Depictions of friendship, cityscapes and natural images are among the powerful photographs in an international arts competition reflecting the world from a disabled person’s perspective.
Photographers with Down’s syndrome from the UK, Greece, Japan, New Zealand and America have entered the Down’s Syndrome Association’s annual My Perspective competition which, this year, challenged people with the learning disability to go behind the lens.
As the association says: “In years gone by, people with Down’s syndrome were photographed as exhibits; the viewer was not supposed to see the person, just the difference. The Down’s syndrome Association’s My Perspective competition turns the camera around and gives people with Down’s syndrome the chance to show the world from their point of view.”
I’m sharing some of the 25 shortlisted images in the competition, which was launched in 2010, here (more can be seen here) and the winner will be announced on 11 June by a panel of judges including photographer Richard Bailey, curator of the groundbreaking Shifting Perspectives project.
The pictures reflect a beautifully wide range of subjects.
Ready for a ride, by Daniel HarrisonCoco by Kyle McKayBlue Body, by Rory DaviesThe Old Tree, by Emily Buck-The Park, by Takis KoumentakisSwimming with frogs, by Klay GreenCheeky Robin, by Steven PadmoreShadow Stories, by Lillie DaviesHello, by Takeo Niikura
Richard Ward has barely taken a day off sick since he started working 15 years ago. His friendly nature and keen eye for detail suit his role at a Boots store in Coventry, date-checking food, stacking shelves and helping customers find what they want. Ward, 33, says: “I like earning my own money, getting on well with the staff, seeing different people every day and it gets me out of the house.” Ward earns £600 a month, just over the national minimum wage.
Ward lives with his parents in Walsgrave, Coventry, and was referred to a local jobs support service by his special school; mainstream job agencies and government-run employment schemes would consider him unemployable. His mother Jane says he would be on benefits without the specialist job advice, coaching and long-term support from Coventry city council’s The Employment Support Service (TESS) for people with learning disabilities or mental health issues.
Learning disability is not on most politicians’ radars, despite people who have learning disabilities, or who have someone with a learning disability in their immediate family, making up 10% of the electorate. A recent poll of 100 MPs by social care provider Dimensions suggests 60% do not believe that learning disabled people can be supported into employment.
However, Ward’s job is under threat, along with those of another 100 people TESS currently supports to maintain employment and the 30 it helps annually into new jobs. The Labour-run council has earmarked the nationally acclaimed 22-year-old service for closure, a victim of public sector cuts. Its future after this December is unclear.
Coventry is not unique; supported employment is a Cinderella service, not a local government statutory requirement. A 2011 poll by the British Association for Supported Employment (BASE) of 50 of its members found half face council funding cuts of at least 15% and a quarter fear 50% to 100% cuts.
The situation in Coventry has sparked worries for families of younger disabled people elsewhere. They warn that supported employment cuts are at odds with special educational needs and disability reforms aimed at raising the aspirations of future generations.
In a joint comment Sherann Hillman co-chair of the National Network of Parent Carer Forums (NNPCF) and Sue North from Contact a Family said: “Parent carers of young people with disabilities and special educational needs say fear for their child’s future is one of their top concerns. This is because young people with special educational needs and disability are less likely to find employment and live independently – and face other additional barriers as they grow up. Any threats to provisions such as supported employment schemes, will inevitably compound these fears and worries.
People TESS supports spoke in its defence at a public meeting last week organised by local unions. Among them was Hayley Archer, who has a learning disability. Her mother, Suzanne, stresses the wider impact of supported employment must be recognised: “People like Hayley are changing society’s attitudes by having a role in the workplace and by working alongside people without learning disabilities.”
Archer herself, an administrative apprentice at the council, has a simple request for her future: “I really want to keep working.”
Digital art project Democracy Street allows mobile users to share pictures reflecting the country’s parliamentary history.
With the election a few weeks away, democracy is the timely subject of a new digital art project designed to shed light on Britain’s parliamentary history.
Democracy Street is curated by artist Jon Adams who has Asperger’s syndrome – a form of autism – and I wanted to briefly mention the crowdsourced project today, on World Autism Awareness Day. Adams’ work focuses “on arts sciences and creativity as a person with Aspergers, including synaesthesia, systemising and sequencing”.
Participants in Democracy Street can use mobiles to take photos that contribute to the digital project.
The Houses of Parliament have commissioned the project with support from The Speaker’s Art Fund and Arts Council England. A mobile web app allows users to explore and discover streets that have a connection to democracy and upload their own images. Images can include, for example, streets that share the same name as a Parliamentarian or that reflect events in democratic history. Adams will use the data generated by users to create new artistic maps of the UK and as users upload information, it appears on the web app, so you can see the crowdsourced project developing in real time.
The participatory scheme also coincides with the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta and the 750th birthday of Parliament.
