' being the operative word - as judgements by their nature can never get away from degrees of subjectivity.

I think the Arts can help inspire Disability Sport to reflect on any baggage it carries. Sure the Arts are about achieving personal best in some sense. But the drive to make quality art is not about achieving a cure to attain the perfect body - which is at the root of the hangover that media representation portrays when covering Disability Sport.

Why does someone with an impairment have to be labelled 'incredible' in order to take part in a sports competition? Isn't it about the fact that everyone is unique in some ways - and that difference is inspiring? Which brings me to Jon Adams 'Look About.' In his initial question on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/vsa123#!/topic.php?uid=188111380901&topic=20830 Jon has approached the Social Model from another approach. He asks 'Where do you see the biggest 'faults' involving Deaf and disabled artists in the Arts landscape?' The Social Model emphasises the 'fault' that lies with society rather than with the individual - but can we be so blase?

From a personal perspective - living with M.E. means I am disabled by the stresses of living in a competitive society. I can easily forget my own name, such is the impact that being placed in a competitive situation has. With M.E. comes a cortisol imbalance that places the body in a perpetual state of fight or flight. And one of the key barriers is the impact this has on the function of memory.

The irony of thinking about Disability Sport is that competition is an access issue for me because of the levels stress it induces. An adjunct to the notion of being disabled by society, would be that I am disabled by competitive values in society. But it is up to me - not society to manage the impact of stress on my impairment. I am lucky to work in disability arts where individuals will often accommodate stress as a factor in my accessing working relationships. But the variables are so great wouldn't there be something faintly ridiculous about me expecting society to try to qualify what would be a recommended level of access? At the end of the day whether I 'have a disability' or I am disabled, I just have to get on with it as best I can.

I am not of the ‘hunting shooting fishing brigade’, I just know and appreciate the level of skill and dedication of training it takes to hold still enough to put a pellet through a 1mm target centre at 10 meters so I was pleased to be asked to attend the IPC Shooting World Cup which Accentuate had helped to sponsor.

As it was an early start the next day I chose to stay the night before as Stoke Mandeville is not an easy train journey in the morning. Heading up from Portsmouth on a near empty train at 4pm left me thinking about my ‘sporting life’. Not a very illustrious one, never good at running, jumping or swimming but I could throw things. The Javelin and shooting seemed to be as far as I could go. I even shot at University, kings having the only shooting range with a curve in it as it was formally part of the Underground. This all came to a stop in the late 80’s and early 90’s where changes in the law made it increasingly difficult to own a gun or even find a place to practice so I gave it up. I do wonder if with practice I would have made something off it as when I get interested I tend to go all out for it!!

London at 5:30pm is never a good time, so the underground – the short journey was an affront to my ‘aspergers induced’ definition of personal space. Even the train out of Marylebone was fast but full so I was looking forward to getting there and after a short taxi ride I checked in to the hotel. I tend to stay in the same chain when I go away – another ‘aspie’ thing – I know what I am getting.

A quick meal of very dodgy ‘fish and chips’ and some ‘unwanted attention’ in the bar soon found me heading back to the room where I found myself drawn to a predictably ‘freakish’ article in the paper about a Chinese paraplegic pig and news of the unveiling earlier that day of a sculpture of Ronnie Barker. Dismayed by the images offen used to portray anything different I enveloped myself in Hot water with Irish coffee and soon summoned Sleep……..FAB

The next day, after arming myself with a reasonably complete breakfast and a taxi journey with a driver of dubious personal hygene, I found myself at Stoke Mandeville ahead of time. The shooting had started and I was asked if I would like to sit in and observe. As it was indoors ‘competition order’ was ‘decided’ using air weapons which meant the only sounds were the slight crack and instantaneous ‘clang’ of the pellet hitting the metal backstop. (I immediately felt I had to gather and started to record snippets of the sound)

The targets were all digitally monitored and displayed on the big screen (very high tech) which slightly distorted the appreciation of how small they were in reality. Each shot showed as a circle superimposed and layered on top or each previous one building quite complex patterns. This immediately triggered of some ideas for artwork again and I soon found I had some sketches in my pocket that I would take from this to complete later. As more guests were arriving we were shown up to the balcony for a wider panoramic view and conversations. Then after all had arrived we had a some welcoming words and were split into several different teams to be toured round the ‘ins and outs’ of competitive shooting – and then there were the rules….. As a person with Aspergers I like rules – what appeals to me is not just the feeling of ‘safety within a boundary’ – but when you know the rules - you know where you can push and break them. This is also the stage where ‘disability’ sports and ‘disability’ arts come apart in a disconformity that also unites the two as opposite ends of a spectrum.

