FLOW RIVER FLOW

The mainstream is made up of many rivers of consciousness, mixtures of diversity and madness, joy and sorrow. Art overall has a responsibility to reflect the diverse world which we inhabit. The art of any given time provides a unique social commentary on what was happening to people on many different levels.

Art can also be used as part of a campaign for positive or for that matter negative change.

Disability art is young. Disabled people arriving on the social agenda with their stories, their issues and their lives. Traditionally lives that have been buried under the tears of tragedy, locked in the attics of guilt and repression, ignored by the pursuit of false perfection. Disability Art uncovers this silent history reveals disabled people as part of the human race and gives a sky for their dreams to take shape.

Disability art is not mainstream but it is a river of consciousness a river of hope that challenges our exclusion from modern day culture.

Disability culture is a transient concept which disabled people need at the present time so that important messages can be quickly transmitted and understood. Messages of humanity, messages of the battle for inclusion, messages from those of us at the sharpest end of the oppression we call disability, messages of hope and survival, of love and hate. Messages that bring us together to unite against the ideas that we are socially dead, useless eaters, better off dead. Messages that confirm that we are strong angry and proud, that we are human beings and should be accorded the basic rights that go along with that.

Disability arts comes from your very soul, it can't be bought but it can be supported. When disabled people are accepted in society only then will the dam burst as our river flows into the mainstream.