This exhibition is, in some ways, a manifesto. Not in the sense of a loud, avant-garde, solution-focused statement, but in the sense of making apparent a series of propositions about how we might not just be together but also thrive together. At the heart of thinking through this is disability, alongside other identities and lived experiences.
The exhibition has emerged from the thoughts and feelings of our personal relationship which, like many, entails the coming together of similarities and differences. Through this lens, we explore the profound importance of grappling with finding ways of relating to one another responsibly, lovingly. Together with artists and thinkers, poets, activists and lawyers, we have been considering how such a commitment to ever more caring, expansive and intricate ways of relating can form the basis of nourishing relationships and, at the risk of hyperbole, ultimately of a more sustainable world.
In that regard, we take as our foundation the Social Model of disability, which is the basis of disability liberation movements around the world. In summary, this contends that, beyond our impairments our medical and quasi-medical conditions , we are disabled by our environments and relationships that exclude or marginalise. However, when constructed in ways which give effect to our inherent desire and need for connection, just such environments and relationships can also be the source of our liberation.
Critically, we hold on to the essential value of connection and commitment for transformation. We have chosen artists and writers who all have something to say about these themes, through their varied lived experiences or their allyship. Through artworks and texts, the exhibition offers a series of reflections β departure points for thoughts and feelings that may flow from expressions of defiance, resilience, love, joy, pain, hope and from our complex interdependencies.
The prevalence of ideologies of individualism in Western democracies throws such words into stark relief, and it seems that there is a growing awareness, however slight or uncertain, of our profound mutual connection and responsibility, not least in the context of the climate emergency. This exhibition foregrounds attention to these ideas, showing how, on the one hand, they have been individually expressed by artists, activists and writers and how, on the other, they are the shared fundamental realities of our existence.