I will explain: with the arts, well at least as far as I am concerned its an advanced ‘social model’ all the way but by necessity with the sports it’s a ‘medical model’ - but it seems to work, rather it has too. What I found interesting was that every stage, person and item is subject to rules and proofs – some multiply so as we were guided round backstage this became very apparent. (Also the level of skill and dedication common within all sports also became obvious too the deeper we looked.) Not only does the gun have to ‘conform’ to sizes, weights, shapes and lengths and power but so does the clothing in minute details. Centimetres, millimetres and grams count and ‘overlaps’ can make a difference. And then there is the ‘person’ – and this is where it’s diametrically opposite to how we as ‘neu artists’ in the disability cultural scene think. You have to ‘prove’ a physical disability and conform to a rule book several centimetres thick of ‘what is wrong with you’ and its all prescriptive and defined in detail. Interestingly despite all the rules regulations and definitions it still come s down to someone’s subjective judgement whether you are a ‘category S1 or S2! In the end.

I personally wouldn’t qualify to shoot as a disabled person – I never thought I would hear myself say this but I am not disabled enough and was told ‘would have to compete against normal shooters’ when I expressed an interest. (not my words I hasten to add!!!) Everything we think of and hold dear in this ‘Nueuworld’ of deaf and disabled artistry with regards to the ‘person and their work that counts not being defined by what’s wrong with you’ rapidly went out the window. But more shockingly I agree It has to be like that. Its this difference between arts and ‘paralympic sports’ that provides us with a commonality to work together as when you scratch beneath the surface you find we are all just people who try to the utmost of our being to do and be the best and to overcome the barriers others or ‘nature’ sets in front of us. Sometimes the opposites do attract.

The tours over all too quickly and after more conversations over lunch it was time to leave. This day left me deep in though on the train ride back in to London and somewhat determined to see what could be cross pollinated from the sports to the arts. There is certainly a need for discernable leadership and self dedication that’s common to both. You can’t drift even as a member of a team as the responsibility for ‘competing’ - taking part in a ‘team’ effort is down to you. To be the best or make a change takes time, effort sometimes above and beyond the ‘norm’ and can feel like endlessly swimming against the tide. But lasting change or recognition for your leadership as a prize has to be worth it but it can only be done in a measured and comparative way and with ‘quality of substance’ discernibly underpinning throughout.

Looking back as I write I feel that I learnt some valuable lessons. Not only was the event quality it was high quality, both in the presentation it gave to us and in the way it seemed to be run. I was very impressed. Inspired by conversations, thoughts and sights. (This was a totally fascinating hour and the lessons learnt and revelations will feed into th ‘look about’ map and film – more on which another time.)

Creative Landscapes is an Accentuate project being delivered by English Heritage and aims to commission Deaf and disabled artists to explore the historic environment culminating in new ways of seeing and accessing our Heritage Open Days (HOD). By involving disabled artists within the wider programme of HOD events, the public profile of the artists themselves has been raised, but so too has the positive profile of disabled people more generally. As well as providing opportunity for established and emerging artists to showcase and build on their work, it has provided the general public of all ages and abilities with positive disabled role models.

On the Sunday afternoon I headed along Hastings seafront on my handcycle with the sun shining, the wind in my hair and my two year old running along behind me screaming, ‘mummy, mummy, come back muuuummmyy!’ – it was almost relaxing, but such is the reality of working at the weekend! My decision to bring some of my family along, I thought, would help me to see how engaging the HOD events would be for people of different ages with differing interests and differing needs, as well as allowing me to combine it with exploring Hastings more generally as a family day out. As a family we had all come to Hastings back in the spring to enjoy the vibrant Jack in the Green celebrations (if you’ve not been, I definitely recommend it!). I remember it being very crowded and struggling somewhat with a number of access issues, but my overriding memory is of working our way out of the crowds and falling upon this wonderful place that is called the Stade. I think we were all rather taken with it and we had resolved to return on a less crowded day to really explore what it had to offer.

So here we were headed for the fishing quarter. For anyone who isn’t familiar with the tall, tarred, wooden huts that tower above the shingle beach I must tell you that you are missing a visual treat. The Net Shops are huts built tall to save on space and with the function of providing space for the fishermen’s nets to be dried. The Hastings fishing fleet is unusual in that they launch their boats from the beach as they have traditionally done for centuries. There is no harbor or port. The Fishermen’s Museum is well worth a visit if you are interested in the history of the fleet and as it was open as part of the Heritage weekend I popped in on my visit. I’m a sucker for anything fish so I enjoyed reading and hearing the collection of oral testimonies of life in the fleet. I lost my partner for some time to a film of sea rescues, and lost my daughter in a large fishing boat. The welcome in the museum was warm and the artifacts at times interesting, at times unusual and at times comical. A suit made of silver winkles and photos and newspaper clippings charting the antics of Biddy the Tub Man did well to illustrate the buzz and vibe that has centred around The Stade over the years. The more I saw, the more I was falling in love with the place and with such a rich history who could fail but to be inspired.

