Disabled artist \u201cMow\u201d, 32, has literally taken the shirt off her back for her latest work: a laundry-cum-mailbag made from her own clothes, with shopping receipts appliqued on the cloth.<\/p>\n
Not Lost is Mow\u2019s satirical response to the Department for Work and Pensions\u2019 \u201cshoddy\u201d information-gathering process, inspired by her own experience of sending her financial details \u2013 a requirement of receiving her out-of-work sickness benefits for bipolar disorder \u2013 only for it to be \u201clost\u201d in the system.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery year they ask, \u2018Has your income gone up or down?\u2019 Then they lose your information. No apologies, nothing. Just \u2018we\u2019re going to cut your benefits if you don\u2019t act\u2019,\u201d says Mow, who doesn\u2019t use her real name because of her mental health problems. \u201cIt makes you feel so powerless.\u201d<\/p>\n
A social worker before she was diagnosed, Mow says she chose a laundry bag to symbolise how disabled people \u2013 pushed through increasingly personal and difficult benefits assessments \u2013 have to \u201cair their dirty laundry in public\u201d and deal with the shame that often creates. \u201cYou go from a working member of society doing \u2018the right thing\u2019 to being this passive \u2018benefit claimant\u2019 tarred with the brush of being a sponger,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Mow, from Huddersfield, is one of 19 disabled artists taking part in an exhibition in Leeds from Thursday called Shoddy.<\/p>\n
Each contributor will use nothing but recycled textile materials in a bid to \u201cchallenge the idea that disabled people are inferior, broken-down or second-rate\u201d.<\/p>\n
The organisers say that, in a climate of seismic cuts to social security, \u201cshoddy\u201d could be used to describe government treatment of the disabled. \u201cWe\u2019re seeing sustained attacks on disabled people\u2019s rights to live with dignity and without fear of harassment \u2013 all from a government hell bent on removing any sense of security or stability,\u201d says Gill Crawshaw, the founder of Shoddy.<\/p>\n
Crawshaw has a history of using art to highlight disabled people\u2019s inequality. In 2014 she set up a local exhibition in protest at the council\u2019s decision to show Grayson Perry\u2019s tapestries in an inaccessible venue, but says the timing of the current exhibition is \u201cparticularly crucial\u201d.<\/p>\n
After widespread opposition last month, including the resignation of welfare and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith, the government dropped its controversial plans to cut personal independence payments (PIPs). Despite that climbdown, during this parliament there will be further cuts to social security, including the removal of \u00a330 a week from some people too ill or disabled to work.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s now an increasing struggle to access state support is portrayed in Vickie Orton\u2019s work, The Maze of Life. Orton, 47, chose the theme of a maze to reflect the experience of working your way through the benefit system. \u201cSo often you\u2019re faced with dead ends or turnings that look promising but lead nowhere,\u201d says Orton, who has multiple sclerosis and receives PIP and employment support allowance. \u201cSometimes it can be impossible to fight your way through it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Half the maze, made in monochrome to illustrate the rigidity of the claims process, tellingly includes hopeful-looking corridors that meet in a dead end or the barrier of a staircase. The other \u2013 brightly coloured with threaded sparkles \u2013 portrays the contributions that disabled people make to society.<\/p>\n
This blend of hope and darkness is scattered through Lesley Illingworth\u2019s work, which the 58-year-old calls a \u201cstory-telling coat\u201d. At first sight the coat is embroidered with positive qualities of disabled people (\u201cpatient, intuitive, brave\u201d), but its lining tells a bleak reality: a list of MPs, each partnered with the name of a disabled person from Calum\u2019s List \u2013 the list of deceased benefit claimants compiled by disability campaigners, where welfare reform is alleged to have had some culpability in their deaths.<\/p>\n
Illingworth, 58, who has fibromyalgia, has been an artist for more than 20 years, but this is the first time she has felt the need to use her work to protest: \u201cThe political system of recent years against disabled people, and the increase in vilification by the media, has made me more political. I\u2019ve seen how it\u2019s affected the lives of disabled people, the unfairness of it all.\u201d<\/p>\n
Crawshaw hopes now is \u201cthe turning point\u201d, adding: \u201cAs the exhibition shows the power and strength of disabled people, more and more people \u2013 including Tory MPs \u2013 are directing their anger towards the government and calling for an end to these vicious spending cuts. The government\u2019s treatment of disabled people is beyond shoddy \u2013 it\u2019s downright cruel.\u201d<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Disabled artist \u201cMow\u201d, 32, has literally taken the shirt off her back for her latest work: a laundry-cum-mailbag made from her own clothes, with shopping receipts appliqued on the cloth. Not Lost is Mow\u2019s satirical response to the Department for Work and Pensions\u2019 \u201cshoddy\u201d information-gathering process, inspired by her own experience of sending her financial […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[137],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n