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An Interview
With Alex Cowan




 

Play The Whole Interview Here! 




SZ - Thank you very much for joining me today Alex, how are you? 

AC- I’m good thank you, I’ve just come back from a lovely holiday in Costa Rica, so I’m chilled out and I’m loving life. 

SZ – Amazing! Well, we will start off relaxed then, what is your name and can you tell us about the work that you do. 

AC – My name is Alex Cowan, I work as a project archivist at the National Disability Arts Collection, which is a longstanding project based at the University of Buckinghamshire. I helped develop the initial application to the lottery to develop and deliver the archive. 

The NDACA covers the history of UK disability arts from around 1980 to the present, it primarily focuses on the living experience of disability but a part of that also has particular relevance and parallels with the history of disabled peoples struggles for civil rights In the UK at the same time, particularly in the 1990s but of course that struggle lives on today. 

We hold a collection of work created by disabled artists which falls into the category of the disability arts movement. Some people say this art is a movement such as surrealism or impressionism and the common criteria for this is that it has to be art about the lived experience of disabilities in some way. 

SZ – That’s super interesting, would you be able to maybe go into more detail about the NDACA’s significance in documenting the disabled arts scene in the UK over the last 20 years, because I think the sheer size of work that it has done is amazing.  

AC – There’s no other collection like it anywhere in the world. There are obviously disabled artists working solely in other countries, but I think what makes this collection so unique is that fact that firstly its multimedia. It covers everything from sculpture to embroidery & fabric work and other visual art to audio art as well. There’s no one format that the artists focus on and it includes artists with a full range of disabilities from artists with physical disabilities to neurodivergent and artists with learning difficulties. 

The founder of the concept was a disabled artist called Tony Heaton who realised that work by disabled artists wasn’t necessarily represented in the collections, they were quite often overshadowed, or the collections didn’t understand what the art was fully examining which meant disabled artists were often hesitant in describing and publicising their work.  They worked with a charity called Shape, which has been running for 40 years, which exists to develop the career of disabled artists in the UK.  

The first thing that struck me when I first started work on the collection was the amount of people who had, in their own terms, entered the mainstream. That might be people like Jenny Seely who is the director of the disability run theatre company Gray Eye, who did the opening ceremony for the Paralympics or Liz Carr the actor who has been in many shows.

Some of the artists we have worked with have made the mainstream and are well known in their own right as individual artists rather than being a part of a collective. There’s a saying in disability rights, ‘Nothing about us without us’ a phrase borrowed from the anti-apartheid movement from the 80s. I think that’s the most important reason for the collection because it means nobody speaks for these artists but themselves rather than taking into concern the artistic considerations of the mainstream. That goes right down to the descriptions of our work, where a normal catalogue writer might not have the experience to adequately describe the art that they are cataloguing. 

SZ – So I guess the importance of having people that are really embedded in the culture of disabled arts really makes the NDACA so key to sharing these important stories. That’s really amazing.  In the last 20 years how have you seen the disability arts scene evolve within in the UK and what role has yourself and the NDACA played in preserving and continuing to preserve that history 
AC - I’d say the part played directly by NDACA in this regard is quite minor, I think is important to this work should be preserved. And doubly important given that quite a lot of art produced by disabled people is in media that has quite a short life span, due to the materials that they are created from. There are a few works in oil and some in stone but mostly we have things drawn in felt tip, things drawn on wipeable whiteboards, things produced with the best materials that those artists could afford, which often don’t have longevity. Because disabled artists sadly don’t enjoy careers or even lifespans as long and as popular as some artists might do, it’s quite easy for things to be lost. I find it quite ironic that some disabled artists were very early digital adopters. The fact that they were using very primitive computers to produce their artwork for reasons of access has led to greater problems that might be faced by more and more mainstream artists because the software itself is inherently fragile. 



‘My Magic Fan (With Noisy Machine’
By Lynne Beel, 1973 (Oil on Canvas)
I think the most important thing you can do is preserve and make people, including disabled contemporary artists, aware of the heritage that exists and the importance of it. I think the most interesting thing about disabilities arts, is as I mentioned, how some of it can quickly become mainstream. I don’t mean that in the negative context I just mean that in terms of audience reach when an artist ceases to be seen only by disabled audiences and becomes something that is more widely known. 

I suppose you could see the same with fashion designers when they start out small and niche. Or with all of the fashion trends which might be from a portion of society that are marginalised. Through repetition and development, it moves into the mainstream, such as fashion trends adopted from LGBTQ communities. There are many examples of this throughout fashion and I think it’s just another interesting example, of what started out as an marginalised culture or cultural expression becomes popular and more mainstream. I find that fascinating.  

Honestly, people are always looking for the new, for the different and I think NDACA makes it possible for people to go on a voyage of discovery about disability arts in the same way. 

SZ - That’s really interesting, I think expanding on that, you talked about digital art, fashion and you’ve commented briefly on the different types of art that a lot of disabled artists have done. In your time as an archivist, is there any forms of artistic expression that you think are maybe less commonly seen in the disabled arts community? And why do you think that is? Also, I guess, expanding on that, what are the most common types of art that you see, If there are any? 

AC - That’s a difficult one to answer. I would say probably the biggest most noticeable thing is how quickly any sort of artwork becomes popular and acquires value. 