Sally Booth, Creative Landscape’s artist in residence, has been drawing on this heritage to inspire her work over recent months. She has been working from a studio opposite the Net Shops and from on the beach itself, soaking up the atmosphere and translating it into images, some on balsa wood. To find out more about how Sally approaches her work, you would do well to read her interview with Colin Hambrook at dada-south http://www.dada-south.org.uk/blog.php I would have liked to have seen more of Sally’s work first hand, but having missed her exhibition at the House of Hastings I am instead making do with a postcard of “Nets and Rain, Hastings” which is pride of place on our fridge at the moment and drawing enthusiastic comments from all our guests. When I met Sally on The Stade she was emerging from a timber-framed ‘beach hut’ with walls of semi-transparent screens. From within this drawing tent participants were being encouraged to draw or trace what they could see through the walls directly on to the screens. My two year old added her scribble at floor level in the spirit of joining, in whilst others of different heights added their own views to the ever growing art work. It was an interesting exercise to take part in as it really encouraged you to look at the detail and form of the things around you, things that you may have otherwise not appreciated in such depth, or even noticed at all. Being almost hidden behind the screens I felt quite voyeuristic as I observed and recorded the activities of other visitors milling around outside. I was quite happy nestled there between the Net Shops, drawing in the sunshine and soaking up the atmosphere of The Stade, all of which, I guess, was Sally’s intention.

My partner, not so keen on staying in one place for any amount of time, was not so easily engaged and I had soon lost him to the Net Shop next door where archive films were showing. Having retrieved him we raced a few doors down and slipped into the Shipwreck Museum just before closing. My partner managed to secure time for me and the little one to have a good nose around by collaring the curator as he shut up shop, and quizzing him on the 1749 Amsterdam shipwreck (still visible at low tide at Bulverhythe). The day was finished perfectly with a fresh fish roll cooked on the beach and eaten whilst perching on an enormous old anchor amongst the boats. We animatedly shared the things we had explored and discovered, and eked out the last of the sunshine and a beautiful day out.

Whilst there were several art based events from Creative Landscapes on offer in Hastings, unfortunately I was only able to attend one. Ones that I missed included Penny Pepper’s screening of her film about Hastings Bonfires and the spoken word open mic evening accompanying it. I would have also enjoyed seeing the exhibition of Sally Booth’s work inspired by the Net Shops and Stade, and the illustrations that were inspired by the theme of ‘seaside’ and produced on acetate by families in her drop in participatory sessions. I also missed an art trail featuring both Sally’s work and that of Lynn Weddle (another of Creative Landscape’s artist in residence), whose photography aimed to capture the characters on The Stade. Lynn also worked with 4 participants from Autism Sussex whose photographic work and recorded captions I would have also liked to have seen. Venues opening for the HOD weekend have been working with the Creative Landscapes team towards becoming more accessible and welcoming to disabled visitors and reassuringly, my reasons for missing these gems had nothing to do with lack of good physical access and more to do with the days they were on in relation to my busy schedule! A real shame to have missed them though – perhaps next year it would be possible to run all the events on all of the four open days?

So, I have shared with you an overview of my day out in Hastings and told you about some of the events we went to and participated in. You know the sun was shining and I have a growing love for this interesting old town, but whilst you may (or may not) have enjoyed reading about it, what was the point of me telling you? What does it matter that I had a good day out? Well, the point is just that, I was able to tell you I had had a good day out! What I mean is that for many people having a day out and it running to plan without any unexpected problems or challenges arising along the way is probably pretty standard fare. However, for disabled people, such as my self, this is often not the case. To go for a day out and not experience any barriers around access, to be welcomed to participate in an interactive art project, and to have been able to appreciate some of our local heritage without any hitches is actually not the norm. So whilst Heritage Open Days may seem like a sure fire enjoyable way to spend a day for most people, for myself I was at first apprehensive.

My apprehension is well-founded and based on both past and recent experiences of going out … well, just about anywhere. Whether it’s getting in local shops, using my local branch of Nat West, crossing the park to town, navigating cracked and uneven pavements, being unable to locate available blue-badge parking, being stared at, being ignored, or just being refused entry altogether, poor access in both the built environment and in attitudes and service delivery are what do tend form the standard fare of a disabled person’s day out. This is not to say it is all-consuming but it is there and it is a reality, and it can change a good day out into a bit of an ordeal or even into a complete write-off. So when I am able to recount to you my day out in Hastings, I am sharing with you a positive experience that a non-disabled reader may take for granted, and also that a disabled reader may be reassured by (particularly if they are considering taking advantage of HOD in years to come).

So, what helped to make this such a positive experience? Making old buildings accessible to all is always going to prove a tricky one. Finding the balance between preserving something from the past (often not physically accessible) with the opportunity to share it with our present and future generations is not an easy task. Don’t worry this is not going to turn into a rant about poor access. This is an opportunity to see how things can work. After speaking to Liz Porter (Creative Landscapes team) and Theresa Hodge (HOD steering group and coordinator for the evening entertainment event) I was able to appreciate that this is only the beginning of the journey. Despite a lot of hard work and effort in a relatively short space of time, these are only the first footsteps in the march towards disabled people being able to freely access their heritage.

