Rachel Gadsden

In July 2023, visual and performance artist Rachel Gadsden, and sound designer Freddie Meyers, undertook R&D research to with the ambition to ultimately create a dynamic live art and sound performance that takes the audience on a journey exploring notions of TransHuman Embodiment. Through their combined art practices, Gadsden and Meyers consider how chronic illness and disability not only present challenges, but also empower and authorise agency of the body.

The ambition is to build foundations for a social and politically charged artistic expression, and to contribute to disability cultural change.

It is due to advancements in medical science that Gadsden continues to survive, enabling her, to challenge perceptions of disability, both Nationally and Internationally, through her art practice. 

TransHuman Embodiment and Beyond R&D will gain its first R&D premiere at Liberty Festival 2023, Croydon. 

About The Artists:

Rachel Gadsden is a leading British visual and performance artist and disability cultural activist, who exhibits and performs her art nationally and internationally. Expressionist in approach, she creates solo exhibitions, performances, and collaborative social engagement art projects with disabled, vulnerable, and mainstream communities, with the object of developing cross-cultural dialogues considering universal notions of humanity.

Freddie Meyers is a composer, musician, and educator, currently based in Windsor where he has been Composer-in-residence at Eton College for the past two years. Freddie’s music explores the fragility of sonic experience, both through his use of microtonality and networked internet practices. His works have been performed both nationally across the UK as well as internationally in Europe and the Middle East.

Inside Croydon
KEN TOWL takes hope, and much joy, from last week’s Liberty Festival, where deaf, disabled and neurodivergent artists injected some much-needed culture into the borough. Photos by PAUL FULLER
Taking Liberty with the arts in a way that celebrates us all
Injection of culture: Rachel Gadsden and Freddie Meyers performed TransHuman Embodiment and Beyond, one of the highlights of the Liberty Festival

https://insidecroydon.com/2023/09/08/taking-liberty-with-the-arts-in-a-way-that-celebrates-us-all/

Performances and Exhibitions

Liberty Festival UK
Date & Time: 1st Sep 2023, 7:30pm - 8:00pm
Venue: The Foyer, Fairfield Halls, Park Lane, Croydon CR9 1DG
Price: Free

For further booking details please follow the link here:
Liberty Festival 2023 - This is Croydon

Holland Sept 2023 - The Big Draw Nederland
Interview with Rachel Gadsden:
https://thebigdrawnederland.nl/rachel-gadsden-interview/


Nijmegan - TransHuman Performance
9th Sept 2023, 1pm, Extrapool, Nijmegen
Follow the link below for further information:
https://thebigdrawnederland.nl/activiteit/transhuman-embodiment-and-beyond-nl-nijmegen-09-09-2023/

Arnhem
Rachel Gadsden Exhibiting at Museum Arnhem:
14-09-2023 — 16-09-2023
11:00 — 17:00
Utrechtseweg 876812 AA, Arnhem
Follow the link below for further information:
https://thebigdrawnederland.nl/expositie/rachel-gadsden-in-museum-arnhem/

TransHuman Performance, Arnhem Museum:
16-09-2023
13:00 — 16:00
Utrechtseweg 876812 AA, Arnhem
Follow the link below for further information:
https://thebigdrawnederland.nl/activiteit/rachel-gadsden-arnhem-16-09-2023/

Audio Description Introduction to TransHuman (14 mins approx)

Please click on the LINK directly below to hear a conversation between Rachel (Visual and Performance Artist) and Freddie (Composer and Sound Designer) where they talk about their combined arts TransHuman performance, and discuss the ideas and concepts the of the narrative and how they have brought their indervidual, visual and sound artistic languages together, to create this new dynamic performance artwork.

With grateful thanks to Loughborough University, Arts Council England, Liberty Festival and Drunken Circus for the support they have given to enable the development and creation of TransHuman.

Photos taken during rehearsals and the development of TransHuman:

Link to The Evening Standard Newspaper article which featured TransHuman as one of six shows to see at Liberty Festival in Croydon this September. The event will celebrate the work of Deaf, disabled and neurodivergent artists from across the UK and beyond.
Link - The Evening Standard