Disability is a complex cultural concept that extends across a range of intersectional, embodied experiences. It is well established, even though it may not be the political focus of governments, that active participation in arts and culture has positive social and wellbeing outcomes for individuals and communities.  Despite these findings, disabled artists, arts workers and audiences are making limited headway in addressing the barriers they experience in accessing arts and culture in Australia. From my perspective as a disabled writer and arts worker who has mobility-related access requirements, I often feel that I am excluded from arts events because of inaccessible venues and I welcome any advances in this area. However, I am also acutely aware that disabled people are not only demanding access to existing cultural spaces, but also navigating relative power to search for ways of making and exhibiting art that transforms the hegemony of the art world. It is a huge task and there is no blueprint.

In August 2022, I was invited to Adelaide to attend three art exhibitions organised by Tutti Arts as part of their Reaching Out project. The project paired three learning-disabled ¹I use the term ‘learning-disabled’ to express the disabling effects that mainstream educational approaches and communication practices may have on intellectually impaired people, where such practices limit an individual’s capacity to learn and participate in society. Learning-disabled people may for various reasons be considered neurodivergent. They may experience more than one form of impairment, and/or mental distress. At times in this essay, I have quoted from passages that are more about neurodivergence or mental distress. artists – Jackie Saunders, Kurt Bosecke and William Gregory – with three non-disabled artists – Laura Wills, Emmaline Zanelli and Mawarini. They were asked to create artworks inspired by collections from leading South Australian cultural institutions. My role was to document the artists’ thoughts on the collaboration process in making art and preparing for the exhibitions. Where possible, I was also asked to critically reflect on the activities, the exhibitions and other outcomes.

After engaging with the artists at Tutti while they made their art, conducting interviews with all the Reaching Out artists, and observing their exhibited work, I started to question my data gathering and interviewing processes, and the dominant understanding of the significance of art, culture and creativity on our lives as citizens. I thought about the processes involved in art making, what genuine collaboration might look like, the different ways we perceive and make sense of the world, and how and why we communicate through art. I began to question the current ways we share our art, what opportunities are made available to whom, how art is curated, and who decides what constitutes the meaning, value and impact of art.

In this essay, I discuss some elements of the Reaching Out project, not so much to answer the above questions, but more to contribute to thought and public discussion that, in seeking answers, may put in place the ethical good practice needed to make transformative change in arts and culture.

My first experience of the project was the Mineral Lines exhibition at the South Australian Museum. The artwork made by Jackie Saunders and Laura Wills was partly inspired by the artists’ interaction with the Museum’s extensive mineral sciences collection. I drove my scooter into the exhibition space, and it was like floating back and forth between a cave of stalactites filled with fireflies and a star-studded night sky in some alternate universe. The minimal lighting, black walls and ceiling, and the black backgrounds of many of the artworks highlighted the shapes, patterns and colours of the rocks depicted by the artists. Jackie Saunders worked with acrylic on paper, showcasing agates through her choice of thick lines, patterns and bold colours. Laura Wills used a ‘Minerals of the World’ poster as her reference point. She drew into this and found maps using water-based oil pastel and ink. There is a fine, textured depth to her art making. I felt included in the artists’ celebration of the minerals that form the earth’s crust, and was left with an enduring sense of awe and joy.

I interviewed Jackie and Laura in the exhibition space, which was dark, noisy and well attended. School kids were getting into trouble from museum staff for trying to touch some of the works. Both of the artists were hospitable, gracious and accommodating, answering my questions as best they could. But I soon realised that Jackie was not comfortable with my approach for a number of reasons. One being my emphasis on big questions, abstract ideas, and verbal communication. My words did not suit her communication style, or her way of thinking. I was going down the individualist artist statement route: the biography, the formal description of the philosophy and intended aesthetic behind the works. I became aware that I needed a more layered approach to best understand the arts workers and artists, and the collaborative aspects of the project. I found myself negotiating a fine line between producing written texts as observation and critique of the Reaching Out project, but at the same time challenging existing practices, specifically my reliance on the spoken and written word.