HOD is a nationwide initiative with doors opening all over the country. My home town of Seaford opened the doors of it’s Martello Tower which houses our local museum. It is not somewhere I have ever been able to go in, or am ever likely to be able to go in. It is the nature of the building; small, round and based on several floors down steep and narrow stairways, that makes things difficult. To add any access solutions would interfere with the look and structure of the building to such an extent it would no longer represent itself in the form in which we are trying to preserve. However with my ‘can do’ mind set I am thinking of the ways in which the contents of the museum can still be accessed by anyone with limited mobility. Bringing artifacts to other venues for the day and developing online slide shows and commentary are just a couple of ways things can be improved.

I know that a lot of organizations in Hastings (and in Gosport) came forward to learn how they could make their events more accessible and it is on this enthusiasm that I hope things will build and indeed spread further afield. The Accentuate program will run for another two years and so the prompting, guidance and encouragement for further steps to be taken should help to establish this way of thinking as ‘the norm’ and see many more improvements in future years. This year was by no means perfect, there were of course hitches and learning points along the way, but the key thing is that it is happening. So I would like to thank all those organizations that got involved this year and to reassure them that as far as at least this disabled visitor is concerned, it is worth the effort you are making and worth building on. It won’t happen overnight and it will take real commitment to keep it sustainable, but it will also make a real difference and allow many, many more people to enjoy our heritage, and to have many, many more good days out!

As a disabled artist, I have been circumspect at best and dubious at worst, around the Paralympics. The political fissures between disabled sportspeople and artists are well engrained, and each have operated in silos in the past, but London 2012 is seen as an opportunity of bring these two communities together. Personally, I am fundamentally lazy and totally devoid of any sporting prowess, and could not understand why someone would be themselves through such pain and hard work needed to enter a sporting arena, little lone a podium . Politically, I suspected that Paralympic sport was primarily viewed, by a non-disabled audience, as an exercise in overcoming the odds, or worst still, a series of activities rather than elite sporting events. Also, I assumed that those disabled people involved were somehow seeking acceptance, by engaging on the peripheries of non-disabled pursuits and being an adjunct to the main event.

All these vague and ill-informed notions were roundly and gratifyingly challenged as real people told their stories, explained their motivations and, more importantly, displayed their talents. The personal and political became entwined, and whilst some themes rung true for me as an artist, others inspired a far deeper understanding of those pursuing their sporting dreams. The commonalities were eloquently captured by one Paralympian’s observation that Jimmy Saville was a ‘bit of a twat’ – we do all know the score, after all!

The ‘blood, sweat and tears’ of Paralympians often have different, and added dimensions to those of their non-disabled counterparts, with a trauma or accident providing a turning point or catalyst for the individuals involved. Their stories feature accidents, medical interventions and life-changing re-evaluations. This could easily have become a ‘pity-fest’ concentrating on damage rather than opportunity, doors shutting rather than opening. However, fact outweighed sentiment, with real people revealing real experiences as their motivations, choices and ambitions came to life. Medical interventions, operations and expertise were never far from the surface, but once again, my fears were allayed, as the athletes were shown in positions of knowledge and control, rather than as unsuspecting individuals placed under the microscope at the behest of the medical profession, or viewing public.

The focus was on a celebration with beautiful and athletic bodies, stylistically set in iconic places. A game of wheelchair rugby on the Woolwich Ferry, dressage in the Royal Albert Hall set to Swan Lake and football amongst the artefacts of a darkened and deserted British Museum. These landscapes were evocative and thrilling backdrops to the individual and collective endeavours in pursuit of excellence. The imagery was stunning, and promoted disability sport with coffee table elegance.

So, in conclusion, the Olympian ethos, experience and camaraderie came alive as we were placed in the minds and bodies of elite sportspeople as they prepared for 2012. The celebration of the body, in its many and varied forms challenged stereotypes and assumptions – even my own, as a ‘right-on’ disabled man. How these stories will unfold in dramatic conclusions in 2012 has got me hooked. Rarely has sport been presented with such care, honesty and joy, and how gratifying to watch disabled athletes the leading the way. I shall be booking my tickets as soon as possible!

Gaming! is an Accentuate project run in partnership with Creative Junction that aims to engage young people in the production of a new interactive computer game celebrating the inspirational story of Stoke Mandeville and the Paralympics. As well as involving disabled and non-disabled young people in it’s creation it’s wider engagement with people of all ages and abilities who play the game itself will spread the positive image of participation by disabled people in the mainstream. The project began in January and has included 18 students from Chalfonts Community College in Buckinghamshire who were studying for a Creative and Media Learning Diploma (examined by AQA-City & Guilds). These students were joined by game designer Tom Scutt who also worked on Tomb Raider and he worked with them to develop their ideas into a tangible reality.

