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Do not open it … Do not own it

Hacked Cassette Player

Tonight I am performing for the GMCDP AGM at The International Anthony Burgess Foundation. Alongside other local disabled artists, I will be trying out a new scratch electronic piece: Do not open it // Do not own it. 

Do not open it // Do not own it is sound based parody about PIP & ESA claimants resorting to the use of cassette tapes to record their assessments.   

Using ableton live, touch boards and hacked cassette players, I will explore the backward/rewinding/distorted process these assessments have been for many of us. 

The process isn’t just a cruel challenge to our survival, but also a distortion of our identity or validity as disabled people.  

GMCDP AGM

6.30pm-9.30pm, International Anthony Burgess Foundation
Engine House Chorlton Mill 3
Cambridge Street
Manchester
M1 5BY

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Participants wanted for ‘Hanging in the Balance’ arts-activism

As disabled people, we have a deep sense of threat and despair about our future: a future that ‘hangs in the balance’.

Are you a disabled person who feels like your life is currently hanging in the balance?

 

Draft wet plate version 15.8.15
Draft wet plate ‘Hanging in the Balance’ image        M.Selway 15.8.15.  Follow the project at #hanginginthebalance

To symbolise the regressive affects of welfare reform and fragility of our existence, I am working with historical photographer Michele Selway to produce ‘Hanging in the Balance’.

‘Hanging in the Balance’ is an ethereal set of wet plate photographs of disability related paraphernalia hanging ominously in the trees.

Inspired by Liz Crow’s ‘Figures’ this project will carry on highlighting the deeply troubling effect of austerity through art activism.

Follow Gemma’s board #hanginginthebalance on Pinterest.

 

I would like to accompany these plates with statements from disabled people highlighting how their lives are hanging in the balance.

If you would like to contribute, please email info@gemmanashartist.com with your statement by 1st November 2015, and let me know whether you are happy for your name to be used with your quote.

 

Thank you,

Gemma Nash

#hanginginthebalance

“Austerity exists in other countries, but no other countries to my knowledge has targeted disabled people in the way that the UK government has.” 
– Simon J Duffy, director of The Centre of Welfare Reform.

 

“My life is hanging in the balance because the fragile security I felt I had built up over the years has gone completely …. all the practical arrangements I have been able to rely on are uncertain.” – Liz Crow, Artist