19.05.2021
We’re thrilled to be able to introduce you to our first cohort of Artistic Associates for our pilot scheme #LEVELAssociateLab. These roles will form part of our leadership team at LEVEL, and will support our goal in creating an inclusive, relevant and representative team, who have lived experience of the communities we work with. This is also a fantastic opportunity to support more freelancers who will provide an independent voice and a different perspective to inform what LEVEL does and how it does it.
This innovative move for the LEVEL Centre will help forge new, exciting relationships and ensure that we can become the place for developing cutting edge projects for and by learning disabled and disabled adults and artists.
So without further ado, let’s introduce you to our new team of Artistic Associates…
Bella Milroy is an artist and writer who lives in her hometown of Chesterfield, Derbyshire. She works responsively through mediums of sculpture, drawings, photography, writing and text. Her work explores how we touch and make contact with the world around us, with the hand-held being of particular significance. She makes work about making work (and being disabled) and not being able to make work (and being disabled).
“I am so excited to become a part of the team at LEVEL, especially in this new structuring of associate artists who I cannot wait to work alongside. I love that so much of my job means working in various spaces/projects across the country, and it’s created a really rich resource of network building that has facilitated some wonderful projects and connected me with some amazing artists.”
Darius Powell is a digital artist, workshop leader and producer with over 15 years professional experience creating works for exhibitions, theatre, museums, participatory arts and the commercial sector. His expertise includes Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Projection Mapping and Interactive Installations. As an advocate for digital inclusion, Darius strives to find new ways technology can engage individuals in the co-creation of work.
“I feel working for LEVEL will be a refreshing and rewarding experience for me. I respect the decision LEVEL has made to try something different for the next year and the prospect of helping to shape its future is an honor. I feel I will bring a wealth of experience from working in digital arts and will be able create exciting new projects that engage audiences and participants.”
Katie Walters is an autistic and physically disabled writer who creates poetry and interdisciplinary poetic storytelling for theatre. They write complicated metaphors about serious things, like sickness, the environment, and metamorphosis. Katie is passionate about disability rights, and committed to destabilising the nondisabled norm. To work towards this goal, they co-founded Radical Body, an arts organisation focussed on using livestreaming and telepresence technologies to increase access to careers in the arts for disabled people.
“I’m really excited to start working with LEVEL. It’s an incredible venue doing really important things for and with disabled artists. I’m really committed to improving career opportunities and removing barriers to entry for other disabled creatives, and I spend a lot of time on advocacy. I’ve found a lot of people who are really receptive, but it’s still an uphill battle to try and carve out a place for people like me in an industry that wasn’t built for us. But I feel like LEVEL was built for us; so much of what they do is centred around access. I’m hoping I’ll get to spend some time building on what they’ve already got, instead of starting from the ground up.”
Will Hurt is a Visual Artist and Creative Technologist based in Norwich, UK. He uses computers and code to investigate novel modes of drawing and virtual representations of physical spaces. His inclusive work often invites people to co-create with the software he has produced. Outputs include interactive installations, apps, large-scale prints and gallery exhibitions, leaving participants with a new appreciation of their locality and a playful excitement for the incredible things they can create.Hurt’s work has been exhibited around the world due to its stand-out aesthetic, technical resilience and engaging immediacy.
“I’m looking forward to working with the super friendly team and spending time with LEVEL’s participants, really embedding their thoughts, feelings and wishes in our processes and procedures, in order to build out a programme that is relevant to the general public and the learning disabled community. I’m looking forward to meeting and spending time with the other Artistic Associates and seeing how we can help and support each other to make the best work happen.”
You can find out more about our new Artistic Associates in our Blog post.
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