I enjoyed hearing first hand from the students what their brief had been, what ideas they’d had and the decisions they’d made along the way. They talked a lot about team work and opportunity and gave the sense that they had valued and enjoyed the experience. The students had worked in groups to come up with themes around Paralympic sports and what it takes to be a Paralympian. There were ideas around wheelchair racing and marathons, passing iconic landmarks and avoiding barriers but the idea that was chosen and developed into the final game was around Wheelchair Basketball. This idea may have been inspired by a session the students enjoyed with a local wheelchair basketball team and the enigmatic Ade Adepitan!

The game itself is great! I am of course a little biased as it is based on my former sport but as the students themselves said, they wanted to create something simple and addictive. Reports back from those I have sent a link to have confirmed that it is certainly addictive! Whilst I can’t get off level one I have friends desperate to get beyond level 7. The premise is that you collect gems as they appear on the court and build up levels of ‘paralympic qualities’ like determination or inspiration or respect etc. You also collect medals and facts about the Paralympics. You are introduced to another player that you compete against and need to avoid crashing in to on higher levels and it is all set within a time limit. What happens at the end? If I ever get there I will let you know! I have been told that there is still time for feedback and suggestions for any tweaking are welcome. For myself I would like to see the names of the GB Wheelchair Basketball Squads up there (perhaps with their classification points and a little biog as well) and have the opportunity to select one of them to be my named player. I quite fancy putting some of my old team mates through their paces!

The launch event allowed me the opportunity to meet and chat with some of the parents of the students as well as the students themselves. One quite engaging conversation about possible ways people with more restricted upper body mobility might be able to play the game led on to all the amazing and clever types of IT equipment that can be used to aid learning for students with dyslexia. This in turn developed into a wider discussion around the levels of support that many of our children need in order to navigate the style of learning we present in our schools (don’t get me started!). Mulling this over after the event has again raised for me bigger questions around equality and access to education and to opportunity generally. Surely there is inherent disadvantage and inequality in a system that requires need for and a dependence on parental money, support, energy, time and know-how of ‘the system’ just to get disabled children to the starting line, let alone enabling them to start playing on an (un)even playing field? There is an assumption that these things are all in place and are in never ending supply. I hear these same things again and again in conversations with parents of disabled children. I know parents who have had to stop working in order to have the time to support their child and fight for statements that cover their child’s needs effectively. Navigating these systems, attending tribunals, meetings with schools, teachers, therapists, doctors, psychologists etc as well as the care, support and nurturing of a child (and probably other siblings) hardly leaves room to hold down a job and deal with the emotional and mental drain and frustration that comes with it all. How independent and empowered can disabled children feel as they grow into adults if they are witness to this scale of upheaval for their parents, other family members and of course themselves? By the time a lot of children get the support they need they have fallen so far behind and established patterns of behaviour in response to not having their needs met that are then very difficult to unlearn. Opportunity should be a given for all children, not just something for those who have an army of able challengers fighting to get them through, and these opportunities should not be one-off and tick-box either. They need to be sustainable.

Anyway, I digress. The parents and students I met at the launch were charming, engaging and full of enthusiasm for this project and what they had achieved. One student I was introduced to was Jenny Sands who is to be the Our View ambassador for Gaming! Using the skills she is learning in her course she will be making a film to help promote the game and give an introduction to how it was made. She is at the beginning of this process now and will be interviewing the students who created the game about their experiences to inform her work. I look forward to seeing it! If you would like to play the game you can access it through the CCC website http://www.createcompetecollaborate.org.uk/ccc_programme/wheels_of_glory.html Good luck and enjoy!

I found the approach to disability in terms of sport and working towards the paralympics was very different from my personal and professional perspective. For me in my daily life, the social model approach, while not the answer to everything related to disability, is my preferred approach. Here I found that a person's impairment and level of impairment was the main measure for what sport was appropriate and at what level they competed. The focus here was on competition and striving to be better than others by aiming to do one's best performance possible. With sport, there are objective ways to assess performance, not so with art, which is much more subjective.

I wonder - can we only be successfully active or only successfully artistic? Or is aiming to be both realistic or possible? If we aim to be good at both, does that preclude being excellent at either? And is the main thing, if you are a disabled person, to have the same opportunities as non disabled young people, whether art or sport is your interest? In my experience, disabled children are often steered towards certain activities, based on the assumptions of others about what their capabilities are.

Another issue for me was that inevitably, it is those children who have adult support who will succeed - all the children had been brought to Stoke Mandeville by their parents or guardians. How many children who have the ability to be paralympians but don't have this support will be "spotted" and encouraged?

The speaker for the day was a paralympian snowboarder who held a group of parents and children spell bound with her story and pictures and had three bits of advice, of which I am sorry to say I only remember two: have a plan and never give up.

I took a few photos - no, not of the children but of the accessible loos - just because they were such a good example!

