Rocket Artists
Last month I spent a week with some of the Rocket Artists as they travelled to Brussels to put on a performance and exhibit their work. The Rocket artists are a group of artists with learning disabilities from Brighton. They have exhibited around the U.K and at the Tate Modern. This time they were exhibiting for the first time abroad at the Musee de la Medecine, Brussels.
The Exhibition “Measures of Bodies” includes new drawings, prints and paintings made in response to the ideas and artefacts in the Medical Museum.
Identity, heart as pump and emotional centre and our unique bodies are recurrent themes in the work. Duets performed by artists with and without learning disabilities in the Grande Salle on the opening night with a live heartbeat soundtrack also explore these ideas through dance.
Also featuring a new artwork replacing the museums existing collection of sample jars with 60 newly labelled jars containing autobiographical text and body sculptures. Thereby taking on the role as ‘labeller’ the artists redefine their identity to challenge a culture of stereotypes and deficit models.
By positioning the work within the collection value is placed on preserving the knowledge of people with learning disabilities as experts of themselves.
To find out more about the Rocket Artists visit their website http://www.rocketartists.co.uk/
Upcoming Shows
July 9th – July 30th 2010 – First solo show, The Studio Gallery, Aberystwyth
August 6th -September26th 2010 – “The Art On Your Wall”, Much Hadam Forge Museum, Hertfordshire
Review in artartart
My painting “Her Daughter Came” was recently reviewed in the artartart, an online art magazine. www.artartartgallery.com/ 