Inclusive Arts Practice and Research

Alice Fox is a Principal Lecturer and Associate Head in the College of Arts and Humanities, University of Brighton, researching Inclusive Arts Practice and education. Alice is also Course Leader and founder of the pioneering MA Inclusive Arts Practice, and Artistic Director of the Arts Council England-funded learning-disabled Rocket Artists. This group has been awarded significant funds from Arts Council England to deliver their programme of high-quality exhibitions and performances. During 2013, the Rockets worked in partnership with the Southbank Centre to deliver the Side by Side project – an international exhibition and symposium of Inclusive Arts that this book builds upon. In 2008, Alice collaboratively directed and performed Smudged, an inclusive performance with the Rocket Artists at Tate Modern, and in 2010 performed and exhibited Measures of Bodies at the Brussels Medical Museum. Alice has published in The New Museum Community, 10 Must Reads: Inclusion, and co-authored Community–University Partnerships, Access to Art: From Day Centre to Tate Modern, and Art in the Woods: An Exploration of a Community–University Environmental Arts Project published by NIACE (National Institute of Adult Continuing Education).Dr Hannah Macpherson is a Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Brighton. Her interests include feminist, post-structural and new-materialist theories with a research focus on the physical and imaginative spaces of disability, landscape and arts practice. She enjoys creative, collaborative research and writing projects that intend to make a positive difference in the world. Her work has appeared in a range of peer-reviewed academic journals including Environment and Planning, Cultural Geographies and The Senses & Society, and she has published numerous book chapters. She coordinates the disability ethics and aesthetics research group at the University of Brighton, and has just completed an Arts & Humanities Research Council-funded research project on visual arts practice for resilience.

• List of Illustrations Foreword AcknowledgementsChapter 1 Situating Inclusive Arts: aesthetics, politics, encountersIntroductionWhat is Inclusive Arts? Why use the term Inclusive Arts?What sorts of inclusions occur through Inclusive Arts Practice?Learning disabilities, intellectual disabilities or learning difficulty? Some notes on terminologyWhat contribution does Inclusive Art make to Contemporary Art?What are the potential aesthetic effects of Inclusive Arts?Is this Outsider art?How should work be labelled? If at all…How does this work relate to the everyday lives of people with learning disabilities?What are the transformative potentials of Inclusive Arts?So what is the difference between an Inclusive Artist and a community worker?Audience encounters 1: What can be achieved when audiences experience this work?Audience encounters 2: How does this work intervene in regimes of disabled visuality?Audience encounters 3: What can audiences take away from this work?How does Inclusive Arts differ from Disability Art?How does Inclusive Arts differ from art therapy and occupational therapy?What are the characteristics of good quality Inclusive Arts?What is in the rest of the book? A note from the authors…ParadoxA note on editing interviews in Chapters Three and FourAccessible SummaryChapter 2 Curation, biography and audience encounter……………..…………………………………………41IntroductionDiversity, encounter and exchange in the cultural sphereAlice Fox on Inclusive Curation: Putting on the ‘Side by Side’ exhibition at the SouthbankArt and inclusion: what is shared with other artists and curators who are placed at ‘the margins’?Jude Kelly, Artistic Director of the Southbank Centre, LondonAnna Cutler, Director of Learning at Tate Catherine Morris, Sackler Family Curator for the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum, NY. Conclusions: productive difference, performative interpretation and an emphasis on unknowabilityChapter 3How do we practice Inclusive Arts? ………………………...………………………………..………85IntroductionFrameworks, foundations, timetables and starting pointsChoice and FreedomTimeTrust Risk and Uncertainty An openness to all the languages we communicate inAn embodied ethic of encounterBecoming a self aware practitionerThe answers are in the roomInterviews with the Rockets Rocket artists: a conversation about the Wedding CloaksJane Fox, Louella Forest and Alice Fox ConclusionsChapter 4Interviews with the artists……………………………………...……………………………………...115Dean Rodney and Mark Williams, Heart and Soul, LondonDeclan Byrne and Andrew Pike, The Kilkenny Collective for Arts Talent (KCAT), IrelandKate Adams, Project Art WorksCharlotte Hollinshead, Action Space, LondonBethan Kendrick and Jacobus Flynn, Corali Dance Company, LondonChapter 5Inclusive Arts Research……………………………………...……………………………………….159IntroductionInclusive Arts Practice as a form of research: making meaning through artistic forms of inquiryResearch terminologyWho or what is the subject of Inclusive Arts Research?What constitutes a literature review in Inclusive Arts research?What are the methods of Inclusive Arts research?Being a reflexive (self-aware) research practitionerWhat are the possible findings of Inclusive Arts Research?Research on Inclusive Arts: interpretation, definition and classification Evaluating the success of your project Thinking about social impact and cultural valueA few starting points for Inclusive Arts researchResearch Project EthicsContextInformed ConsentFree from CoercionYour research ‘outputs’ and intended audiencesChapter 6The Future of Inclusive Arts: building a global movement………………..………......................195IntroductionWhat would you hope for the future of Inclusive Arts?What is the future for learning disabled arts education?How can learning disabled artists go professional? What is the significance of Inclusive Arts for all and how can support worker ‘buy in’ be ensured?How can Inclusive Art help advance the human rights of people with learning disabilities and achieve social justice?The Central Human Capabilities (Adapted from Nussbaum 2003)How can Inclusive Art work explore themes such as sex, sexuality, nudity and death?Chapter 7 The making of this book……………………………………………………………………..224Who made this book and why?How was this book made?Afterword