Disability Arts in the North East – A Living Archive
A tribute to all the disabled artists and groups who have made up the Disability Arts Movement past and present
About Gobscure
we perform – exhibit internationally – make sound-art as gobscure, write as burn, use plural as reflection on our broken-mind. our work playfully reclaims spaces for and with other marginalised folx. we offer love&rage, ask questions to reframe narratives, we believe in rewriting futures. previously artistic associates with Disability Arts Online & Museum of Homelessness (both are lived experiences); literary fellow at scotlands writing centre; supported by Future’s Venture Foundation radical independent art fund. film commissions include Northern Broadsides, Live Theatre, Spot On Lancashire, DASH, Together 2020 disability history month.
6 solo exhibitions internationally - Fokidos Athens; Alma Zevi Venice; University of Atypical Belfast; Arthouse Wakefield; The NewBridge Project Tyneside; Edinburgh Printmakers / Edinburgh Art Festival. Unlimited funded book of radical photographic self-portraiture plant a forest after were gone. two Sound&Music awards; sound-walk commission from the Auxiliary Teesside; music theatre for GIFT festival & Sage Gateshead. Society of Authors award for yu’ve already survived : mental distress & healing along the afon wysg (river usk).
collector of tears was ‘play of the year’ while joey was ‘experiment of the year’ (both British Theatre Guide) & a New Wolsey Theatre Testing Ground commission. trilogy of solo shows on our lived experience of homelessness & its aftermath include national tour of provoked 2 madness by the brutality of wealth supported by BOOST: Third Angel Mentoring Scheme with Sheffield Theatres; Camden Peoples Theatre seed commission; funded by Arts Council England. rose carved in rain commissioned by Newcastle Fringe Festival/Alphabetti Theatre supported by Queer Arts North bursary / Curious Arts. Heartfelt is backed by MGC futures bursary; Graeae beyond bursary; Level Centre Residency; Slung Low seed fund. special thanx to Lindsay Nicholson for access support work and Alex Kelly of Third Angel for creative collaboration
Gobscure’s Projects
14th february 2022. book launch: plant a forest after were gone. NewBridge project, Newcastle. radical photographic self-portraiture / prose-poems from someone clinically extremely vulnerable under covid. focusing on details – mainly scars, coupled with backyard growth to find a fragile beauty, haunting & defiant. Commissioned / supported by Unlimited, celebrating the work of disabled artists, with funding from ACE.
“Having spent january 22c.e. almost dying / starting over again with no support a key message is how dya want to be remembered … plant a forest after were gone is all about this in photography, sound, prose-poems & more – our memorial would be a living one as described in prose-poem one from the project, below :
01
don’t plant a tree for us when we die (lone trees get eaten by cars – hit by deer – run over by lightning), shove a bunch ov saplings where they’re easily overlooked, some will survive, a handful might thrive … were open to other offers : welsh poppy seeds, oxalis bulbules, honeysuckle rootings …”