This site now acts as an archive only. For the latest news, opinion, blogs and listings on disability arts and culture visit disabilityarts.online.

Disability Arts Online

> > Gini

Artist and wordsmith, whose work engages with issues of access, from acknowledged physical needs to perceived symbolic exclusions. After being selected as one of DAO's New Voices in 2011, Gini's online presence has become an integral part of her arts practice

'Creating the Spectacle!' - poolside.
30 August 2012

Blog

On a blue underwater water background, swirling lines of hair float as a background to the words 'Underwater', fomed from images of bubbles, and 'ConText' formed from sticks and stones

    How does it make you feel? The wheelless man with the microphone nods to his cameraman and leans towards me. I hesitate. The freedom... he prompts. And I eventually respond.   What I really want to do is commandeer the microphone and turn the tables. You see I already know about the freedom. Being wheelborne is my freedom. 'Creating the Spectacle,' is not to be confined to inspiring the wheelborne, it is very much aimed at changing the attitudes of the wheelless. It is not...

Comments: 0

Earthbowl 4 - Homo Sapiens Sapiens.
28 June 2012

Blog

An image of the earth from space, set against a black background with partly visible words, the earth orb has its top third removed to create the image od a bowl, and contained within the bowl is the fourth, close up image of Sue in her wheelchair, underw

This is the last in the series. The timing is deliberate - this is my contingency bowl. In case time and tide conspired against 'Creating the Spectacle!' In case the event was cancelled; in case the worst case scenario swallowed up the adventure and the underwater wheelchair disappeared into oblivion. But actually it also makes a rather splendid trophy to present, with a fanfare, to all the successful participants of the most carefully prepared and choreographed adventure - the journey across...

Comments: 0

Earthbowl 3, Fleet Lagoon
27 June 2012

Blog

An image of the earth from space, set against a black background with partly visible words, the earth orb has its top third removed to create the image od a bowl, and contained within the bowl is a third image of Sue in her wheelchair, underwater with hai

I could hardly sleep a wink last night. I might have been a little busy this week, but today has had big, bold, red pencil marks all over it for a while now. Depending on the weather, the tides, fate...Today is the day! Today, in filming for 'Creating the Spectacle!' the underwater wheelchair takes what anyone could only describe as the absolute scariest part of it's journey. I'm heading for Portland to be witness and part of the audience for this stage of the project. I shall be...

Comments: 0

Earthbowl 2; hinting at things to come?
26 June 2012

Blog

An image of the earth from space, set against a black background with partly visible words, the earth orb has its top third removed to create the image od a bowl, and contained within the bowl is Sue in her wheelchair, underwater with hair flowing freely.

The eagle eyed DAO reader just might have noticed that the image used (yesterday) in Earthbowl 1 was not actually from 'Creating the Spectacle!' 'Portal' (2008), that iconic picture of Sue Austin under water in a wheelchair, was however our first hint of things to come - watch this space! The Earthbowl series continues with an image from the early development stages of the project when the chair was still being refined and Sue was still learning how to control it. Earthbowl 2 contains an image...

Comments: 0

Relay
25 June 2012

Blog

An image of the earth from space, set against a black background with partly visible words, the earth orb has its top third removed to create the image od a bowl, and contained within the bowl is Sue in her wheelchair, underwater with hair flowing freely.

Exhibition, 21 June - 14 July 2012, Salisbury Arts Centre.     Relay: handing the baton of inspiration through time and across disciplines, has produced this exhibition at Salisbury Arts Centre. I should, at the outset, declare my involvement, both as an artist and wordsmith and also as member of LUAN (LinkUpArtists Network) whose work, together with images from LUAN member Sue Austin's 'Creating the Spectacle!' represents LinkUpArts' presence as one of Salisbury Arts Centre's...

Comments: 0

My very own one-woman Shape Open Fringe.
4 May 2012

Blog

pale, fine lines curling, floating on a turquoise background

I once heard Anish Kapoor say something along the lines of "my art works because I have nothing to say" which struck me as very odd. Triptychos Boxed is a glance at the aspirations of faith and mythology from a wheelborne perspective. A collection of previously loved small boxes containing references to aspects of faith, they also focus on the 'get up and go' that, chairborne, I both long for and reject as irrelevant. This is my first conscious attempt to make work that 'has nothing...

Comments: 2

Re-imagining Wheelchairs
18 March 2012

Blog

pen and ink drawing of a distressed bird

Last weekend I attended a performance related workshop; I had completed two application forms, one for me and one for the chair. Currently the chair, my chair, and I are in a difficult relationship because I never quite got over my month with the skinny-wheeled Japanese model. The workshop was fun, creative and quite demanding. I poked and prodded at personal boundaries as we explored ways of working autobiographically. During the process and all through this week I have been busy in my...

Comments: 4