Further Afield is a programme of scheduled live events, storytelling, tool-sharing for disabled artists and creatives living rurally across Derbyshire and those facing similar challenges across the UK.
Further Afield is produced in collaboration with our Artistic Associate Bella Milroy. This series of three online events explores the experiences of disabled artists who live and practice in rural areas across the country.
The events were hosted by Bella and designed to prompt discussion and look at ways that through collaboration we can affect change within the arts. The three pilot sessions invited different rurally-based guest speakers who shared their story followed by questions. The event was captioned and had a BSL interpreter on screen. The recording and transcripts of each session can be found below.
The pilot series of Further Afield has now come to an end, but we’re hoping to start a new series of events later in the year subject to fundraising.
Creative team:
Bella Milroy: Artistic Associate
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. She is also a portrait artist. 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). She is interested in the duality of every-day existence, and how things can be both beautiful/painful, both interesting/dull. This process-based practice is fundamental to her as a disabled artist, utilising and working with the significant limits and demands of living with a chronic illness, all mixed in with the detritus of domesticity.
Previous Further Afield events:
Thursday 25 November 2021, 5.30pm
Session 1: Scenic Edge with Louisa Adjoa Parker
The first in a three part series exploring the lived experiences of disabled artists and creatives based in rural Derbyshire and further afield.
Thursday 27 January 2022, 5.30pm
Session 2: Remote Access with Abi Palmer
The second in a three part series exploring the lived experiences of disabled artists and creatives based in rural Derbyshire and further afield.
Thursday 31 March 2022, 5.30pm
Session 3: Purpose of Place with Polly Atkin
The final session in a three part series exploring the lived experiences of disabled artists and creatives based in rural Derbyshire and further afield.