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Arts
Latest news from the world of the Arts
A crisis of faith
Following the death of her husband Ralph who had contracted Parkinson’s disease Dr Lin Berwick tells Ian Macrae that she felt abandoned by her God. Now she’s written a book recounting how and why it happened
Abnormal: Towards a Scientific Model of Disability by Ju Gosling
Qvist Gallery, Hunterian Museum, London. Until Sat 14 January 2012.
Dolphin Tale or prosthetic fluke
They promised it was the movie to change lives. They promised it was so inspiring that you’d leave the cinema a totally different person, and if you were disabled – even better, you’d suddenly accept your disability because hey, if a dolphin can do it, so can you.
Sue Eckstein: interpreting life
Her day job is lecturing in medical ethics, and in her personal life she’s recently undergone surgery to amputate a limb. She’s also just published her second novel. Ian Macrae has been hearing more about her own and her characters’ stories
Genie Cosmas: 20 years on Stream
Twenty years is a long gap between albums in anyone’s career. But as Genie Cosmas tells, for her it was all tied up with her feelings for her own label, Stream Records
Edinburgh jottings
With Festival nights now a distant memory, Penny Pepper reflects back on a week spent at Europe’s biggest cultural event
Fringe benefits: Edinburgh 2011
This year’s Edinburgh Fringe programme has been the biggest to date, with over 2,500 shows from around the world, and it has its usual crop of disabled performers. We asked Lucy Howard to run down what’s been on offer
Nudity...disability...culture
“Disability culture has never spoken as loud as women’s culture or black culture”, says artist Tanya Raabe. “It’s going to disappear if we don’t preserve it in some way or other.” That’s what she set out to address in her exhibition Revealing Culture: HeadOn. She talks to Annie Makoff and selects images from the show to look at in detail
Designing for Bespoke solutions
From gratifying sexual positioning to a hospital gown which doesn’t leave your dignity in shreds, Mike Shamash checks out a variety of products designed with disability in mind and on show at a mainstream design exhibition
Institutional echoes
Shortlisted for two major literary awards, Grace Williams Says It Loud by Emma Henderson could easily disappoint the discerning disabled reader. But, says Agnes Fletcher, instead it strikes a number of chords
Sign when you're winning
It’s a hip-hop combination like no other: signed rap from Marko Vuoriheimo, over low heavy beats and coupled with English lyrics. But it’s all aimed at bringing deaf and hearing audiences together, as the man also known as Signmark tells Lucy Howard
All the stage's a world
Maria Oshodi was one of 50 women selected for the arts community’s Cultural Leadership Programme’s Women to Watch 2010 initiative which celebrates the achievements women have accomplished culturally and creatively. Her work, as Annie Makoff discovers, is a hotchpotch of tactile audience experiences and abstract theatricals
Crippen: caught in the act
Cartoonist Dave Lupton, aka Crippen, has found that current political events have forced him to sharpen his pen. But he’s found that this has also had an impact on his work elsewhere. In an extended email interview, he tells Disability Now about what gives his work its edge
Bamboo Grove
Bamboo Grove is the first novel by Romy Wood. In among the rich variety of subtly drawn characters and evocative atmospheres, Ian Macrae discovers that mental health is one of its central themes
DaDa Fest 2010
Poetry, installations, lectures, puppets, dance, song, video: Susan Bennett reviews Liverpool's celebration of Deaf and disability arts
The Pepper Diaries
Poet, performer, participant, Penny Pepper records her experience of DaDaFest, Merseyside's disability and Deaf arts festival
Liverpool's found its voice
Liverpool's Disability and Deaf Arts (DaDa) are getting ready to celebrate their tenth annual DaDaFest from 18 November to 6 December with theatre, performance art, dance, visual art, workshops, talks, conference and film on the theme of "objects of curiosity and desire". Kelly Mullan has been talking to its leading light