Damian Hurst has been producing images of disability throughout his career and by dint of where he is, and then where he sits within with the artistic world, very quickly becomes quite common currency. And I think it takes longer for a disabled artist who uses their work to comment on the experience of disability to achieve fame, for want of a better term. I wouldn’t say that there is any media that disabled artists don’t work in, not that I’m aware of. What’s quite interesting is that I think there are some areas that are exclusively in the preserve of disabled artists. One of the trends that we’re only just starting to pick up on, is the fact that 3D printers allow for disabled people to design their own prosthesis. Whilst this is mainly an American trend, the artwork that is being produced to manufacture artificial arms or hands, is so far away from what the NHS or medical manufacturers provide. For it to be seen as artworks in their own right I find that very interesting.  

Probably one of the most loaded pieces of artistry is a self-portrait. Lots of people when they first go to art school, the first thing they are asked to do is paint themselves and our collection is filled with self-portraits, quite a lot of them nude. There is obviously a mission in the minds of these artists who create these paintings, to recapture their own body and I find that makes self-portraits by the artists we hold, I think more powerful. Because there’s a whole layer of ownership of your body and having confidence or a lack of shame in your body, plays a role that it might not play for an artist in a different situation coming from a different angle. That’s noticeable in every collection of visual art that we acquire, whether people paint or draw as an image or an expression, there are always these self-portrait images that are really quite loaded with meaning and significance because other institutions are constantly trying to own negative images for themselves, and I find that very interesting. 

SZ – Yeah definitely, that’s amazing, from an outsider’s perspective I never would’ve thought about it like that but that’s very enlightening. 

AC -  In a fashion context, before you dress yourself and in style & fashion, you have to work on the assumption that the body you bring to be clothed, doesn’t necessarily belong to you or it seems in society like it doesn’t belong to you, and I also think that gives a whole different layer to self-expression 

SZ – That’s a really amazing response and absolutely. My next question to you would be, how do you think the disabled arts scene in the UK has influenced mainstream perceptions of disability in general life. Art can sometimes be a way to highlight something or help see something in a different light. Do you think the art scene helps people understand disability a bit more? I understand that disability of course isn’t fully understood and appreciated by the general public, so expanding on that, what do you think needs to change for the needs of the disabled community to be clearer in the conscience of the next generation of designers? 

AC - Yeah, I think the most important thing, that we have been doing since the 90s, it’s the dreaded v word, visibility. Just to see disabled people in a wide variety of situations, and depictions. I’m fascinated by charity collection boxes. The thing I find interesting about the charity collection boxes that I remember from my childhood was that, quite often the only disabled people I saw would be wearing the boxes that I remember. Because the living disabled people were hiding. Now disabled people appear on TV, in film and in the pages fashion magazines. Vogue, and others have all featured people with some kind of disability and increasingly models with learning difficulties or neurodivergent models, which reflects a genuine, the general expansion of all disabled groups in society. 

I think probably the most influential thing is that the modern model of disability is much more accessible than previous model. The previous medical model of disability is old and outdated. I’ll give you two examples.  

British Vogue Front Cover
‘Reframing Fashion’ (May 2023)

The medical model of disability says that disabled people have trouble accessing society because they’re disabled. An example of this would be: you can’t get into the building because you’re in a wheelchair; you cant go up the stairs because you’re on crutches or you can’t interact educational systems because you have learning difficulties. And that kind of makes the disability the fault of the person who experiences that impairment. The social model of disability, which is the current model says that it is lack of social provision, that creates disability. For example, if I were a wheelchair user: I can’t access that building, not because I’m in a wheelchair, but because there’s no ramp. 

SZ – Because they haven’t designed it in a way that’s accessible for you. 

AC – The social model seems to be something that was created in the in the early 70s. For my daughter’s generation, they’re very much aware of it as a concept, even if they don’t describe it, as that. And if you extrapolate the algorithm of the social model It’s possible that you or I may point to this innovation when we are old or if our incomes drop below a certain level. I think the most important thing is understanding, that it is a fallacy to ensure there are no barriers to participation by any particular group. I think this is also a very widespread point of view because it goes beyond disability. You can apply it to people of colour, or women, or the old or children who don’t have the same rights as adults. It’s about fairness and the desire our people to ensure that. That’s probably the most important single thing that you can do. 

SZ - Definitely. Okay. Unfortunately we have only got five minutes left so I’ll leave you with one more question. First one, looking ahead into the future, what do you see as the main challenges but also opportunities for the art scene in the UK?  

AC - I think the biggest barrier at the moment, is the current funding models for all arts, not just disability arts, are under threat, we see the nature of the Arts Council is changing. COVID has broken the traditional model of going to galleries or museums or physical institutions and I don’t think they will really ever recover from that. And people who have yet to make the full move to a digital experience. 

To describe it with the same value, as going to a shop or going to a gallery to see a painting. I think we’re in quite a transitional period, in terms of how people consume fashion, style and culture. We aren’t quite sure w whether we ascribe the same value to that virtual event, in the same way that we acquired it to the old experience. 



A Woman with a COVID mask sits alone in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Brussles.
 But I think the important thing with disability rights in general, the realisation has to be that the struggle to secure and then maintain your rights very often will never end. And part of that struggle is to ensure continuing visibility. I don’t see disabled artists, or just disabled people in general, being forced to go back into residential homes where they’ll never get out. But I think as things become more virtual, you have to you have to be careful that they don’t disappear in a different way. Because yeah I can’t make it a comment in much more detail than that. I think visibility is key and constant awareness of disability rights. And within that, we can help with disability for the next generations.  

SZ - Okay, perfect. Well, that comes the end of this interview with you, Alex.  Thank you so much for your time. The last question I just want to ask is how can people get in touch with the NDACA and shape arts, how can they contribute to the amazing work that you guys are doing? 

AC - You can find out more about the NDACA and Shape arts at: https://the-ndaca.org/ and https://www.shapearts.org.uk/ respectively.