The project Creative Madness in Song raises awareness about mental ill health (pic: Song in the City)Yanamah was “drowning in the depths of despair…yearning for a glimpse of kindness and a friendly gesture”. Before her mental health deteriorated, as she wrote in a recent poem, she was “a woman of distinction” but now she is “forgotten and lost”. Her words, set to classical song, form part of a groundbreaking arts project to break down barriers about mental health and introduce audiences to a new genre of music.
The Creative Madness in Song project is run by charity Song in the City with The Maudsley Charity, part of the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. The awareness-raising drive involves composers working with texts written by people with experience of conditions such as schizophrenia and depression; the songs are performed by classically-trained singers and pianists.
Young composers and people with experience of mental illness have collaborated to produce songs that include compelling descriptions of being sectioned and frank accounts of life with mental illness. There are two two free public concerts in London this week, tomorrow at St Mary’s Church, near Lewisham Hospital, and Wednesday 25 March at Guy’s Chapel, Guy’s Hospital.
The concerts are in partnership with Breathe Arts Health Research, a social enterprise that develops artistic projects in healthcare.
My full piece on the innovative programme can be read here on the social care pages of the Guardian.
Painting by Chantelle Bellinger, from the Nexus art group, Surrey.
The graceful depiction of birds, above, is among the art works on display in a new exhibition celebrating diversity.
I’m sharing some of the pieces here because I was taken by the broad range of subjects and contrasting styles of the artists. Most of the pieces are inspired by nature and natural landscapes.
The paintings were created by participants in the Nexus project, run by care organisation Surrey Choices, and are being exhibited at the Sunbury Embroidery Gallery until March 1 (entry is free). Nexus provides specialist support and activities for adults with physical disabilities and mild learning disabilities.
Work by Bryan Aldridge By Chantelle BellingerPainting by Marc LeosingArtwork by Michael SomersBy Terry Prosser
Powerful and rarely seen archive images of life in institutional care form part of a new exhibition that opens today.
The history of long-stay hospitals in Wales is the focus of Mencap Cymru’s Hidden Now Heard project that documents life for people with learning disabilities in the region.
The striking shots of the long-since closed institutions include rarely seen images of Hensol Hospital, Vale of Glamorgan, taken by renowned photographer Jürgen Schadeberg in 1967.
Schadeberg’s Welsh photographs range from the surprising to the thought-provoking and the unsettling. They focus on individual faces and personalities at a time when people with learning disabilities were invisible, herded into high-walled hospitals, hidden away for years.
The images hint at stark reality of life in long-term care, reflecting some of the isolation and inactivity that were its hallmarks. They show patients in workshops and in and around the hospital grounds. However, the photographs also depict some of the positive bonds between staff and children in their care.
Hensol opened in 1930 as a “colony” for the care of 100 male “mental defectives” (standard terminology at the time) with buildings added to raise numbers 460 male, female and child patients in 1935. The move towards community care meant that patient numbers eventually reduced and the institution closed in 2003. Some of the buildings are now luxury flats.
The project provokes the public to consider how we care for and treat people with learning disabilities today.
The exhibition, which runs until March at Swansea Museum, is based on oral history testimonies from people who lived in hospitals, their relatives and staff, and is run by and funded by the Heritage Lottery. All the stories from across the region will eventually be deposited in the archive at St Fagan’s, the Museum of Welsh Life.
Phyllis Jones, a patient at Hensol for over 40 years, said of her involvement in the project: “I wanted to tell everyone about Hensol, the good times and bad. They had good staff there but overall I didn’t like living there. I prefer living in my own house”.
Mencap Cymru, which has was involved in helping close many of the area’s hospitals, spent three years researching the project. It wants to record and acknowledge the stories and experiences of former patients and offer people a chance to talk about the past.
Mencap Cymru director Wayne Crocker said of the exhibition: “I very much hope that those who visit will be impressed by the stories they see but more importantly will see the amazing contributions people with a learning disability make to our communities in Wales.”
Anyone recognising the people in the photos or who have stories to tell should contact Mencap Cymru.
You can find out more on Twitter @hiddennowheard or visit the Facebook page.
But I’m interested in the bold focus on street art and local artists in the drive to return a sliver of London to its retail glory – “Streatham – the West End of South London” no less.
Streatham architects and design company, Beep Studio, is collaborating with the local Business Improvement District, InStreatham, to create a “voids trail” that reflects the area’s local personalities “in a bid to encourage more people to explore Streatham High Road”.
The campaign features artwork on shop fronts inspired by seven famous celebrities who lived in Streatham – shoppers will explore the area’s shops via the trail, visiting each unit and stamping their trail maps to show they have visited the shop.
No prizes for guessing which South London-born model inspired the vertiginous platform depicted on one empty front.
I’ve fond memories of the longest high street in Europe (Streatham High Road), up the road from my former home in Brixton – oh, sorry, of course I mean “Brixton Village”.
Chim, in a photograph for the halow project’s new art show (pic: Kitty Day)
Young photographer Kitty Day, whose sister has a learning disability, wanted to to offer an alternative way for her sibling to express herself – visually.