Looking at the works, I realised some form of visual representation, photographs or film would be effective media for collecting and displaying data. Valuable knowledge sat on the walls of the gallery in a format that spoke as strongly – if not more pertinently – than the written narratives I sought. Both Jackie and Laura have their own distinctive styles, but overlapping colour palettes, black backgrounds and repeating shapes characterised their work as if the artists were in conversation.

Describing their collaborative process, Laura explained:

We sit together and paint. So, working alongside each other physically is important to us. And Jackie likes to get in the zone and so do I. She plays music and I go there with that music. So, we work intuitively. Leave room for our heart and bodies to express themselves. Verbal language is the lessor form of communication when we paint.

The term ‘learning-disabled’ is used to express the disabling effects that mainstream education and communication may have on neurodivergent and intellectually impaired people. Factors such as a heavy reliance on written and spoken narratives can limit some individuals’ capacity to learn and participate in society.

In a recent essay in the New York Times, Temple Grandin argues that the skill sets of visual thinkers and neurodivergent people could contribute substantially to finding solutions to the world’s many problems. She describes how she was born in the late 1940s, just as the diagnosis of autism was being applied to children like her. Having no language until the age of four, she was first diagnosed as brain damaged. She says when she was young, she believed that everybody thought in more non-linear, photo-realistic pictures in the same way she did, with images clicking through her mind like TikTok videos:

I had no idea that most people are more word-centric than I am. For many, it’s words, not pictures, that shape thought. That’s probably how our culture got to be so talky: Teachers lecture, religious leaders preach, politicians make speeches and we watch ‘talking heads’ on TV. We call most of these people neurotypical — they develop along predictable lines and communicate, for the most part, verbally.

She goes on to say that society’s growing understanding that there are a wide range of brains that work in different ways is an unquestionably positive development for people like her. But, she adds:

Still, many aspects of our society are not set up to allow visual thinkers — which so many of us neurodivergent folks are — to thrive. In fact, many aspects of our society seem set up specifically so we will fail. Schools force students into a one-size-fits-all curriculum. The workplace relies too much on résumés and G.P.A.s to assess candidates’ worth.

She calls for more emphasis on hands-on classes such as art, music, sewing, woodworking, cooking, theatre, auto mechanics and welding. These classes would expose students — especially neurodivergent students — to skills that could become a career, and in the case of the Tutti artists, a career as an artist. One finding in the 2020 Creating Our Futures report by Australia Council may be pertinent here:

Respondents with intellectual disability are more creative than Australians overall, with almost all creatively participating in the arts in some way (pp. 25).

However, there is not enough data to allow for generalisation, and learning-disabled people choose to participate in arts and culture for many reasons. But it is not inconceivable to wonder if one of those reasons may be that, for many learning-disabled people, art is a vital form of communication.

After having been institutionalised for 35 years from the age of seven, Judith Scott became an artist with the support of her sister Joyce and the CreativeGrowth arts centre in Oakland, California. Responding to a workshop led by the textile artist Sylvia Seventy, Judith started wrapping pieces of wood in fibre, fabric and thread to create her first pieces. An article in TextileArtist.org states that fibre art quickly became a source of communication for Judith, having been “verbally and socially blocked for most of her life”. Tom di Maria, director of Creative Growth, is quoted as saying that Judith was finally “learning to speak”. In her lifetime, Judith didn’t speak or write words, but she did communicate and, through her art, “she declared herself to be”.

Catherine Morris, a curator for the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, Brooklyn Museum, notes that Judith Scott‘s art offers layers of complexity that force the viewer to put themselves in different positions, thinking and rethinking their relationship with the object. Judith’s work is exhibited without titles, explanation or display instructions.

