The Rocket Artists are celebrating Side by Side, which is coming to an end after 4 glorious years. The project involved so many people that there is not enough room here to thank them all - but you know who you are - here's to being Side by Side, to learning disability, art and collaboration.
Here are some of the highlights:
Inclusive curation with our steering committee preparing for the exhibition at London's Southbank Spirit Level gallery, 2013
Committee mambers: Rohini Malik Okon and Paul Denton (Southbank Centre), Kate Adams (Project Art Work), Stephen Clarke (JumpCuts), Kelvin Burke, Tina Jenner, Alice Fox, Jane Fox, Jo Offer (Rocket Artists).
Inclusive performance at the exhibition opening
Rocket Artists and Corali collaborated and responded to the gallery space and the artworks. (see the film here) There were x contributing artists (add PDF list) and x visitors over the three? weeks
Inclusive symposium / 'thinking through doing day' and accessible workshops to co-develop the Manifesto for Inclusive Arts: Draft 1
We took over the Royal Festival Hall for the day, offering delegates a range of workshops expertly led by: (list) (PDF of all workshops)
The resulting Manifesto for Inclusive Arts can be seen here ...
Publication of the book 'Inclusive Arts Practice and Research: A Critical Manifesto'
The book evolved from all the conversations and connections made through planning Side by Side and was published by Routledge in May 2015 with funding from ACE and valuable support from University of Brighton. It was produced following the inclusive processes that it advocates: written by Alice Fox (Rocket Artists and University of Brighton) and Hannah Macpherson (University of Brighton) designed and illustrated by Kelvin Burke (Rocket Artist) and Jo Offer (Rocket Artist co-ordinator and University of Brighton academic), including interviews with artists from Heart n Soul, Action Space, KCAT and comments about the Future of inclusive arts practice from over 30 other international organisations in the field. The book contains accessible summaries and over 250 colour images by the Rocket Artists and contributors. It is a hybrid book that is designed for a diverse audience; learning disabled artists, their support staff, arts practitioners and facilitators, students and researchers of participatory and community arts and inclusion, academics and anyone interested in how to practice inclusive arts and why it is important. It can be read cover to cover, dipped into by chapter, read together with support and simply looked at for its visual content. We are very proud of it.
Let us know what you think.
It's available here: http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9781138841000/