Recently, I was delighted to have been contacted by Disability Arts Online to interview their founder Colin Hambrook. Established in 2004, the organisation seeks to mitigate barriers to and champion disabled artists, creatives and audiences. Their approach to this encompasses their website showcasing content, a series of artist development initiatives, partnership and consultancy work, and a vibrant community.
Reflecting on their 20th anniversary, Colin spoke very candidly and passionately to me about the founding of DAO and lessons learned, the value of one’s community and staying resilient, the change the industry needs for true accessibility and authenticity, and what the future holds….
Congratulations to the Disability Arts Online team on a milestone anniversary of 20 years! First off, could you tell me a little about what inspired the creation, and any highlights you have in its history thus far?
“The creation of Disability Arts Online (DAO) quite simply came out of a need for a platform
that centred disability arts practice coming from a social model perspective. For artists to get
funding to make work, they need their work critiqued in order to give their work veracity and
to support funding applications and other opportunities.
In the early 2000’s the media were rarely writing about the work of disabled artists and when
they did so, it was always through a patronising lens of disability tropes labelling work as a
triumph over tragedy. I realised early on in my own attempts at being a professional artist
that my own art practice would either be ignored or framed through a demeaning tragic but
brave perspective, so set out to challenge discrimination.
It was important to me as a disabled artist to try to create the conditions for work to be
critiqued seriously and understood for its rigour rather than be continuously relegated as
inferior. So that was what I set out to do.
It’s been enormously satisfying to me that companies like Stopgap Dance who struggled to
have their work recognised when they began in the early 2000s have received national and
international recognition. I recently saw their latest production, Lived Fiction, and it sets a new
precedent in foregrounding creative description as an innovative dramaturgical device. The
ideals of the company have always been to work with the strengths of their dancers and
choreographers to pursue a world where no one is limited by prejudice against Deaf,
Disabled, or Neurodivergent people.
I was very moved by Vicki Balaam, the original director of the company, who was at the
show. She recalled the efforts I made through DAO in the early 2000s, to support Stopgap
back at a time when they were severely challenged by discrimination from gatekeepers
attempting to close the company down. Those same gatekeeping organisations quite rightly
now laud the company for the amazing work they do.
The challenges to get work written about – especially performing arts work – are not now
what they were back in the early 2000s. And many more gatekeepers within institutions like
the National Theatre have a greater understanding of the value of the authenticity that
disabled performers bring to the stage.
It was of major pride to me when Liz Carr won Best Actress in a Supporting Role for The
Normal Heart at the 2022 Olivier Awards, having written about her work and supported her career from the0 get-go.”
And of course, the anniversary has been marked with new appointments to the team and the creation of a new digital platform – how exciting it must be to see your vision evolving in that way; do the challenges change too?
“The new digital platform is a significant improvement, representing the value of what Disability Arts Online does in its work to forefront the arts through a disability lens, by which I mean an approach that understands rights and access in revolutionary and critical ways.
We’ve been receiving positive comments from our community about the new design. Of course one of the key advantages of the new tagging system we have built is that it makes it much easier for our audience to find the content they are looking for. It’s much more accessible in that regard.
The key opportunities that lie ahead for us are both the development of an online digital gallery space and the challenge of representing the digital archive of work on Disability Arts Online that dates back to 2004. The digital gallery space will mean us recruiting a designated disabled curator. Our intention is to give exposure to curated exhibitions that support the growing nuance of artwork that explores a disability aesthetic.
In terms of challenges, key for us is the continuing struggle to create more awareness of a social model understanding of disability generally. The brutal impact of discrimination and barriers has grown within society since 2010 with the increasing negative rhetoric around disability within the media alongside government policies. The Social Model isn’t the be all and end all, but it is an important tool to reframe disability as the lived experience of facing barriers.”
Can you pinpoint the experience that led to you loving the industry/ wanting to be
involved in it? I know you are an artist and published poet!
“In many respects I was born into disability arts and if I hadn’t found a home within the movement it is very likely I would not now be alive. One of the things that has always excited me about the disability arts movement is the sense of understanding of a lived experience of barriers that underpins the friendships that evolve out of conversations with artists. It’s been difficult for artists with invisible impairments, like myself to find a place within the conversations about disability, but it felt intrinsically important to me personally to embrace disability arts.
Challenging the medical model through dialogue about ‘what’s happened to you?’ as opposed to ‘what’s wrong with you?’ is a philosophical ethos that cuts through the common experience of being patronised or of being gaslit that we face as disabled people. My two published collections: 100 Houses and Knitting Time were both part of an important journey for me to give expression to a need to challenge and to attempt to cut through the ableist judgements we face on a daily basis from every quarter of our lives.”
DAO promotes a real sense of community and collaboration, how important is that
for artists and creatives?
“One of the key reasons for setting DAO up was the need for a platform that supports the
networking of peers. We’ve created projects and events that have evolved out of
conversations that we’ve been having with our artists over the past two decades. That sense
of community is an extremely important way of cutting through the isolation that we endure
as disabled people. The world isn’t accessible for us, but through the medium of the online
space we can find ways of talking to each other about the barriers we face and supporting
each others’ artistic development.”