In their book, Inclusive Arts Practice and Research, Alice Fox and Hannah Macpherson argue that curation and commissioning processes should respect the makers of a piece of work and aim for a collaborative curatorial process. They call for recognition of the complexities and tensions that exist in presenting work in this field, adding that, where possible, it is best for the artist to represent themselves through their own artist statement rather than to be observed and talked about. They note that:

Supporting a learning-disabled artist to write an artist statement is an art in itself, and one that needs to avoid overly simplistic, worthy, sentimental or sympathetic responses. The best work in this area tends to emerge from well-established relationships (pp. 41).

Extending the concept of writing an artist statement to my interviewing process, I am aware that not only did I not have well-established relationships with the artists on the Reaching Out project, but I didn’t have any relationship at all. I live in Sydney. The artists live in Adelaide. There was only a brief period available to do the interviews and it was our first encounter with each other.

The artists and arts workers collaborating on Reaching Out had all worked together in various ways before the project was conceived. Kurt Bosecke has been going to Tutti Arts since 2013. One of his interests in life is good nutrition and health:

I’m great at cooking up pastas and soups. Sometimes, I have fruit in the mornings. I eat cereal every morning. I love my cereals. I have a small lunch around 12 or 1pm. Healthy. And my exercise, my fitness is important.

He and the arts workers at Tutti discussed the importance of good nutrition and together they came up with ideas for Reaching Out that enabled Kurt to explore the collection at the Art Gallery of South Australia, with a focus on nutrition.

Emmeline Zanelli, who partnered with Kurt on making the Nutritional Index tour and the Impressive and Vibrant Fantasy Buffet video, stressed the significance of their involvement over the years with the performance collective, Bait Fridge. Although Kurt says, “I don’t do acting. I’m an artist. I’m not a performer”, Emmeline believes that the mutual performance experience and the relationship they developed at the collective informed their creative and curatorial choices. It was especially helpful for them to work with media they were unfamiliar with. She felt that if they didn’t have the trust and understanding that comes with an established history of working together, they probably wouldn’t have pushed their personal boundaries. She would have stuck to photography, and Kurt to drawing and painting.

It gets better with time, and also it gets better when we have time in between. Having time to rest between the Nutritional Index tour and the video was really important for both of us to actually make sense of what we had done … That was much more beneficial than having a really tight timeline. In future, I don’t think I would do a collaboration with anyone that was limited to a short timeline. I feel like the idea of collaboration is so romanticised and often a group show might be called collaborative but the artists are not paid to, say, spend time sitting together talking.

As I watched Impressive and Vibrant Fantasy Buffet in the foyer of the Art Gallery of South Australia, I found myself laughing out loud. I asked both artists about the absurdist humour that characterises the work.

Kurt said that he liked the funny side, but that humour was also a way to talk about serious topics. Emmeline felt that their mutual love of slapstick and sense of playfulness gave them the tools to deal with moments where they didn’t really know how to interpret an artwork in the gallery or know how to proceed. They’d then relate a renaissance painting to Mr. Bean, the Cookie Monster or Nicholas Cage, which helped de-stress the situation.

Emmeline noted that their performance was designed around Kurt’s ability to improvise:

His use of language is really vibrant, and he has an idiosyncratic vocabulary, sentences that are really emblematic of him, the way he writes. We turned his writing into a font for some of the rules that we came up with…the element of the unknown is a strongpoint for Kurt…like in his painting, it is process driven. That feeds into creating a work ethic that leaves room for the unknown by being process based.

One of the concerns of collaboration between non-disabled workers and learning-disabled artists is how to regulate power and control so that the learning-disabled artists are free to express themselves and make choices and decisions. Historically, learning-disabled people’s lives are highly regulated and restricted by parents, support workers, and workers in institutional settings. Emmeline said that the ethics of power between Kurt and her are complicated by their history because she does support work like food shopping and hiking with him. “I’m not going to lie, that’s been really difficult. I would like to speak to people who have experience with that complex dynamic.”

