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Further Afield 2024

Exploring art and disability in rural spaces.

Produced in collaboration between Bella Milroy and LEVEL Centre.

Curated by Bella Milroy.

Further Afield is an ambitious, disabled-led project that explores the work of disabled artists who are rurally based or whose creative practices are rooted in rural settings. The programme seeks to celebrate the work of disabled artists and question what we expect to find in rural art, striving to broaden the current understanding of what the rural embodies, who experiences it, and what kinds of art is made there.

Welcome to Further Afield 2024

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Interview with Letty McHugh and text by Polly Atkin

Interview with Harry Josephine Giles and text by Gabrielle de la Puente

Interview with Grace Currie and text by Sue Jones

Interview with Sadé Mica and text by Jamila Prowse

Interview with Joanne Coates and text by Louisa Adjoa Parker

Interview with Natalie Sharp and text by Khairani Barokka

About Further Afield

In 2022, disabled artist and curator Bella Milroy, in partnership with Level Centre, hosted a number of interviews with disabled artists based in rural locations across the country. These interviews were hosted as live events, and are still available on the Further Afield Archive page.

In this new iteration of the project, Bella Milroy has collaborated again with Level Centre to curate a series of recorded interviews, written work and research into the experiences of disabled artists in rural settings.

In a series of six interviews available in audio and video format, Bella Milroy speaks with disabled artists from across the UK, exploring what living and making art in rural spaces means to them. The conversations explore topics such as barriers to access, isolation, rural infrastructure, creative community, imagination, and the desire for diverse, inclusive and accessible opportunities.

For each interview there is an accompanying text created by one of six different disabled writers. They were commissioned in response to the recordings as a way of furthering the conversation about art and disability in rural settings.

This programme features some of the most exciting artists and writers around today, offering insight into how disabled artists make work and the places in which that work emerges.

Further Afield is a project supported by Arts Council England, LEVEL Centre, Shape Arts, Derbyshire Libraries, Haarlem Artspace, Arts Derbyshire and Wysing Arts Center.

Two people, one with short brown hair and glasses wearing a khaki jacket, the other wearing a pink coat with their hood up, standing in a woodland.

Bella Milroy

Bella Milroy is an artist and writer who lives in her hometown of Chesterfield, Derbyshire. She works responsively through mediums of sculpture, drawing, photography, text, writing, gardening and curating. She makes work about making work (and being disabled) and not being able to make work (and being disabled). This process-based practice is fundamental to her as a disabled artist. She is continually motivated by concepts of public and private spaces and where the sick and/or disabled body exists within them, themes which emerge throughout much of her work.

She is passionate about contributing to the cataloguing of disabled artists, as well as advocating for better, more accessible and enjoyable working experiences for disabled artists across the industry. Examples of this are found in many of her curatorial projects such as Soft Sanctuary (2019-2021), Mob-Shop (2021), and Further Afield (forthcoming 2024). She was Artistic Associate at Level Centre, Rowsley, Derbyshire 2021-23.

Visit Bella's website

“I am very excited to share this project! I truly believe that the artists featured in the programme are some of the most interesting and important artists making art at the moment. I think it will resonate with so many people and especially other artists.

There is so much value found in how disabled artists make art, the philosophies of their making, and the ingenuity of their creative practices. The work featured in the programme is incredibly generous, providing crucial insight into how artists create amongst illness, disability and rurality. It has been a huge privilege to have worked with these artists and to share their work in this project. I’m incredibly grateful for the time and energy that they offered here.

Special thanks to the Level Centre team for supporting me to bring this project to life, and for being such a great example of how art organisations can work collaboratively with disabled artists in ways that centre trust, respect, joy and imagination.”

Bella Milroy

Artist and curator

Access Further Afield Archives