What a great website this is!

I am an artist who has worked with many learning disabled artists over a number of years, including work for both the London based arts organisation ‘Action Space’ and the deafblind charity ‘Sense’.  I am passionate about supporting artists to create high quality work that is no longer marginalised but accepted and integrated within the mainstream arts world.

I have always been interested in the process of collaboration and recently received a bursary from The Artist’s Information Company (a-n) to research how to build a truly equal partnership with a learning disabled artist.  This research involved working alongside arts manager and co-director of Action Space,  Sheryll Catto, visiting  five of their studio projects to meet some very experienced and exciting learning disabled artists, some of whom I had worked with before (including the very talented Thompson Hall!) I believe that collaboration is an important way of developing your practice as an artist, leading to quality outcomes that can be both innovative and inspiring.

I have now published an article across six posts on a-n’s ‘Artists Talking’ blog , documenting this process of research, including a day in the studio with artist Linda Bell (www.actionspace.org/artists/linda-bell).

‘Collaboration opens up a new and exciting potential, introducing an element of risk.  It creates an unknown chemistry that can breath life into the creative process.  I felt that my experience of working with Linda touched upon the very essence of this dynamic process.’

This research hopes to lead onto a collaborative project with Linda later this year.
www.a-n.co.uk/link/samandlinda
www.flickr.com/photos/121986263@N05/sets/72157643251975133/

2 thoughts on “Building a Collaborative Partnership with a Learning Disabled Artist

  1. On starting to read Sam Haynes research into developing truly collaborative practice between non-disabled and learning disabled artists she made a point that is important to bear in mind when talking about Quality at future Creative Minds conferences. She writes: “… the term ‘learning disabled’ includes an incredibly diverse level of ability, with moderately learning disabled artists often able to discuss and analyse their work while more severely learning disabled artists may be more limited in terms of verbal communication, unable to develop an idea conceptually. This in no way defines the quality of the work itself but does raise additional issues when supporting artists to make decisions in terms of the development of their own practice.” We should bear this in mind in terms of presentation, articulation, discussion and critique of the work presented at the Creative Minds conferences.

    • Well said and true! I feel very lucky that I was able to gain some time training along both the youth service /shape London developing projects. is it about having right support networks in order to make quality art.

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