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The Disability and…Podcast gets right to the heart of some of the most pressing issues in arts, culture and beyond with a series of bold, provocative and insightful interviews with disabled artists, key industry figures and the odd legend. The Disability and…Podcast is currently monthly.
Disability and… Towards New Worlds
Aidan Moesby
Hi. My name is Aidan Moesby, and welcome to the Disability and… podcast. I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Joanne Coates and Louise McLachlan, who recently had their work exhibited in the Towards New Worlds exhibition. Labeled groundbreaking by the art newspaper, Towards New Worlds is the largest institutional exhibition of art made by professional artists identifying as disabled to date, in the UK. The exhibition co curated by me, Aidan Moesby and Helen Welford at MIMA Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art ran from July 2024, to February 2025, and it features 15 disabled, Neurodivergent and or deaf artists sharing their experiences of seeing, hearing, feeling and sensing the contemporary world. The exhibition explores a rich variety of human perceptions and sensory experiences through works of art which make connections between the artists internal worlds and their external environments. The artworks consider issues in the contemporary world, including justice, ecological consciousness, connectivity and care. The artists interpret their own perspectives, offering new insights for those encountering their work while recognizing that we can never fully inhabit someone else's experience. The exhibition offers a rich sensory environment with moments of quiet reflection and spaces for interaction and relaxation. Through varied production processes, including drawing, photography, installation, video and interactive sensory pieces, the artists call attention to many ways of experiencing and navigating the world. Since this podcast was recorded, a new digital configuration of Towards New Worlds, featuring 13 of the original artists, has launched as the pilot exhibition for Disability Arts Online’s new digital gallery, dis_place. Towards New Worlds digital is on display until December 2025 at www.dis-place.art
Aidan Moesby
So now I've got the great pleasure of talking to Joanne Coates, who is one of the artists featured in Towards New Worlds. Joanne Coates is a working class visual artist using the medium of photography. She lives and works across the North East of England. Her work explores rurality, hidden histories and inequalities relating to low income through photography, installation and audio. She uses photography to question stories around power, identity, wealth and poverty. Participation and working with communities are an important aspect of her work. Coates is a farm laborer practicing active nature, friendly methods. This forms an intersection with her art and is deeply attached to places, the memories they hold and the people who inhabit them. Her work is often made from a lived experience perspective, touching on class, disability and gender, her work laborious 2024 is currently on display in Towards New Worlds. Hi, Joanne.
Joanne Coates
Hi Aidan, thanks for having me.
Aidan Moesby
Thank you. Just wondering if we could just start off with an introduction to your practice. So if you could tell us a little bit more about that, how you got started and where you are now?
Joanne Coates
So, I studied in London, graduating in 2015 and I kind of soon realized while studying, that kind of wasn't the place for me, and in both, both in terms of like economically, and just being able to kind of like function there. So, I came back home, which is the top of North Yorkshire, the bottom of the North East of England. Since 2015 I've been kind of working on my practice. So, I would say that while studying, it was kind of more traditional documentary photography, and then it brought in participatory methods. I've always kind of looked at class within my work and really kind of thinking about how I can tell narratives to different types of people that are maybe quite complex stories. How can I do that through my work? So, it is photography, but I might use sound, or I might use video, or I might use installation. I might do something like wallpaper, whatever I make is kind of like, how do I tell that story, and what's the best way of doing that?
Aidan Moesby
How has your practice developed over time, do you think?
Joanne Coates
Maybe kind of using this exhibition as an example is a really kind of clear example of how it's been able to kind of grow and change and bring different elements in. And I think there's that kind of phrase where artists either look out onto the world through the window or they look into themselves like against themselves in a mirror. And I feel like you can do both thinking of, how do I do that, and what's my position in terms of any work that I'm making? And I think with photography, I've always had a bit of an issue with this kind of, like power pyramid, you know, like the words like subject or shoot or capture. But also the way photography can be like the photographer is at the top of that pyramid making these decisions about representation of people, and everyone else kind of goes on the bottom of that. As my practice has come along, that's something that I've been that, how can I turn that pyramid on its head, and what can I do? And I think this work laborious. It really is kind of taking that whole heartedly and going with it. So it's quite performative in nature. It's self-portraiture, and it was the first time I'd really done that type of work. And I think for me, it was really vital to kind of like address some of the things that I was going through and that I wanted to look at, and to be able to push myself in a way that I wouldn't feel comfortable pushing someone else as well.
Aidan Moesby
And we'll come back to your work in MIMA. I'm just thinking about like with your practice. So for example, you work quite closely with communities, say, up in Orkney, for example. And then recently you were also like the election photographer. How do you marry those two kind of very different art forms?