On the square: Liberty 2010 reviewed
In the shadow of Nelson's Column in London's Trafalgar Square, Penny Pepper took a tour of the attractions on offer at this year's disability arts fest
Fringe benefits: Edinburgh on wheels
Going the extra Royal Mile, Josh Hepple braves the cobbles to take in a selection of shows from this year's Edinburgh Fringe for Disability Now
A life and love of travel
Passionate Exile is a beautiful coffee table book, rich in colourful, exotic photography and fascinating, evocative travel journalism
That Glastonbury attitude
A club gig in London led to Bug Prentice being on this year's Glastonbury bill not once but twice. Founder, singer and guitarist with the band, Ally Craig tells Disability Now about how it started and where it's all going
Plinth has got a lot of bottle
The latest occupant of the empty plinth in Trafalgar Square reflects Nelson back to himself. But, says Kelly Mullan it also reflects only part of the artist's identity
Music on his mind
To people beyond the folk and roots cognoscenti, a new album from Texas-born Daniel Johnston may have little impact. But many recognise a unique talent and Johnston counts Tom Waits and Beck among his fans. Sunil Peck listens to his music and talks to him about his approach and his state of mind
Reasons to be partly cheerful
Ian Dury – The Definitive Biography by Will Birch (Sidgwick & Jackson)
Let your fingers do the singing
It’s proved a winning formula for Queen, Abba and Rod Stewart. String a bunch of hits together and link them with a feeble storyline. But Caroline Parker has taken this crowd-pleasing genre into her own speciality, signed song. Kelly Mullan found herself singing along with the rest
Not in the frame
From Jamie Foxx’s portrayal of a schizophrenic homeless man in Hollywood’s awards season favourite The Soloist to Sam Worthington’s paraplegic ex-Marine in James Cameron’s blockbuster Avatar, disability has been represented by some of the most influential director-actor combinations of the year. But, says Cathy Reay, directors continue to favour non-disabled actors
DaDaFest 2009 Liverpool
Shining through unprecedentedly wet and foul winter weather, Liverpool’s DaDaFest 2009 lived up to its reputation for showcasing amazing creations: everything from highlighting the bright future of young artistic talent in the World Museum exhibition, the scintillating burlesque of Millie Dollar, Mat Fraser’s barrier-breaking act Freak to Clique; and challenging discussions on sexuality
Kinshasa heat
From busking in their home city to a genre-defining funk album and sold out UK tour, Staff Benda Bilili are taking their unique Congolese sound around the world. Cathy Reay went to meet and see them in action
£3m for "Unlimited" 2012 arts package
Unlimited, a £3 million disability arts programme, was launched on 7 October as part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad. Unlimited is the UK’s largest ever disability arts programme
Serial kickers!
From the north-east of England comes Stranger Hero, the central character in an internet serial of the same name produced by Shoot Your Mouth Off, a small company with big ideas and, as they tell Paul Carter, the ambition to reach a wider public
Edinburgh snaps
Such is the diversity of stuff on offer at the Edinburgh Fringe that there’s plenty for our two disabled reviewers, Penny Pepper and Nathan Young, to sample
Glasto: Mud, Blur and bags of attitude
Cathy Reay and Paul Carter high-fived when they heard their next assignment involved hangin’ at Glastonbury 09. Then they heard that there would be a stage of disabled bands on one of the festival days, and hearts sank. Was this going to be some pitying “look at us – we’re special” show, or would people actually realise the musicians’ talent and forget that they might look a little different
Shaping up to 2012
The Cultural Olympiad may be all well and good, but, asks Kelly Mullan, do disability arts and sport make comfortable bedfellows
Rough Guide sill thin on ideas
As someone who loves to explore new places, and has taken Rough Guides many a time on my travels, I was keen to get my wandering hands on the newly published second edition of The Rough Guide to Accessible Britain.
Carry on Crippen!