Yes - I have had to accept that I am disabled - often or not by other people or society and thats not an excuse, get out or reason to \'misbehave\'...and yes I feel that now I am almost that artist I deamed about at the age of six. Too long I have been \'outside\' but then again I like being \'Outside\'? I like being an \'Outsider artist\' too - a definition applied to me I am far happier about than \'Disabled artist\' whom some assume I care to be labled as - well I don\'t, thats something I personally wouldn\'t do. It does not mean I turn my back and diys-regard all things \'Disability arts\'.

Then there is my work which to me is not \'disability arts\' and so not \'limited\' by that designation or the \'view\' - good or bad that seem to trot behind that definition. All my work ismultilayered and is however informed by me, and not just my dyslexia or my aspergers but my upbringing, my likes, my dys-likes, my dreams as a child, the trips each christmas to the Lakes, the caves on Malta I visited at 8 years old, the first book I read all the way through (treasure Island and I nbought it for 12.5 pence!), the times I was abused at school, the times I have found love, the discrimination, Cornwall\' rocks and beaches, a Tangerine dream concert in 1976 and on and on and on - I won\'t stop the list is endless. The influences are wider than meer words but they are all experienced and seen through \'my eyes\' and those eyess that have known nothing other than the inability to read or the desire to \'place in order\'.

I guess I am saying I have learnt to be open - neutral - unrestricted - unlimitted in both influence, autobiographical opportunity and medium. If you felt it - there is no reason why you can\'t express it through your artwork and if others can \'read\' between the lines of your work it dosent have to come with a label.

My identity starts at home, wallowing amongst the detritus of the places I occupy, the family I am blessed with, the friends I manage to retain, the interests I stubbornly follow, the outward appearances I conjure up, the thoughts I manage to construe and the dubious principles I live by. Moment to moment my story has unfolded - often mundane, usually bizarre, occassionally exciting - and these moments have cumulated to create the person I now am. The pages are being filled in, and this incomplete ´special interest\' manuscript reveals my identity. \'This One\'s On Me\' (clever, eh?) is hopefully a little way off general release!

A million bizarre and random instances have combined to propel my story thus far, and the journey which I continue too travel; a set of fluid, complex and infinate unknowns and possibilities. The anticipation and discovery of what exists around the next corner, is to my mind, the most compelling reason for continuing on the journey.

However, there are a few constants, anchors which remain fixed no matter how life\'s rich tapestry unravels. For me, disability is one of these; whatever occurs I am, have been and will always be disabled. The Lourdes option never seemed relevant, appealing or feasible. I ain´t broke, so don´t need fixing. The concept that we require mending, is to varying degrees, ridiculous, offensive, and incredibly pyschologically damaging.

These assumption that we need correcting, coupled with the preditctable failure of attempts to do so, is a harmful double whammy for young disabled people trying to negotiate their rightful place in an often hostile world. Formative years can be spent desperately clinging onto traces of identity and self-worth, against a backdrop of negative interventions, assumptions and stereotypes. Growing up many moons ago, I remember many of my non-disabled friends spouting mohicans and associated acoutremants in brash attemps to get noticed. I, on the other hand, was being manhandled into calipars, and undergoing elecution lessons for ´the hard of speaking´ in order to prevent me from getting noticed. Needless to say, these interventions were in vain, as my unusual gait and voice patterns won out, and trumped my friends´ unsightly mops in the ´standing out´ stakes!

Cut to some twenty, or thirty years later(!), and my formative years are distant memories as I am now beseiged by middle age. The anger, self-denial, lack of confidence and confusion of growing up, are largely forgotten chapters. In the main, I care less what the world makes of me, safe in the knowledge, that my own battles, negotiations and interactions, have created an enviroment that suits me, an identity which fits me. Obviously buttons still get pushed, injustices still depress, people still infuriate and barriers still exist. However, I am happy in my skin, comfortable in my body, and understand that my disability is part of my DNA, my biography and at the core of who I am. So, I have had little choice and even less inclination to deny or hide my disability, and this realisation has led to liberation and, on occasion, celebration.

The experience of disability is consequently present in all my work. New stories, experiences and perspectives should be the lifeblood of the arts, and should consequently place disabled artists, so long ignored or marginalised, at the forefront of creative practice and innovation. Initiatives are being aimed at disabled people, in attempts to redress some of the traditional exclusions, inequalities and scarcity of opportunities. Our part of the deal should be, at the very least, to be upfront, confident and savvy as disabled people and artists.

Much debate has ensued on spreading the net and ensuring inclusion of disabled people in the widest sense, or put another way, finding disabled people who may not yet identify as ´disabled´? We want to get people on board, whilst not causing offence. Controversy surrounds ´tick-boxing´, or ´coming out` as disabled in order to benefit from these opportunities and initiatives.

My own view is a more robust approach is required, with ´disability´ being far more than a convenient currency or accessory which can be produced, or hidden when suits. I understand that people have different experiences and journeys, and just as I have chosen my own path, so others have every right to make their own choices, and create their own identities. However, the denial of, or apology for disability does unfortunately preserve the status quo, consolidate inequalities and create less interesting art.