Joanne Coates
yeah, and they are very different. And I think, I mean, it's a really good question. At the moment, I've been working at timespan in Helmsdale, and I think telling someone Yeah, I've been there like three times, and I've been meeting with community groups, but I haven't made any photographs with them can be like, a really weird concept for because it's like, well, aren't you a photographer? And you're like, Well, I kind of am, but there's always this thing of like, so what do I want to do? What does the community want to do? How can I work with them? What does that look like, and what is the specific issues in that place? And even though I might work about the countryside in class, I could have a very different class identity than someone else. I could have a very different rural identity from someone else. And so I'm often kind of thinking about all these things, and like researching heavily and really meeting with people and listening to them. And I think that that's something that goes across my practice, despite these kind of different commissions. And like, the election artist commission is a really good example, because I was really excited about it, but I was also like, I I work in this, like, long form, slow way with people that is kind of sometimes like, painstakingly considered, and then you've been asked to do a job where you have two days to prepare. And kind of in this world where photography is this different thing, where it's about snapping and taking moments and and so I think that you just have to be true to yourself within that and because of that kind of constraints of that commission, it'll shape what the outcome is. So even though I'll use photography, the other things that I use around that will be more reflective of my practice and what I make and who I am and how I think about things, and even within something like the election artist, I'll think, okay, so I really care about the electorate, the people who vote, and that's what I'm really interested in. And I'm interested in these, like, rural places. So that works all about the kind of decentralized vote, and I built an honesty box. So an honesty box is something that you might come across at the side of the road. You might get eggs, jam and, like, kind of home baked goods from it, and usually you exchange that with monetary value, not always, but so usually it's kind of like an exchange built on trust. So I wanted to build this honesty box and take it everywhere around the country with me. And then when I met people, the public in general, I would talk to them and say, like, let's have an honest discussion, and like, Let's exchange with each other. And that was my way of bringing my practice to something that this seems like this kind of really chaotic world where I could talk to people and could have an exchange, and as well, when they're kind of put in there, I'd ask them, like, what does voting mean to you? And like, what does democracy mean to you? The idea of it is that they're allowed to kind of say what they want, and it goes in there, and that kind of feedback goes into the commission and what I make. And I think that way was kind of thinking of, how can I bring my practice to something? And even kind of considering, like, what I would use, or like, how I would like you go to the space, and there's kind of like that traditional photography role of like, pushing and shoving, and kind of like I would stand to the side with my like, film camera, and I would just observe and kind of figure out the situation and ask to spend time with people at events that maybe weren't deemed the most newsworthy, but that I think were important, and where you were getting a little bit more of someone, or you were seeing that situation and in that way, that's kind of trying to reflect my practice and how I work within this kind of hectic commission.
Aidan Moesby
That's a really insightful reflection, because you know how you imagine the election to be, and also, like instant documentation and stuff like that, but then still managing to bring in your practice and still be you within, within that. So if we could just move on to how was it working with MIMA in terms of, because, from my experience, it's like you're not really in front of the camera, and then here you very you very much are. So I was wondering if you could just tell us a little bit about how that kind of process evolved within the context of the exhibition.