Addressing power dynamics is complicated and requires reflective thinking on the part of the person who holds power and the person who doesn’t, and for each person involved to learn from each other. But, from my brief observations, I do think that the process-based nature of Kurt and Emmeline’s working relationship allowed for a creative method where both artists were free to make in-the-moment choices. They had faith in each other without knowing what was going to happen next. I believe this contributed to the value of their work, especially some of the more surreal moments. This freedom to make choices and the trust that developed between them was assisted by clearly defined work parameters put in place by Kurt. Emmeline described how in her art practice, she often doesn’t plan time efficiently, leaving work until the last minute and working odd hours. She explained that she has learned a lot from Kurt about the importance of a disciplined work ethic and the security and support that comes from planning:

He says, I’ve had enough for now, let’s stop working for today. I think again that takes a long timeline to achieve that kind of communication. We worked twice a week for an hour. We didn’t leave it later or vary it or anything.

Mawarini and William Gregory, who collaborated to create Fantasy Estate exhibited at Carrick Hill House, have also developed their relationship over time through working together at Tutti Arts. William acknowledges Tutti’s role in supporting his development as an artist, saying:

They helped me to become a member of an artist community. They help me draw pictures and they organise exhibitions. I come up with ideas to draw art that will be hung up in the exhibitions. People can admire the fascinating ones when they come to the exhibitions to take a look. Tutti helps me with the price, and the actual selling of the art if someone is interested in buying. They put a red dot next to my art.

Mawarini added, “We both love illustration, drawing and story … from there we have built a relationship.”

The drawings in Fantasy Estate were all so delicately detailed, with both artists demonstrating their skill at storytelling and leading the viewer along paths of enchantment that subtly converged and diverged. What particularly struck me about William’s drawings was his keen observation of the non-verbal signs that accompany people’s social interactions. His work portrays a range of emotions and perceptive depictions of relationships. For example, in William’s pencil on paper drawing, Hayward Fantasy Marriage, a bride walks down the stairs with her head slightly bent, indicating shyness. She is smiling and looking at her husband-to-be. The groom has a bigger smile, he stands arms straight down, hands clasped as if he is slightly tense. He holds the gaze of his wife-to-be, one eyebrow raised at how gorgeous she is. As a viewer, I feel their nervous delight. The priest also watches the bride and holds his bible, ready to perform the marriage ceremony. The other people standing with the groom show different emotions again, some interacting with the guests sitting on the chairs to the right of the image. Mawarini’s graphite and pencil drawings exude a gentle, feminine energy, with many references to Ursula Hayward’s life at Carrick Hill. The artworks are tender and at times indicate a sense of longing. Strange little creatures emerge when you are not expecting them. One trapped in a perfume bottle, its lizard-like feet pressed against the glass.

Mawarini said that in relation to the power dynamic and their collaborative relationship, she sees herself as a partner artist, working side by side with William. “We speak with each other and share references … a lot of our discussion is through images.” The main challenge they faced for the Fantasy Estate exhibition was coming up with a solid idea. Mawarini explained that:

The themes and character ideas were too broad, so there was a process of digging down and understanding what William liked about Carrick Hill. I asked a lot of questions and then realised, for example, that he really loved Edward Hayward almost like a god. So we looked more into Edward Hayward’s life and achievements and the Christmas Pageant. William loved the floats.

Initially, William envisaged making a float in the same proportions as the ones he had seen at the Christmas pageants.Instead of Mawarini making top-down decisions relating to the size and form of the float, they researched the logistics together. They taught themselves about 3D, the costs and the time it would take to build a float. It then became obvious that they needed to come up with a smaller, more achievable alternative. However, their collaboration hasn’t always been without difficulty. At times William would become impatient with Mawarini, preferring to be alone. She would respond by saying, “Let’s take a break … Sometimes he would ask, ‘What shall I draw?’ I’d say, ‘No, you can’t ask me that. Let’s discuss it.’ That was our process.”

