The blog section of the DAO website provides disabled artists and writers with a space to give our readers an inside view of their art practice, share thoughts and receive comments and feedback.
These blogs provide an informative and entertaining insight into how disability and impairment are experienced from a disability perspective.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in these pages are not necessarily those of DAO.
Remember when Arlington Automotive bought the final three Remploy sheltered factories and took on the disabled employees stating that they were committed to equality and diversity in the workplace? Well, just two months after the government put the country into lockdown, Arlington entered administration and sacked more than 50 disabled staff, replacing them with non-disabled agency ...
The one thing I've really enjoyed about lockdown is the visibility of 'ordinary' people engaged in normal creativity, on the tv screens that have become such an integral part of our homes. By normal I mean the things we, potentially, all do - the arts and crafts, the music, the poetry, the gardens, of people ...
Rich says; “Don’t be a dodo”. Initial; Dave The Dodo Dave The Dodo Dream’t back to life Finds himself locked Behind air tight glass In the Birmingham Natural History Museum Feeling strangely stuffed He jabbers a last wock Before dying again A flat cap, uniformed Black country man Tuts, thinks to himself I’ve known a lot of Dave’s In my time on earth They dodo nothing much 11th March 2019
This poem was born on a march and rally to save the NHS. A woman held aloft a placard reading "Kill Cuts! Cuts Kill!". I was going to use a photograph of that to illustrate this poem. I might tag it on to the end of this. On leaving the rally and walking up Whitehall I ...
Late comers to ‘Black Widow’ may wish to go back to the start which began here. Crawling in the city. City people everywhere. City people in their finest. Saturday night. Boozy, scoring music night. Steve hung close to property, looking up into the enclave of the thief. Tightening his pockets. He felt cool. Three black pieces, ...
The use of negative language to describe disabled people has once again been challenged. This time it is Baroness Jane Campbell who has called for an end to the term ‘vulnerable’. In an article in the Disability News Service (DNS) Jane said the term had been used repeatedly to describe disabled people during the “worst times” ...
then we can only remind folks
My online installation Home2Home is what it says in it’s title. A communication between a disabled artist, from the confines of my home to other disabled artists in their’s. And the sharing of experiences of lockdown and how it is affecting our access to our creativity. As for me, Covid 19 has been a passage ...
With my deteriorating eyesight caused by a condition called retinoschisis, sound has become an increasingly important part of my visual art practice. I am now conscious that I hear sound in my mind as I make drawing and painting strokes. In this blog I would like you to meet composer Freddie Meyer’s who I have ...
A new report – An Affront to Dignity, Inclusion and Equality – produced by a group of disabled academics has confirmed that the inequalities experienced by disabled people have widened during the pandemic. The report concludes that the government’s policy making has breached its duties to disabled people under both the Equality Act and the ...