Joanne Coates
I mean, I definitely think a work like this, I wouldn't have been able to make if I didn't feel safe. You know, you can feel safe in a variety of ways, but I think for me, like being able to work with yourself, Aidan and Helen, and knowing that I was allowed to play an experiment, and it was very clear from the start, if you're if I wasn't comfortable, at any point, I didn't have to show that work, and so it takes away this kind of pressure. You know, you're already kind of pushing yourself out of your comfort zone, and so that the works that I made were performative self portraiture. And again, yeah, putting myself in front of the camera when I'm not necessarily, like comfortable with being seen, you really do need the support of an organization, and not just tokenistic support. You need people who maybe understand what your access issues are, and even sometimes when you can't express them. So you might have an access document where you talk about them, but I think when you're working with people who have an understanding of disability, then they might also predict things that you haven't thought about, that you're not able to but you know you might not know that you come across that. And so being in the safe space really means that the risks that you take with yourself and the work that you make are higher, and in turn, I think that makes the work better, because you've been able to take that risk. I think that that safety is, I don't think it's an easy thing, but I think being able to say, like, at first, I wanted to kind of do this video work, and I just, I didn't think within the time frame that it was 100% what I was happy with. And instead of someone saying, well, just do it. Someone saying, Well, you don't have to do that. That doesn't have to be in the show. And like, them being happy with the work that you're happy with, and also being taking time to talk to you about it, taking time for you to kind of like, express what you need to kind of go through your process. And like, why are you doing these movements? Like, what does it mean to do these kind of cathartic movements? Like, what? What impact is that having you and even someone checking in with you and kind of saying, like that, you are in a vulnerable position. It's, it's out there, and they're kind of like accepting that, but also talking to you and saying, like, you know it's going to be in a gallery, and how do you feel about that? And I really felt kind of seen and heard within that space. And so I felt that I didn't have to, kind of, I don't know how you would say like, I felt like I didn't have to be someone else for one in terms of how I talk about my work, how I talk how I am, but I also felt safe to kind of say, yeah, I really want to do this other video work as well, but I just don't think that it's 100% yet. But this work I really like, and I've kind of structured it like this, what do you think and that back and forth, which I think should always happen, but it doesn't, or can't always happen because of time constraints. But yeah, being able to do that, I think, for me, has led my work in this different place. And it's kind of opened like doors inside of me in a way where I can be like, Yes, I'm going to take risks. Yes, I'm going to do this. And it's, it's safe to do that. And there's a side as well. Sometimes when it's something that you haven't done, and I don't know whether this is specific to photography or to but if you get known for doing a certain thing and you want to take those risks, someone sometimes people won't kind of give you that chance to take the risks because they want you to do what you're known for rather than what you want to do.
Aidan Moesby
Yeah. Like from mine and Helen's viewpoint, that giving you that space to explore the work certainly made the work a lot stronger in the end. And I was just wondering if, if you could say a little bit about what like, what the work actually is, and how you came to make it, and how you did actually make it.
Joanne Coates
So I'd got a developing your creative practice grant from Arts Council, and what I've had wanted to do was kind of like, look at how you can have a practice as somebody who's based rurally, who has a disability and who's also working class, and what can you do to make that sustainable? So some of the issues that happen, if that is the case, you don't have access easily to, kind of like networking, to be able to be in the room when it matters, you just don't have access to that. And you've got to allow an additional hour, basically, for wherever you go, and how do you create a space where you are to be able to make work? And I think what happens is, you know, like quite often, you have this certain limit of what you can do, and adding on two hours travel time a day takes away your time for creative practice or freedom, or because it takes that energy that you already don't have, and then you're kind of at capacity. So I was, like, kind of thinking this before, and thinking, How much longer can I be an artist when I'm always at capacity? And I don't think it would be very long. So this is kind of a part of it. And I was making these self portraits that were kind of like exploring my place. So I do farm laboring work as well as an artist. I work full time as an artist, but my wage as an artist is not high enough to sustain like a living wage. So I do other work, and farm work is accessible where I am. It works in terms of hours. So you're not kind of going into the hours you would go into your arts practice, but also the mental load of that work is not exhausting for me. It provides this kind of routine that I don't have in my arts practice. It provides kind of an environment for me that isn't mentally exhausting, so it doesn't take up more of the things that I don't have quite often, I think about, you know, when you see these kind of worker portraits, and that are 19th century, and they were always kind of made by the more, like bourgeois gaze, like looking down and whereas I think it's really important for the worker to be able to photograph themselves and also, like, what is my position? Because I'm very much still in my working class space, like I don't really have social connections or cultural capital or economic capital. So when I kind of think about class, I think it's quite different maybe for a lot of my peers, because they have, maybe they're still economically not kind of moved class, but socially or culturally they have, whereas I kind of feel a bit sometimes you feel stuck, but then this is my home, and I'm really rooted to this place, so kind of making a work where I explored these things. But as well, what I have noticed, and I mean, I can't talk about everywhere, I can talk about my specific home and place, but I have noticed that the stigmas around neurodivergency, around disability have there's almost like an attack on that and what people think. And I And it was, it was almost, it almost feels quite strange, because in some with some friends who are also Neurodiverse, I will feel quite safe, and we will just naturally have these discussions where I don't feel like I have to hide anything, but then yourself like, well, your worth by the community in this rural space is defined by graft and how hard you work and what you can give to that community. And if you have anything, that means that you can't do that in any way. It's not really understood. But also, I think in the media, there is this kind of, like, representation of negativity around diagnosis and, like, really hearing, I think, because people won't necessarily know, they kind of say these comments are met these things and, like, I really wanted to explore that kind of shame that I feel, that I have, but there's also, like, almost like, self inflicted shame, and I have, like, I have a trauma informed therapist who I talk to different things about different things with, and we kind of really go over things. And one of the things we talked about was like movement and tapping, and then kind of how that helps me, and the places that you feel able to show that behavior, in the spaces that you don't feel able to show that behavior, and I'd talk to them about it. But for the DYCP wanted to work with a movement coach, because. Yes, and we talked about how movement can be really cathartic. And the movement coach, they've run Company of Others, which is a dance company, and basically you felt safe working with them, because the first conversation I had with Nadia was talking about how this movement can unleash emotions, and it can be quite put you in a vulnerable position. So I have complex PTSD as well, and so I think to feel supported by these different people means that I can push myself into that place where otherwise I might feel not able to.
