Arts versus Sports
from a disability perspective
Disabled people are often placed in the same ‘box’. Arts and Sports are now also placed together as we head towards 2012. What overlaps exist? What are the lines of tension? What is the common ground?
Launch event: Arts Versus Sports: a disability perspective
On 18th March we launched Arts Versus Sports. This project focuses on the creative responses of disabled artists to the complex overlaps between art, sport and disability and aims to stimulate discussion and debate to enrich and deepen Yorkshire’s position as we head forwards towards 2012 and the Olympics, Paralympics and Cultural Olympiad.
Our region has world class disabled athletes, internationally recognised disability arts companies and artists – how can we maximise the potential we have, whilst also acknowledging our differences?
Helen Burke
Helen has been writing poetry for 30 years and is widely published in magazines and anthologies. She has won the Manchester, the Norwich and the Leslie Richardson (Yorkshire) poetry prizes and won Poetry in Performance Prizes at both Ilkley and Sheffield Literature Festivals.
There is a video of one of Helen's poems below, with the words incorporated into the video.
Edmund Davies
Edmund is a professional learning disabled actor who works full time as part of Mind the Gap’s Acting Company. Through Mind the Gap’s Agency he has played the part of Chris Taylor in ITV’s ‘Cold Blood’ and most recently as Tom, alongside Sir Ian Mckellen in BBC Radio drama ‘Walter Now.’ Edmund likes to enjoy sport… from the comfort of his own living room… and only if Wales are playing!
Steven Harrison
Steven gained spinal cord damage in 1998 and retrained as an artist, graduating from the BA Art & Design course at Leeds Metropolitan University in 2005.
He is currently studying for a Masters Degree in Art Psychotherapy and plays wheelchair rugby.
Steven is active with the Art House www.the-arthouse.org.uk and has his own website at
Simon Mckeown
Simon is an established digital creator with a radical interest in re-presenting disability in new and innovative ways. Motion Disabled (see image above) is his latest exhibition - using motion capture and 3D animation to explore the bodies of people who are physically different. to create a kinetic connection and revelation of human form. Simon’s interest in the field stems from life experience; he has brittle bones and was born into a disabled family and wider community, in which disability was common and seen as normal.
Art Versus Sport
The event was organised by ADA inc on behalf of a steering group comprising Tessa Gordziejko, Creative Programmer for London 2012, Yorkshire, Tim Wheeler, Mind the Gap, James Brown, Disability Development Officer, Federation of Disability Sports Organisations, June Russell, The Art House, Jo Verrent, ADA inc, and was funded through Arts Council England.
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