The artists working on Reaching Out created impressive bodies of artwork together. The project focused on the professional development of the learning-disabled artists, but it was also about creating a space where the artistic development of all the artists was essentially a two-way exchange.

Mawarini described how William’s process influenced her:

He’s very focused and I think, oh, I need to be focused.He’s not afraid to do mark making or create a character or even copy a character from a television show and then make it his own, and he is so prolific. He makes me realise that I need to do more art and be more focused on my art journey. Even when he is at home, I think he just draws and draws and draws. I envy that focus.

Mawarini brings her computer and animation skills to their continuing collaboration. They are now working on digital drawing. William may, in the future, make an e-book or animate his drawings. Mawarini said, “There is a lot of possibility. I want to keep working with him. I don’t think I can stop that.”

William acknowledged that Mawarini helped with the exhibition and the float, but when I asked if he liked collaborating with partner artists, he replied, “I prefer working on my own … More space and peace. I don’t like being disturbed.”

Laura felt that her arts practice has been influenced by the way Jackie works intuitively:

I think to allow myself to work that way is a good option or trajectory for me as an artist. Also doing work that is true to yourself. That’s what Jackie has continually pursued and that’s inspiring to witness and take on board.

Laura pointed out that, often when it comes to evaluating a project, value is not accorded to the time that is required for good collaborative partnerships. “As soon as the exhibition is over, we say, ‘Oh the project is finished’, but it’s not really. There is an ongoing relationship between the artists that needs to be nurtured … I really want to work with Jackie again.”

Kurt said he couldn’t really remember how Emmeline contributed to his arts practice but that he felt he helped Emmeline in her practice by providing her with a sense of “achievement and joy”.

William keeps his pencil sharpenings in clear plastic boxes, which, apart from the stacks of drawings piling up in his bedroom, tells the story of how prolific an artist he is.

Kurt said that he never stops drawing, having painted or drawn over 5,000 art pieces.

Ellen Schlobom, team leader and visual arts and projects coordinator at Tutti said, ”Jackie’s a machine. She’s never bothered by deadlines. Work and work and work.”

They are all artists. They are artists in their own right.

Participation in arts and culture can be especially important to groups of people who are positioned on the periphery of society and are made to feel less worthy than other human beings, particularly people who experience multiple forms of oppression and exploitation. For them, art is often vital in: reducing social isolation, anxiety or depression; developing or re-establishing a sense of place and belonging; positive self and group identity; understanding others’ identities and cultures; increasing confidence and self-esteem; creating resilience; and assisting in developing tools of resistance. Deaf and disabled people in general, and learning-disabled people more specifically, are among the communities who benefit in these ways.

The 2019 Australia Council National Arts Participation Survey was expanded “to ensure greater representation of Australians with intellectual disability, with 68 targeted easy-read surveys undertaken”. More than half of the respondents with intellectual disability agreed that art helps me understand things (59%) and that the arts help me connect with people (56%). Respondents indicated they participate in the arts to have fun (84%), understand culture (74%), be social (70%) and learn skills (52%) (pp. 25). The Tutti artists working on the Reaching Out project highlighted some of the positive impacts of art on their lives. Jackie Saunders, a Ngarrindjeri and Wirangu, Kaurna and Kokatha woman, explained that art is her passion, helping her connect with her culture and family, especially her mother and father. She explained, “I think about them. A lot of my work is about that.” Kurt Bosecke finds making art puts him in a good head space and relaxes him. William Gregory feels most comfortable when he’s making art. He has been drawing since he was a boy and gains satisfaction from seeing his skills as an artist improve over time.

