Access All Areas: Live Art and Disability (NYC edition)

Access All Areas: Live Art and Disability (NYC edition)
Saturday March 29, 2014
10am – 6pm

Free, but reservations must be made on www.abronsartscenter.org

Abrons Arts Center
466 Grand Street, 
New York, NY 10002

www.abronsartscenter.org

Access All Areas (NYC Edition) is a free, all day event looking at some of the radical approaches to the representation of disability by contemporary performance artists, particularly in the UK.

Access All Areas (NYC Edition) features durational performance-installations by UK artists Noemi Lakmaier and Martin O’Brien; live actions by Aaron Williamson and Leroy Franklin Moore Jnr.; provocations and debates on the cultural impact of disabled artists by UK and US practitioners including Mat Fraser, Sunaura Taylor, Carrie Sandahl, Sandie Yi, Amanda Cachia; screenings of UK based artists’ films and performance documentation including work by Bobby Baker, Katherine Araniello, the Disabled-Avant Garde, Brian Lobel, and others; and a bibliotheque of essential books and DVDs drawn from LADA’s Study Room.

The NYC Edition has grown from Access All Areas, a critically acclaimed public event and publication produced by the Live Art Development Agency in the UK in 2011 and 2012 as part of Restock, Rethink, Reflect Two on Live Art and Disability. The programme comes to New York at the invitation of the British Council and will complement Abron’s presentation of Mat Fraser & Julie Atlas Muz’s Beauty & The Beast. The NYC Edition builds on the original 2011 programme and invites US artists and audiences to join the conversation.

“Exciting, challenging & thought provoking are words that don’t really do justice to how inspiring the event was.”  Mary Paterson, writer, on the Access All Areas 2011 London event.

“A seminal publication, not only for the Disability Arts world which it exposes beautifully but for the wider arts community as it demonstrates how to make art books accessible.” A-N Interface, on the Access All Areas 2012 publication.

FULL ACCESS ALL AREAS (NYC EDITION) PROGRAMME DETAILS:

– Durational Performances:
10am to 6pm

Martin O’Brien (UK)
Mucus Factory

Presenting his body as a medical specimen, O’Brien subverts representations of people with severe illness as icons of bravery by presenting a transgressive image of what it means to live with a severe chronic illness such as Cystic Fibrosis.

Noëmi Lakmaier (UK/Austria)
Undress/Redress

Lakmaier explore the ambiguities of intimate interactions between the female, disabled body and the able bodied male, as a man slowly undresses and redresses a mute, passive woman over the course of many hours.

– Debates:
11am to 12.30pm
and
2.30pm to 4pm

Two panel discussions with provocations and lively debates by UK and US artists, academics and activists on the ways artists are working with Live Art and new performance to subvert expectations and representations of disability, and the ways disabled artists are challenging the possibilities of art and the experiences of audiences.

With contributions from Mat Fraser (UK), Carrie Sandahl (USA), Amanda Cachia (USA/Australia), Aaron Williamson (UK), Sunaura Taylor (USA), Sandie Yi (USA), Leroy Franklin Moore Jnr.(USA), Lois Keidan of LADA (UK).

– Screenings:
Talking Heads

12.30 to 1pm

LADA has commissioned four UK based artists to create short films about their practice especially for Access All Areas (NYC Edition). With Katherine Araniello, Bobby Baker, Sinead O’Donnell and Rita Marcalo.

Throwing The Body Into the Fight
4pm to 5pm

A LADA compilation of recent performance documentation and work to camera by some of the most challenging disabled artists working in the UK. Featuring Kim Noble, The Disabled Avant-Garde, sean burn, Brian Lobel and others.

Live Actions:
Between 5pm and 6pm

Aaron Williamson (UK)
Area All Accessed
and
Leroy Franklin Moore Jnr (USA)
Who Is In the Room?

To close the day, Aaron Williamson and Leroy Franklin Moore Jnr. will present short performance responses to Access All Areas (NYC Edition) and to issues around representations of disability. Aaron Williamson’s action will take place outdoors.

– Bibliotheque:
10am to 6pm

A hand picked selection of books and films drawn from LADA’s Study Room research facility in London representing a wide range of approaches by disabled practitioners.

Access All Areas: Live Art & Disability (NYC Edition) is one of LADA’s first public programmes in the USA, the other being Live Art Now, a talk by Arron Wright on the UK Live Art scene and the work of LADA at Grace Exhibition Space, New York on Friday April 4th (8pm).