Cartoonist Dave Lupton, aka Crippen, has a new e-book which is full of stereotype-busting sexy sauciness. Simon Parritt’s been giving it the eye
TV's Cast Offs no more
As Channel 4 announces its commissioning of what it hopes might be the equivalent for disability of Queer As Folk, Alison Walsh talks to Ian Macrae about her brave new venture
Off to a good Start on TV's Street
Liverpool-based scriptwriter and playwright Danny Start tells Disability Now about his latest break
Romancing the medical model
Chirpy optimist and Mills & Boon author Kate Hardy defends her genre with such vigour that cynic Kelly Mullan can’t help but be charmed
Later...with Heavy Load
Annie Makoff checks out the band behind a campaign to keep disabled people up late
An artist with a lot of bottle
Yinka Shonibare was born in London and grew up in Nigeria. Now his work is washing up on the shores of Australia and the USA, and it will soon be seen in Trafalgar Square. He talks to Kelly Mullan
Attitude is the cure for access ills
Long time access activist, campaigner and chief executive of Attitude is Everything, Suzanne Bull, on why the music industry can’t dis integration
Tripping the dadafantastic
Playwright Kaite O’Reilly sampled the feast of Deaf and disability culture at this year’s DaDaFest in Liverpool
A real page-turner
One publisher leads in accessible books for older children, says Katharine Quarmby
Touching art, touching you
Get past the schmaltzy, Alan Partridge-like title and Touching Art Touching You offers a revolutionary experience of visual art
From my bedroom to the Olympics
From dancing in her bedroom to entertaining 1.5 billion, CandoCo’s Victoria Malin tells Kelly Mullan how she made such a balletic leap
Swimming against the tide
This year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe features a solid line-up of disabled performers, says Kelly Mullan
Writing her own story
Sarah Anderson’s bookshop featured in Notting Hill. As her life story is published, she talks to Ian Macrae
Book review - Halfway to Venus: A One-Armed Journey
A request for assistance cutting up food leads to a jaw-droppingly ignorant comment from an airhostess, “Do you mind being my baby?” Thus Sarah Anderson felt compelled to write about what it’s like to live with one arm, in a two-armed world
Exhibition Review - ICTAL
The first of Gus Cummins’s prints took my breath away. “Post Ictal” is a series of disjointed, faded, overprinted words in tones of grey, a dialogue between someone post epileptic seizure, confused and desperately trying to remember and the “rescuer” repeating, repeating questions
Shaping the future of disability arts
Tony Heaton is lauded as “a sculptor of organisations” as well as a prolific maker of iconic disability art. As he takes up his role as chief executive of national deaf and disability arts organisation Shape he talks to Kelly Mullan
Co-operative Young Film Makers
The Co-operative Young Film Makers festival has been running since 1966, giving disabled and non-disabled young people from around the country a chance to showcase their skills on celluloid
Four fingers and thirteen toes
The opening chapters of Rosie’s autobiography alternate between the stories of her giving birth, the birth of Thalidomide and her own birth. Before you know it you are drawn into a story that makes you proud to be a disabled person, says Emma Bowler
Doing it for themselves
The women of Cooltan Arts, a mental health arts project based in Southwark South London, unveiled their collection of batik kimono designs on the catwalk during Alternative Arts Fashion Week.
Wanted! Disabled swingers
A disabled acrobat is hoping his volunteers will perform at the 2012 opening ceremony. Kelly Mullan reports
In the picture
An exciting books initiative is putting disabled children centre stage, says picture book writer Katharine Quarmby
Where sex is a...tube of toothpaste
Gareth Berliner tells Sunil Peck about the new show from Abnormally Funny People
The write stuff
Playwright Nicola Werenowska is finally realising her dreams of a theatre career, says Maxine Frances Roper
Not a Lotto for Arts Archive
A national archive in Dorset will highlight the work of the UK's most talented disabled artists, so why didn't it receive lottery funding? asks Lucy Howard.
Get in the festive spirit... it's panto time!
Oh no it isn't. Oh yes it is that time of year again when sleigh bells are ringing andall your favourite soap stars are singing or performing in a whole host of festive shows
Festival spirit
Summer is the season of disabled supershows and I love them. They’re a bit like Summertime Special with mobility scooters.