I heard from Shape late yesterday. You might remember my work was selected for this exhibition and I blogged about it here. The email was sent to all exhibitors with the draft catalogue guide. We were asked to double check the:
- Spelling of our name
- Details of the work – title, date, medium, size, and
- Supply any information asked for on our page, and
- Check over the text for our work.
Big changes
I was surprised that the descriptions/text for our work had been altered so much when the specification of any accompanying text was so detailed in the original submission criteria. This resulted in my statement going from this…
My Health, My Home, Your Rules is a visual statement that identifies three fundamental things that impose on my experience.
The first image makes a statement about my health and how it changes. Because I am paralysed I often have to use external indicators to assess my health and one good indicator is the colour of my urine. Thus this image indicates my health for a week. The second image – a triptych – reflects that a lot of my life is spent in the domestic sphere working to daily routines. This hints at both the maintenance tasks involved in dealing with paralysis and some of the ways I seek to spend my time. The third image offers a rather traditional landscape view while noting how society defines wheelchair users as a special class of person with rules that only pertain to us.
I did not create these images for this exhibit. I use art as a way engaging with, and making sense of, the world around me, as the process of creating representations of my experience helps me deal emotionally with, and to respond to, the pressures of life – whether or not they are originate from physiological, social or physical sources.
Using aesthetics to re-present my experience shines lights on things normally hidden and questions that which is often seen as natural and so releases a pressure while inviting others to think about, and question, my experience as a disabled person.
To this…
My Health, My Home, Your Rules is a visual statement that identifies three fundamental things that impose on my experience. First image: because I am paralysed I use external indicators to assess my changing health. Second image: a triptych hinting at dealing with paralysis at home, and certain ways I spend my time. Third image: a traditional landscape view, noting how society defines wheelchair users as a separate class of person.
Still, I was given the chance to adjust it and so amended the statement to this.
My Health, My Home, Your Rules speaks of the fundamental forces that impose on my experience. Because I am paralysed I use external indicators to assess my changing health, hence the urine bags. The triptych hints at the ways I deal with paralysis at home, and how I spend my time. The last image, a traditional landscape view, recognises that society defines wheelchair users as a separate class of person and impacts on my public life.
It’s not as good as the first statement but given that the exhibition will be showing some 38 artists’ work I suppose I need to be a little more relaxed about such things.
anomiepete 