Rachel Gadsden

Research Introduction

My research is investigating the extent to which perceptions of mortality emerging from the “Lived Experience” may influence the process and intention of the disabled artist’s practice. I am seeking to articulate through practice-based research how disability art might be a defining tool to advocate as social and cultural empowerment and activism.

“I identify as a disabled artist, this it is a political choice, and relates to my lifelong complex illness and my role as a disability activist.”

— Rachel Gadsden

Methodology:

In my art practice I employ a physical bodily process to express fragility and mortality. My body is central to the narrative, incorporated full-size, and combined within the work as an integral action and material. More generally, a key feature is to consider the extent to which cultural notions of the conditions of confinement, constriction, and sensation influence disabled artists’ process.

Discussion:

I hope to determine how illness and disability manifests in the aesthetics of the artwork, and whether that artwork, in some way, articulates an additional dimension of the human. I am using art processes, informed by illness and disability, to be the basis for experiments, and the analysis of artistic creation of Francis Bacon, Frida Kahlo, Tracey Emin and collaborating international disabled artists Jeremy Hawkes (AUS), Helen Roeten (NL), and Siu Fong Yeung (HK).

I have recently analysed Bacon’s medical notes and how his illness appears to resonate through his paintings. This is pertinent as Bacon and I inherited a rare and severe form of brittle asthma. Bacon openly discussed his brittle asthma and I wear a permanent syringe driver to support my breathing.

“Asthma has been with me longer than painting has and it’s a daily experience. It is probably something that has influenced my work, but it is impossible for me to say how.” ¹

- Francis Bacon (1992)

The lens of Disability Art: Context

Disability Arts Movement:

The Disability Arts Movement brought together activists, artists, and creatives to campaign for the civil rights of disabled people from the late 1970s onwards to fight against their marginalisation within the arts and culture. The movement influenced the passing of the Disability Discrimination Act (1995), which created legal precedents to challenge the discrimination of disabled people in employment, the provision of goods, facilities and services and was replaced in 2010 with the Equalities Act.²

The Medical Model of Disability:
The Medical Model of Disability defines disability as a problem to be cured, or changed by medical and other treatments, even when the impairment or difference does not cause pain or illness. It places responsibility in the hands of medical or social care professionals and abnegates the self-determination of disabled people.

The Social Model of Disability:
The Social Model of disability defines disability as the lived experience of barriers. It locates the cause of disability in the way that society is organised, rather than by a person’s impairment or difference. It looks at ways of removing barriers that restrict life choices for disabled people. When barriers are removed, disabled people can be independent and equal in society, with choice and control over their own lives.³

Disability Arts:
Disability Arts creates art that counteracts misunderstandings, misconceptions, stereotypes, and negative narratives surrounding the lives of disabled people. Disability Arts’ is art made by Disabled people which reflects the experiences of their lives and uses those “lived experiences” as inspiration and an aesthetic.

Endnotes:
1.Michel Archimbaud, Francis Bacon: In Conversation with Michel Archimbaud, Phaidon Press, 1994, 162.Linda Rocco, “Reflections on the Disability Arts Movement”, Unlimited, (Accessed 29 Nov 2022).
2. United Nations General Assembly, Session 61 Resolution 106, Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, 13 December 2006.
3. Linda Rocco, “Reflections on the Disability Arts Movement”, Unlimited, (Accessed 29 Nov 2022).

Doctoral Research collaborating Transnational Disabled Artists: 
Photos clockwise: Rachel Gadsden (UK) Helen Roeten (NL) Jeremy Hawkes (AUS) Siu Fong Yeung (HK)

Disability Activism and Empowerment:

In May 2019 Rachel Gadsden was commissioned by the Directors of FIFA and Hyundai Motors South Korea to create an artwork and film for the 2019 Women's Football World Cup in Paris.
The commission recognised legindary USA footballer Mia Hamm and Gadsden, as role models who have fulfilled their True Passion through sport, art and activism and in doing so have inspired and empowered many disabled, vulnerable and non-disabled women across the Globe to pursue their True Passions too.

Womens World Cup Paris 2019 - True Passion breaks barriers.

FIFA World Football Museum presented by Hyundai

Link to 2.15mins film: TruePassion Global Campaign Film

Created for Hyundai by Czar Amsterdam featuring disabled artist Rachel Gadsden and USA Football ledgend Mia Hamm and directed by Michael Sewandono.​

Sky Sports Television

Interview with Mia Hamm and Rachel Gadsden at the FIFA Women's Football World Cup Paris, 2019

https://www.skysports.com/watch/video/sports/football/11756557/gadsden-and-hamm8217s-true-passion