There is no doubt that the contributions of Deaf and disabled artists are vital to Australia’s arts and culture. The Australia Council for the Arts reports that disability art offers excellence and, amongst other benefits, unique perspectives that challenge and redefine aesthetics. The works engender empathy and understanding, can shift perceptions of disability, and have the potential to change lives (Creating Pathways, 2018). However, understanding the full extent of how art changes lives and whose lives are changed, what barriers are experienced by disabled artists and how they would like to overcome those barriers, is still an emerging research area. Data on the views, desires and artistic processes of learning-disabled artists is especially scarce. A lot of the data that does exist defines impact using notions such as creating empathy through the authenticity of learning-disabled artists’ work or changing non-disabled people’s perspectives on disability. These approaches may actually serve to restrict the artists and their art. Similarly, research that aims to ‘give voice’ to learning-disabled artists as an oppressed group, or seeks ways to ‘include’ the artists in mainstream arts and culture as a top-down initiative, may serve to reinforce existing patterns of oppression. The scope and diversity of the art in question has so much to offer but this aspect is rarely documented, critiqued or analysed.

The possibilities for change in the type of research we carry out are immense. For example, the opportunity exists for longitudinal and in-depth investigation. There is a real chance to address the dearth of recorded histories of learning-disabled arts and culture. We are in a position where we can choose to place importance on the intersectional, complex and varied experiences of learning-disabled artists. We may now determine research protocols that promote anti-colonial, anti-ableist, feminist and other lenses that challenge the limitations of prevailing and often detrimental expectations and methodologies.

In order to gather the data required, one of the most crucial elements of any future research is the need to foster conversations and genuine collaboration with learning-disabled people, where research is led or at least guided by participant communities, and the outcomes are understood by them. This applies to my interaction with the Reaching Out project, which would have benefitted greatly from discussion and collaborative guidance from the artists on how to proceed.

Genuine collaboration generally evolves slowly. It progresses as we learn each other’s ways of communicating, and as we become able to identify embodied information, habitual reactions, silences, choices of tools and mark making. We learn how to build upon partial or cliched answers and disruptions. Longevity in a relationship is helpful when reflecting on how best to negotiate personal and social power dynamics. Learning-disabled artists require time and support to gain the necessary trust, confidence, and skills to give genuine opinions on matters without feeling discomfort or pressure. We all need time to be able to create meaningful dialogue.

There are many issues relating to learning-disabled artists that go beyond the scope of this essay and urgently need addressing, including payment for work and integrated approaches to arts education and academia. It is essential that we support learning-disabled curators, arts academics, researchers, art critics, producers and directors. Interactive curating is key to exhibiting work in mainstream venues. We need to resist the censoring of disabled peoples’ experiences and perspectives so that work is seen as suitable for cultural consumption of the mainstream.

It makes total sense to embed evaluation and documentation of learning-disabled and collaborative art from the beginning of projects as a continuing process. The insights gained can and should be applied to a whole range of socio-cultural problems. Interactive, practice-led, in-the-field research and collaborative arts practice have the potential to challenge the very basis of Western, competitive, individualist and capitalist approaches to art and culture, and the way we produce and consume in it society.

I am particularly interested in conversations that will not only positively impact the individuals and communities concerned, but in the way we organise society. Speaking to the Boston Review about the universalist scope of her radical abolitionist politics, Angela Davis says, “The mandate of abolition feminism is to change the world – not simply to guarantee that those who have been pushed outside of the borders of society have the capacity to participate as it stands, but to change that world”. I would like to think this is also true of disability justice politics, especially the collaborative initiatives emerging in learning-disabled arts, and disabled-led access and inclusion activism in arts and culture in Australia.

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  I use the term ‘learning-disabled’ to express the disabling effects that mainstream educational approaches and communication practices may have on intellectually impaired people, where such practices limit an individual’s capacity to learn and participate in society. Learning-disabled people may for various reasons be considered neurodivergent. They may experience more than one form of impairment, and/or mental distress. At times in this essay, I have quoted from passages that are more about neurodivergence or mental distress.