DIY: 2010 – Sean Burn and Tim Rubidge – Writing on Air

DIY 7: 2010 – Call for Participants

together we will reclaim languages surrounding disability using live writing, movement and other performance skills in a day of live and disability arts.

THIS DIY PROJECT IS NOW FULL

Project Summary:
we invite artists who identify as disabled to work with us and write on air. we believe that here in the north-east the disabled are too often excluded from cultural narratives and that work is made about us rather than with us. we want to throw out those labels used within arts, society, medicine, media, politics etc that frame us, and find ways of overcoming them. thru the day we will use theatre, dance, improvisation and live writing to explode some myths, challenge the ignorance and put in place some of our own reclamations. we are seeking out lines on a map of our own making, our own songlines in effect. the day will be a route, a map, a journey – a travelling and traversing, an unravelling even, that seeks to take us from that negative space and into a positive one, allowing our voices to be heard, allowing us to be seen. lunch will be provided and we will make a contribution to your travel costs. an additional support worker will be available on the day.

Dates, times and location(s):
10am – 4pm, thursday 26th august 2010
studio 3, dance city, temple street, newcastle upon tyne, ne1 4br.

Application procedure:
8 free places are available. no previous experience is needed. if you identify as disabled and would like to participate then please contact sean burn as soon as possible to book your place.
[email protected]
The deadline for applications is 16th July.

The Artists:

sean burn – we are surrounded, often defined by languages of all kinds, yet use them to free ourselves. i regularly challenge top-down narratives relating to psychiatry, a privileged form of storytelling and not a science, based on my own long-term history as (frequently enforced) mental health service-user. such creative work saw me short-listed for a dadafest 2009 disability arts award. i’m currently artist in residence with the new art gallery walsall in association with dash (disability arts shropshire) where i am reclaiming the ‘languages of lunacy’ (including challenging stigmatising language used in the local press) and offering up a body of work including live art performances as well as assemblages, film, sound and visual poetry. this residency is one of three under the collective title outside in seeking to place disability arts in the mainstream.

Tim Rubidge has made and presented solo and collaborative work nationally and internationally, working with many other artists and practitioners from a range of disciplines. He has also devised and led many ground-breaking participatory projects in a broad spectrum of social and environmental settings, being one of that generation that pioneered developing work in hospitals, prisons and with people with disabilities. In 2009 he was made a Visiting Fellow in Performing Arts at Northumbria University. For the last fifteen years he has lived at Burnlaw, a farm in the North Pennines of Northumberland, with the resources of shared studio and large, open landscape.

This DIY project is supported by The Live Art Development Agency, and takes place in relation toRestock, Rethink, Reflect Two, a programme of performances, screenings, discussion and publication about and around Live Art and disability, taking place in 2010/11.