My work does not normally explicitly reference disability, just as I do not normally arise everyday contemplating another morning with a disability. I contemplate the day ahead, from the fuzzy, strange and inconsistent perspective of ´Jamie´, the ingredients of which are many and varied. My experience of, and relationship to disability is essential to this mix, and any attempt at ommission would leave me incomplete, and fail to tell the whole story.

Is it so much better now that we have Andy in Little Britain, rather than Sandy in Cross Roads? Isn't most television disability representation just tragic bravery from a new stance?

The review has evoked some interesting responses from DAOs readership

http://www.disabilityartsonline.org.uk/?location_id=1201

My report (see download) also looks at how English Heritage will use this project as an example of good practice that will influence Heritage Open Days across the UK up to and beyond 2012

How far the recent change of Government and associated priorities will disrupt our slow march to inclusion remains to be seen, and I fear initiatives such Accentuate will continue to be the exception, rather than the norm. We are, therefore, duty bound to make the most of the opportunities presented , and ensure our heads remain above the parapets. New voices, perspectives and talents should be the lifeblood of creativity and innovation, thereby placing those coming in from the shadows in the box seat for delivering important and relevant work.

As a theatre practitioner, I have been fortunate to work, both, in disability arts, and the ‘mainstream’, and the relationships and indices between the two sectors is a recurrent source of debate. Cracking the ‘mainstream’ is increasingly considered the height of ambition and testament to ‘making it’. Whilst seeking a broad audience for your work is right and proper, the mainstream does not necessarily confer validation, and often involves compromise. Integrity underpins good art, and where principles, concepts or access are subsumed by the need to gain lazy acceptance from ‘the great and the good’, the end result can be diluted and make little lasting impression. An inferiority complex is suggested, as the desperate quest to satisfy the tastes and value-systems of others, replaces the confidence and belief to maintain creativity integrity. Disabled people have been marginalised, and there is an understandable tendency to gratefully accept whatever crumbs fall our way. However, the sooner we realise what we have to offer, and our right to make this offer, the sooner we can stop ‘doffing our caps’, and boldly take our places at the top table.

How you position yourself can seem as important as the art you create. The two are inextricably linked, and identity is integral to the creative process. My disability is part of my make up and informs much of what I do. However, we all have innumerably facets that combine in unique, fluid and random ways which come together to constitute our sense of identity. There is undoubtedly a collective understanding of discrimination and exclusion amongst disabled people, but we need to recognize the differences that exist within our communities. If Accentuate can bring together these diverse and varied communities – not least, the traditionally divergent sporting and artistic sectors – both our commonalities and differences can be springboards for exciting collaborations and new relationships and visions.

Right, I’m banging on a bit, so I’ll take my leave! Suffice to say, I hope Accentuate in general, and Our View in particular, will open up debates old and new, and encourage conversations not previously held.

These I use to weave into my work as an artist, I also still stay unlabled,I am not determined by them but by the experiences I have been through. Looking at others who are 'ruled' by names, lables and descriptions dismays me. Sure we have to remember and give the past its due - but we are not defined by what we have had done to us but by what 'we do now'.

Its been a tough journey but I am that artist now but the grown up part is still touch and go. I am very contrary on the one hand I love books and the subtlty of language but am dyslexic. I am also aspergers and this I do fight and am less comfortable with. They are both me….the rest is a mix, a melange of accumulated and fragmented experiences. What people see in us is not always what we intend…

I am what I reveal and what I reveal I am…

I know barriers and boundaries and those cruel lessons learnt at school still stay with me however I have learnt to be positive and use these autobiographical experiences within my work. Having never trained as an artist I just just drifted into professional and ‘obsessive’ ‘illustration’ after finishing my geology degree in 1983. I have always stayed ‘outside’ both socially and in my relationship with both the mainstream and disability arts scenes.

In the last 6 years with some encouragement I have lived my ‘artist dream’ self-defining as an ‘outsider’ artist (I am not a disabled artist nor ashamed of my disability – although I used to be for many years) I have learnt and I feel what stops us mainly is ourselves; we draw lines in the sand and boundaries on the ground not to keep others out but ourselves in.

I will bring this experience with me to Accentuate and push for a revolution, a ‘sea change’, but it has to be a change from the ‘inside out’. Excitingly there is a new movement arising in the South East where we are being defined by what we can ‘do’ and not by what others see is ‘wrong with us’.

If we change ourselves, we then change others opinions and attitudes when they ‘see us’….. we change 'their view' as well as 'ours'

I have been engaged with the survivor movement since the mid-1980s, having lived with a variety of mental health labels, as well as M.E. Disability has been the bedrock of my life experience; and I consider myself very lucky to have found a place in the world where my art and my writing fit the bill.

I’ve seen a lot of changes and developments. The past ten years, in particular, have seen the sense of community, based on pride in difference, become fragmented, as expectations have become a lot higher. The Disability Arts Forums that supported our community arts endeavours have gone or rebranded their aims and vision, as the criteria for funding have changed; and the focus has turned to finding partners and allies in the mainstream of arts activities.

