Please note that this opportunity has now closed, and this page remains as an archive.
Thank you to all those who participated and to our funders at Heads Together.
Postbooks
Are you an amateur or professional self-identified disabled artist who lives in the Yorkshire and Humber region?*
Postbooks
Wanna get involved with an art-thing?
The Critical Fish has been thinking about alternative ways to facilitate creative conversations in alternative ways in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Designed by disabled artists and thanks to project funders Heads Together/UNION, we have developed ‘Postbooks’; an exciting, experimental and collaborative ‘slow art’ project that is free for participants.
The aim is to create inclusive visual conversations across a number of sketchbooks, notepads and zines by utilising the postal system.
If you prefer, this information can be viewed and downloaded as an editable Word document.
Just click the button below.
Postbooks will take place over a relatively long period of time (until Summer/Autumn 2021?), which we feel is a pretty radical concept in an increasingly digital COVID-19 world. The outcome is not important, but the process of making, responding and connecting to others in our shared communities during this difficult time most definitely IS.
* Wave 1, now closed, was open only to those in the Hull and East Riding region. Wave 2, active from Jan 2021, is open to any disabled artist living in the Yorkshire and Humber region.
Instructions
How does it work? What do I do?
There are essentially 5 steps to your participation – click on each step below for more information.
Step 1 - Sign Up
You register your interest in the project by signing up with us (see below).
We are keen to diversify the voices present in each of the Postbooks so you may find there are some questions that you might not usually be asked in the form!
To manage the project better, we will be accepting sign-ups in a number of waves. If the link isn’t available, keep an eye on our social media channels/website to see when the next wave is active.
Step 2 - Wait
Remember this is slow art! It may take weeks or months for your Postbook to make its way to you.
Step 3 - Create
When you receive your Postbook, your role is take over the next empty page (with artwork, writing, collage, whatever you want) and respond to the last completed page or the themes that have generally emerged so far in the Postbook, using whatever materials you have laying around.
You also have permission to enhance or add reflections to the previous page. This will allow a kind of collaborative visual conversation – as directed by those contributing to that particular Postbook – to flourish throughout the pages.
Although Postbooks celebrates disability arts, you don’t have to make work about disability – it could be about anything!
Step 4 - Send
When you’re done, post to the book to Artlink (87 Princes Avenue, Hull, HU5 3JU) using the included self-addressed envelope sent to you.
This is to not only protect artist identities (some of which may need safeguarding) and to comply with GDPR, but also to help keep track of sketchbooks and keep this voluntary project free to participate in.
Step 5 - Anticipate
The Critical Fish intend to showcase the finished Postbooks as an online gallery and/or resource, but who knows what may come as a result of this experiment… feel free to share your ideas!
Sign me up!
There are three main ways to register your interest.
We anticipate most participants will sign up using the first method.
1. Using a Google Form
You can sign up to the project via a Google Forms document. Click the button below to be taken to the form in a new window.
We reckon that it will take about five minutes to complete. This form checks eligibility and tells Fish all the practical information needed to get started. There will also be some questions to check preferences, access needs and some equality and diversity stuff.
2. Video or Audio recording
If it’s easier for you to answer these questions in an audio or video format, you can record yourself responding to each question before emailing/transfering the file to hello@thecriticalfish.co.uk. Please click the yellow button below to view/download the questions as an editable Word document.
3. Over the phone
If you are unable to sign up via Google Forms or by recording yourself talking, please email us at hello@thecriticalfish.co.uk to let us know and we’ll arrange a telephone sign up with you. You can click the button below to be taken to our contact form.
Additional Information
Risk Management
Due to the slow and physically distanced nature of this participatory project, Postbooks is likely to carry a minimal infection risk as days will pass between those touching the books as they travels through the postal system. On receipt, each book will also be quarantined for 7 days before processing.
However, we ask that participants still practice safe hygiene when handling the books and that participants only sign up if they accept these measures and understand the risks, however minimal. This is especially true of those who are shielding or are otherwise vulnerable to COVID-19.
Accessibility
This has been designed to be as inclusive and as accessible as possible, and people can take part from the comfort of their own homes.
We admit that we may not get everything right and can’t promise full access for absolutely everyone (as much as we’d love that), but we are trying and willing to have those incredibly important conversations moving forward. Feel free to email hello@thecriticalfish.co.uk with any access-related questions or ideas.
Eligibility
Artists who self-identify as disabled are invited to take part in Postbooks.
Under the Social Model of Disability, a person isn’t ‘disabled’ because of their impairment, health condition, or the ways in which they may differ from what is commonly considered the medical ‘norm.’ Rather, a person is dis-abled by physical and attitudinal barriers in society, such as prejudice, lack of access adjustments, and systemic exclusion. You don’t need medical diagnoses or proof of your disability, and impairments may be continuous, fluctuating, recurring or progressive and may be a physical, mental, emotional or cognitive health condition. If you aren’t familiar with the Social Model and want to learn more, watch this video from Shape Arts.
Anyone who self-identifies as disabled under the Social Model of Disability and lives in the Yorkshire and Humber region is invited to participate in Postbooks.
Purpose
Why is Postbooks specifically for disabled artists?
Lockdown and distancing since March 2020 has been awful for pretty much everybody, yet these necessary measures have arguably compounded and magnified the isolation felt within the disabled community.
We know that disabled people are more likely to shield, making it a greater challenge to meaningfully connect with others or to receive vital medical or pastoral attention. In addition, we know that disabled people have had medication rationed, been denied medical treatment and made to feel expendable (“herd immunity”) throughout the course of the pandemic.
Postbooks is not only a way to reduce professional and creative isolation, but is also an attempt to antidotally make space for those who have been made to feel like they didn’t matter on account of an impairment.
Literature** supports the fact that disabled artists often feel left behind, ignored, overlooked, undermined, defined by impairments and/or persistently seen through a voyeuristic lens of ‘pity’. Disabled artists are continuously overlooked by an exclusive ‘mainstream art world’, seldom recognising or equally critiquing their cultural and critical contribution to the discourse of visual arts. Others objectify, stereotype, exploit or take advantage. Unsurprisingly, disabled artists are vastly under-represented in the arts and face additional barriers when accessing professional and creative opportunities.
#WeWillNotBeRemoved is a disability-led campaign amongst disability arts and culture organisations, which demands disabled artists are no longer marginalised post-COVID. Postbooks is partly in response to, and in support of this movement, and looks to highlight the talent, diversity and perspectives of disabled artists without fetishising individuals and their experiences.
Got a question?
If you have any queries relating to this project, email us at hello@thecriticalfish.co.uk and let us know!
