Tracing, placing, plotting;
CEDA
CEDA is based in a building on an office estate, and contains a wonderful array of studios, IT equipment, dance space, a darkroom, sensory room and video area. Moya Harris showed me around and I saw students with communication and mobility impairments in workshops and dance sessions. It had previously been put to me that Disability Art was not art therapy, so I cautiously tried to approach the subject of definition of DA:
Gus. There seems to be career disability artists and a different ‘grade’…
Moya .I always think that the line isn’t that defined, and nor should it be. You’ve got disability arts which is very much about disabled people working and expressing our experience as disabled people, you’ve also got disabled artists who are artists who just happen to be disabled, and not necessarily interested in expressing their experience as disabled people, and then you got artists who actually do both. In fact, most artists do both. I don’t think there needs to be a strict structure. Where it gets difficult I think is when the funding bodies want to know what you’re doing and then you have to impose a rigid pattern to what you’re doing.
G. It looks like some of the people here come here and make art as therapy, is that the case?
M. I think what is important if art is therapeutic – and isn’t it to all of us? – is if you set out to do it for that purpose, and I think that’s where ideas also get skewed about what organizations are doing. So for example here, most of the art activity that takes place with the group that uses the building most, i.e. the students that come here, the activities are defined by them through a regular process of consultation, and if they ask for arts and crafts then that’s what is developed. Now, that may be at such a low entry level because (a) they’ve never had an opportunity to do it before and (b) a lot of them are very restricted what they can achieve in terms of their mobility and communication skills, so a lot of them need enablers to help them do that because they can’t physically do it. But the ideas are very much theirs.
And yes of course its therapeutic. It helps them with mobility skills and communication skills. It actually opens up a whole new level of communication for them. That’s like a byproduct rather than the primary intention.
G. It’s interesting to hear you say that they set the agenda, so CEDA is artist led?
M. Yes, definitely. Everything that happens here is in response to what the users of the building want.
The only thing that is happening now is that we’re trying to get the building used more as an artistic resource because it’s got all this space and all this equipment, and its got a car park.
G. What about career artists in the area, are you offering it to them?
M Yes. The other thing that’s happened over the last couple of years is that CEDA has developed, through Arts Council funding, a series of longer term projects, a couple of which have been artist in residence.
They have to be disabled artists. So for example the last one was Salma Nathu (?spelling). Part of the program for the artist in residence is to obviously run a few sessions with the students here, and to do talks about their work and where it comes from - so that’s where the disability arts element comes in – which are open, so that people can come here and hear the artist talk about their work, and Open Studio as part of the Nine Days of Art, which is an open artist’s studio thing like many counties do in the region. The main thing is their own professional development; that they use the facilities here to create a piece.
So we want to build on that, and the next grant application has got space for three consecutive artists in residence opportunities over the year.
That’s how we’re trying to widen the range of artists who use the facilities; going from people who are dependent on carers or enablers right through to professional disabled artists.
G. You mentioned when you were showing me around about showing work at the Exeter Phoenix Gallery… http://www.exeterphoenix.org.uk/
M. Yes, the film project that’s going on now is an intensive 3 week project. There will be three shorts and they will be shown as part of Animated Exeter, which is an annual festival. The group is people with learning difficulties – they’re people from the community who don’t use the space regularly. They have a short space of time to make these films, and will be working nearly every day over the next three weeks.
Actually, it is going to be, not political, but a piece of disability arts work. They’ve made a pilot already, to get to know the medium, but this project now is focused on trying to get the group to express themselves and their own experiences. We’ll put one, or possibly all of the films, into the Oscar Bright film Festival for learning disabled people. Its Brighton based and its national.
G. There seem to be lot’s of opportunities for shorts currently.
M. It’s a great medium, there’s something for everyone, be it making the scenery, or acting, or scripting or camerawork. Its very accessible.
G. Has CEDA got a catchment area?
M. Well, people come from all over Devon, for various things at various times.
G. I was going to ask about CEDA’s connection to disability arts, but I think we’ve covered that.
M. Yes, we’re here to support disabled artists if they are working in disability arts or not and at any level.
G. That’s admirable.
M. I think the disability arts sector does get a bit politicized sometimes and there is a whole level that is just ignored, because of that. We tend to forget what we were like before we were politicized and we move on with the intellectual argument, and the political perspective, and forget about people who haven’t got there yet.
G. Can you tell me what facilities are available for artists here?
M. There’s the arts & crafts studio with a kiln and pottery wheel, the dark room, a storage space which we’re sorting out with lockers, there’s an IT suite which has got all the software imaginable and lots of access equipment, so people can work in digital arts here, then there’s the large dance and drama room which is available for activities which need large space. Then upstairs there’s the children’s room where the film project is happening, then there’s the sensory room, which is good for sound, there are musical instruments here and amplifiers and all that kind of kit. That’s about it really.
G. The Devon Disabled Artists Network meet here don’t they?
M. Yes, I’ll put you in touch with them.
G. Is it true to say that any disabled groups or individuals can find access to pretty much everything here then?
M. Yes. They just need to contact info@cedaonline.org.uk to find out what is going on. The website is under construction at the moment, its out to tender for redoing.
There is quite a lot going on. It runs a bit like evening classes; community education, it runs in twelve-week blocks and most of the classes are open for people to come to. There may be a small cost, but most of them are free, especially if they have direct payment through social services. Get an up to date program.
Oh, the Devon Disabled Artists Network, last year they had Inspiration Days where they all met here and went out on ideas trips, down to Dartmoor and places like that.
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