At the recent DASH symposium ‘Awkward Bastards’, artist and CEO of Shape Arts, Tony Heaton posed the question “Is the Disability Arts movement a forgotten movement?”
In response to this, DASH created a new book that aims to show that Disability arts is alive, well and demands recognition and a place within art history. Edited by curator Adrian Plant and artist Tanya Raabe-Webber, the book features artists such as Sue Austin, Jon Adams, Sean Burn, Rachel Gadsden, Bobby Baker and Christine Sun Kim.
This book is a significant and fundamental point in the history of disability art and culture. Recognising the history of disabled artists, our position in the present and what it will be in the future. It will be the basis of our succession and place in the art world. The stories and artwork by these artists unites them and demonstrates the strong vibrant genre that is progressive and inspirational to an emerging disability arts landscape.
This book is not just about disability arts and culture, it is a book about artists being artists, it is about a celebration of difference, it is about the will to survive as artists, it is about humanity, it is about the fact that art unites us all as human beings and that disability art is here and now!