However, disability, deafness, difficulty and impairment continue to be emotionally laden terms that we grapple with and argue over. Across the spectrum, we are a community of cousins, embracing difference – and looking for roads that broach the barriers that continue to prevent us from taking an equal part in society.

I am looking forward to taking a pro-active role with Accentuate. The programme has the potential to make disabled peoples' unique vision and experience of the world visible to a wider chunk of society. As an Our View core advisory member, I hope to take a part in ensuring this happens as an exciting array of arts activity gets underway.

There are some fantastic projects being devised and I look forward to having contact with the artists and the arts managers who are engaged with developing programmes under the Accentuate banner.

Equality and inclusion are central in my outlook and I hope that both my work and personal experiences will provide a sound basis for my contributions to Our View and help to steer Accentuate towards achieving what looks like a fantastic programme of opportunity across sport, arts, culture and beyond.

I believe that initiatives that bring people together can encourage an awareness and respect for individuality.They can help us to understand more about people’s abilities and differences. I have a strong interest in community cohesion and I work with others in my home town to organise free projects and events that bring people together and add vibrancy to where we live. We do fun things and make things happen but it’s the journey towards doing them that makes it meaningful for me. The building of relationships, the empowerment and the coming together is what it’s all about! Seeing how different people draw on their personal experiences, their culture, their beliefs, their abilities and strengths makes for a rich environment and helps to break down barriers.

I have far more faith in these bottom-up approaches to change as they come from the heart and are generally delivered by those with direct experience of the issue being addressed. That’s what I hope Our View will be able to do for Accentuate- to allow those with personal experience of being Deaf and disabled to shape, direct and advise. We can make sure that Accentuate's approach to access and inclusion is well-informed and not tokenistic. We have the opportunity here to model good practice and hopefully that will inspire changes in equality, attitudes and understanding amongst other organisations and individuals across the South East as well.

As well as my own personal experience of being disabled I bring with me over 10 years experience working both directly and at strategy level with disabled children, young people and adults. My background is in advocacy, coaching, participation and consultation. I also deliver equality training to professionals. You can find out more about what I do on my web pages www.kristinaveasey.talktalk.net

In addition, I am also a former international athlete having competed in wheelchair basketball at both the Sydney and Athens paralympic games. I was also paralympic ambassador for Amnesty International during the games in Beijing. When I first discovered wheelchair basketball I was instantly hooked! I love its fast and furious nature and the total adrenalin buzz you get from playing a hard game. For anyone interested in playing wheelchair basketball you can find out more information through the GBWBA website www.gbwba.org.uk

Having now retired from the basketball scene I can now be found, more often than not, in some rather stylish welly boots trying to grow vegetables in the garden (and I do mean trying – watering is not my strong point and we currently have a nice array of dried up something-or-others forming a delightful feature in the far bed!). I also enjoy painting and photography and facilitate community projects and exhibit in local exhibitions.

p>I went to the Deaf Culture day at Hamilton Lodge School in Brighton - stalls included deaf art and physical fitness training and the sussex deaf history website was launched - well worth a look - we need a connection to this www.sussexdeafhistory.org.uk

I’ve worked for myself since 1998 as an access, diversity and equality consultant and trainer – have a look at www.sarahplayforth.com and I’m also a Lay Member for Employment Tribunals. My driving passion for fairness and equality for all, focussing mainly on access and inclusion for deaf and disabled people dates back to my teenage years and influences everything I am and all I do.

Before I took a life changing camel trek in the Sinai desert (the first of three – and hopefully of more) in 1998, I had a long career in public librarianship, always with a strong focus on how to make sure everyone, whatever their background and circumstances could use their local library. After the camel trek, I realised I needed to move on – even though I had a senior position and knew I would lose financial security and a lot of pension, I felt I had to have the space to be myself and follow my passion. What a risk – but one I have never regretted taking. It’s been tough at times but I manage lots of fun too - here I am on a work trip – you can see one of my weaknesses only too well!

The appointment of the Our View Core group is very nearly complete, bringing together an exciting wealth of experience and expertise across arts, museums, culture, performance, sport, communication, persuasion and strategic development. An exciting, talented and diverse group with real potential to challenge and influence; I’m really looking forward to working with them.

One of my first tasks was to check in with all Accentuate Project Officers to say hello, and find out where they are at with appointing their Our View Project People. Projects vary hugely in their stage of delivery, and stage of ‘Our Viewness’. Some have their Project People up and running already, some are in the process of appointing, others are in need of a bit of support. As each project is different, so is each Project Person role. What is shared, is the ability of a disabled person, as an employee to have a real influence over how their project is delivered.

Over the coming months I’m looking forward to putting more faces to names and in the process travelling further a field in the South East. I’m also looking forward to bringing people together, initially the Core Group, but then in the Summer creating an opportunity for Our View Project People and Core Group to come together to network and share experiences.