Gemma is a Manchester based multimedia artist and digital storyteller. She has a particular interest in sound and photography, with her work exploring themes of community, social engagement, disability and inclusivity. She has composed soundscapes for festivals, films and theatre and exhibited at Z Arts Brewery Arts centre, BBQ Arts

Toilets, Utopian Imaginings and finding the Potty of Gold

25 May 2016

Blog

The design of toilets have been based on a historical model of the ‘ideal’ (hu)man, and continues to ignore the diversity of their users. Travelling Toilet Tales … You may have recently read about Italian creator, Maurizio Cattelan’s 18-carat solid gold toilet installation at the Guggenheim Museum, but he’s not the only artist using a toilet as an inspiration for their art. I have been commissioned to make a soundscape about toilets and utopias,...

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Hanging in the Balance - call out for participants

9 September 2015

Blog

As disabled people, we have a deep sense of threat and despair about our future: a future that ‘hangs in the balance’.    “Austerity exists in other countries, but no other countries to my knowledge has targeted disabled people in the way that the UK government has.”   - Simon J Duffy, director of The Centre of Welfare Reform. To symbolise the regressive affects of welfare reform and fragility of our existence, I am working with historical...

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Introduction to my interactive accessible art installation

28 July 2015

Blog

‘A Womb With A View’ is my creative response to growth attenuation treatment, gender identity and the reproductive rights of disabled people, particularly women.   In 2007 a young disabled girl, ‘Ashley X’, had a hysterectomy to improve her quality of life. The combination of the surgery and the oestrogen therapy attracted much public comment and ethical analysis, both supportive and condemning. Recent cases of growth attenuation, dubbed ‘The Ashley...

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