The result is an exhibition of photographs, entitled This is me, my Voice, my Choice, involving her sister and other young people supported by the Surrey-based charity halow (sic). The show, which opens today, includes portraits of the young people where they present themselves purely as they wish. I’m sharing two of the images, of Chim and Tommy, here.
Tommy, photographed as part of the halow project’s new exhibition (pic: Kitty Day)
Some participants also altered their images with colour or other materials (images not included shown) “to show themselves as they wanted to be seen”, says the charity which works with young people aged 16-35.
Young people from the halow project (pic: Kitty Day)
halow, based in Guildford, supports young people with a learning disability “to have the same life choices and chances as any other young person”.
“I wanted to give them the power to express their personality and who they really are, without someone trying to do it for them,” adds Kitty.“I had little control in the studio but I had even less in the editing. The project was done in two stages – one when the group visited me at the studio at City of Westminster College. The second stage was when control was totally given to them. They had a day to personalise their images through cutting, sticking, colouring – whatever they wanted, and I saw the photographs change completely and come to life…I learnt so much about the young people, their perception of themselves and the power of control.”
The exhibition also includes paintings where people depict themselves as a superhero of their choice.
* The exhibition runs at St Mary’s church, Quarry Street, Guilford, from Tuesday until Thursday – contact halow for opening times. Entry is free, says the charity, but donations would be appreciated. On Friday, the exhibition changes venue and culminates in a choir concert at Holy Trinity church in the High Street. Tickets cost £10.00 and are available from halow or tickets can be purchased from the Tourist Information Centre in the High Street.
Swansea Bay tidal lagoon, using tidal power to generate renewable electricityCroydon’s historic Wandle Park, restored London’s Burgess Park, where the transformation included a 3,000 square metre play areaCity Park, Birmingham, from semi-derelict area into a busy urban space
Swansea and Croydon – not places usually synonymous with cutting edge design and urban rejuvenation, but both have just been named as among the most forward-thinking places for landscape design.
Among the big projects worth picturing here is the first tidal lagoon – the world’s largest power-generating lagoon – in Swansea Bay and the regenerated Wandle Park in Croydon, south London.
Both are among the winners in the annual Landscape Institute awards, announced yesterday. The awards are granted to outstanding examples of work by the landscape architects. Full details are here.
Connor Sparrowhawk, who died a preventable death in a Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust unit.Stephen Andrade-Martinez is detained in an inpatient unit 80 miles from his London home. He is pictured (right) with his brother Josh.Tianze Ni, from Fife, stuck in a Middlesborough inpatient unit miles from home.
It is now three years since the abuse inflicted on people with learning disabilities at Winterbourne View highlighted the desperate need to get people out of such institutional settings.
In those three years, we know of two people who have died in these kind of assessment and treatment units since then (Connor Sparrowhawk, pictured at the top of the page, and Stephanie Bincliffe). Many more – Tianze and Stephen (also pictured above) among them – are still being placed by health and social care authorities in such places.
Read that first sentence again – two people died (they had no life-threatening illnesses) in a clinical environment where they were placed for care, assessment and treatment – and ask how it is possible that we can let this happen?
Why “we”? Because of the collective responsibility: public and private sector funders enable these places to be created; health and social care providers run them; commissioners place people in them; politicians and policy makers seem unable to hold anyone to account for them; there is little mainstream interest media reporting in this area and the public – beyond shock at the odd high profile headline – is generally apathetic.
The fact that there have been two deaths in the three years since we’re meant to have eradicated these kinds of places is starkly made by Sara Ryan in today’s Guardian. She describes such units as “waste bins of life”.
Sara’s son Connor Sparrowhawk (aka Laughing Boy or LB) died a preventable death last year in a Southern Health NHS unit, and the widespread outrage that followed created the Justice for LB campaign with the related 107 Days drive, and draft disability rights legislation in LB’s name, the LB Bill.
It’s hoped that a green paper in February next year will reflect some elements of the bill.
Disability and human rights barrister Steve Broach, who is helping to draft the bill alongside Connor’s parents (Sara Ryan and Richard Huggins), Mark Neary and George Julian, says the project is using social media to galvanise a diverse community, including people with disabilities, professionals, families and academics. “We’re trying to crowdsource changes to the law – people are patronised and it’s wrongly assumed that disabled people and their families cannot understand their legal rights,” says Broach.
Kevin Healey, campaigner for autism rights who has supported three of the families mentioned in the piece today, says that people are effectively “penalised for having a learning disability or autism”. He says the successful campaigns to return people home are vital, but rare.
Healey adds: “It’s like we’re going back to the days of the 1940s when people with autism used to be institutionalised, but this is the 21st century.” Healey warns that where the authorities return people home, it is important to protect and preserve any new community-based packages of care amid the sweeping welfare cuts.
One mother, Leo Andrade-Martinez, told me of the son she is campaigning for (Stephen has been moved 80 miles away from home and restricted to a two-hour weekly visit from his parents) that “no one should suffer like this”.
Her words are horribly familiar to anyone interested in disability rights.