As a disabled person whose life has been enriched immensely by the arts
industry, I thank you for the platform DAO gives fellow disabled creatives as, from
my experience it is sometimes difficult to feel truly welcome and “worthy” of
taking up space. How do you stay resilient in a space that isn’t necessarily set up
for us, and what advice would you give to creatives wanting to break into the
industry?
I thank you enormously for that generous acknowledgement. Setting DAO up and persevering
with it hasn’t been an easy journey. I was pretty much on my own for the first seven years. I had to manage a lot of bureaucratic systems that were not my forte. There was a period before Trish
Wheatley came on board, initially as Director of the organisation, when the organisation was in
a very precarious position. I was very glad to be able to hand over the reins of DAO to Trish who
is a strategic thinker, fundraiser as well as someone with all-round administration skills. It’s
important to be honest with yourself and to work out what your strengths are and to play to
them, rather than try to force yourself into an impossible role.
It’s also important to find the people who understand your objectives and who are in a position
to support your development. I’ve been blessed with the support of other disabled and non-
disabled creatives and allies who have been able to help me to develop and carry the vision for
a space where disabled artists’ work could be critiqued and the professionalisation of an arts
practice could be encouraged.
At the beginning of thinking and developing DAO I had a lot of support from Sarah Pickthal who
was a regional arts council officer at the time. She linked me in with the then Diversity Team at
Arts Council England at a crucial time when the Creative Case was first being developed. Within
that team was an implicit understanding of how creativity is intrinsic to key aspects of our
identities – be that connected with race, class, gender, sexuality and disability. That team helped
me convey the realisation that DAO was more than just a website – it was a space where a
meeting of minds could offer peer support to challenge the ableism that exists within the very
foundations, roots and stem of our society. It was through those networks that the need was
understood and secured. With that encouragement I found the resilience to keep going.”
Maybe leading on from the above, we know change doesn’t happen overnight – how
can the wider industry (particularly the non-disabled community) work and
support their disabled peers and encourage the move towards authentic
representation and better inclusivity?
“In many ways the arguments for authentic representation and inclusion of disabled artists are
the same as the arguments for other marginalised identities. We need the wider industry to
make space and to listen to our struggles with the barriers we face. We need our stories to be
heard.
I talk about myself as having been disabled by Psychiatry. It’s an important political
statement about how my life has been forged by attitudes towards people with mental health
issues. I didn’t have a choice, not because there is something wrong with me, but because
bearing the weight of the oppressions that have been forced on me in my life have left deep
traumas that have made it impossible for me to be in the world in the shape of a ‘normal’
person. I need my story to be witnessed and understood by the arts industries from a subject
position of strength, rather than one of weakness or suspicion. We need recognition of the fact
that our experience of the world is valuable and has meaning that can be of benefit to everyone.”
And finally, how is the future shaping up for DAO; are there any projects/pieces
upcoming that you can share/ are excited about?
“In our 20th year we are very excited about DAO’s plans to build an online gallery space and to
appoint a disabled curator to manage that space. It will mark a new era in DAO’s capacity to
support disabled artists with a platform that will help galvanise our community of disabled artists.
Our Facebook group for disabled artists has 7,600 members. Most of those who post in the
group are visual artists looking for support and opportunities and the new gallery space will give
us a means to encourage and to build opportunities.
I am very excited by the current disability arts history project we are developing which will give
me an opportunity to look back over the last 30 years and to document and interpret the changes within culture that disability arts has brought about, by exploring and interpreting the
many disability arts archives that exist.
We recently announced the latest cohort to be part of our DAO Associates project. Three
disabled artists, Revell Dixon, Louise Page and Elspeth Wilson are receiving tailored career
development support over a period of a year with seed funding to achieve a bigger project or
ambition. I am excited to see what they each create as part of their associateships.
We recognised a few years ago that disability arts was making little headway within the visual
arts sector; that curators and gallerists had little or no understanding beyond a very basic
concept of access and inclusion. Disabled artists were consistently being relegated to the
community arts space within galleries I am very excited by our Disability In British Art project,
spearheaded by Trish Wheatley and Ashokkumar D. Mistry, which attempts to explore questions
around what a disability aesthetic within the visual arts would look like.
I’m also excited by our partnership with DASH and the Future Curators Programme, which is
attempting to present radical alternatives to ways of curating disability. One of the gallery
partners Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (MIMA) has recently launched Towards New
Worlds – a groundbreaking exhibition curated by Aidan Moesby, which continues until February 2025. It includes the work of 15 artists who express issues of social justice, ecological consciousness and care through making connections between the artists inner worlds and their outer reality.
The ideas that underpin the curation mark a new precedent in curation which aims to challenge
the visual arts sector which historically has either ignored disability as a positive lens to view
work through, or laden artists work with a crucifying medical model interpretation which does
nothing for the artist or the viewer.
Going forwards I see DAO continuing to play an enormous role in the development of an
evolving disability arts ecology, with a national and an international impact. And that in itself
feels like a valuable achievement.”
Going forwards I see DAO continuing to play an enormous role in the development of an
evolving disability arts ecology, with a national and an international impact. And that in itself
feels like a valuable achievement.”
Keep up with Disability Arts Online:
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