Aidan Moesby
What do you want the audience to take away from your work when they see it?
Joanne Coates
It's always like a tough question, because I think, I always think that the audience are going to kind of like, you have to let your work live in this space, that you can decide how it looks, and so you can decide what form that takes and how it informs them, and different ways of them engaging with the work, you can kind of like try and control that through the medium and what you're showing and how you're displaying it, but I think it lives its own life in the space, and
Joanne Coates
like different people are going to have different interactions with it. But I think one of the key things for me was this kind of representation is really important. And I think increasingly we're seeing kind of like negative legislation or legislation that isn't necessarily helping disabled people and lots of fears around support. And so I think I really wanted to show this kind of like for me, how the like intersection of maybe disability and class in this space, and someone who, I don't know how you would say it, who like, it's like, you know, more of an invisible disability in the in that way, and to kind of like show this kind of different setting that we don't often think about when we think about disability. Don't think of this kind of like rural space or farm work or so I really wanted to kind of bring that in. And I think the movements and the way I wanted to kind of show that science that's almost quite hidden and vulnerable and hidden away. And I think sometimes when you have conversations about like your diagnosis or disability or and people will ask, I don't think they mean to I think it's just because they don't kind of understand how difficult that question could be. But they might ask something like for you to show the things that are hard and you're like, you spend your whole life trying to hide them, or having to hide them to be able to show that you are a competent artist, like competent in inverted commas, but to show that you're like this functioning person, you have to hide all of that, and you're never allowed to be yourself. And I think there was something about this work where I was allowed to be myself unapologetically and to show that side of me, and that felt really empowering, and it almost felt like a form of resistance or protest in that way,
Aidan Moesby
That kind of unmasking?
Joanne Coates
Definitely
Aidan Moesby
Could you just describe what we would be looking at, because you've talked a lot about the work, but we haven't actually got an idea of what we might be looking at. So if you could just describe what we would see in the in the gallery.
Joanne Coates
So in the gallery, there are some overalls that I use for farm work that are hung up, and there's a little tag on them that kind of reads: Jo use these. So they're a gift from a co-worker, passed down after they have used them. And it's kind of like a different sense of care or a different sense of responsibility, and you can, kind of like, see the wear in them and see the use and then the actual images. It's almost like a film strip. So there's a series, a sequence of images of a movement, and these movements are happening in a barn that has kind of like hay on the floor that is clearly a working barn, and I am wearing my farm laborer clothes and doing this sequence of movements. And the works span the height of the gallery, so they go from top to bottom. They're slightly like removed from the wall. So it is like this kind of like hanging film, strip of images and kind of referencing that kind of like movement and that performative element that kind of comes out of the work.
Aidan Moesby
Has being in the exhibition informed your practice, or has it impacted on your practice?
Joanne Coates
Yeah, I definitely think so. I mean, I think. Now again, like this month, especially as it's kind of coming to, like a time when there's some free days to make work like, the first work that I'm excited about and want to make is work that is, like, going to be a continuation of this work, but kind of exploring that from a different standpoint. And I think being part of this group of incredible artists gives you the kind of like strength to be able to make this work and to kind of feel in that space. And I think there's so much more to explore, especially about kind of like class and disability, but also there's still things for me that I want to explore about this kind of, like rural space and being in that because I know sometimes people can talk about that being healing, but I think if that's where you're from, it isn't necessarily, but it can be. But there's also these kind of, like elements of non human care that are offered through kind of farm labor that we don't offer to each other as humans, as a society, that I think, again, I want to explore more. And I think that having that excitement for all this work comes from being in this exhibition, comes from taking that risk, and comes from people believing in you enough to let you take a risk.
Aidan Moesby
And so what's next, and what would be like, you know, your ultimate kind of thing to work towards.
Joanne Coates
I'm working as artists in residence at Timespan, which is a gallery in the highlands, so I'm working with communities up there for the next couple of months. So that's really exciting and really community driven, participatory work. I'm also kind of working on the final stages of the election artist project, so both those works will be exhibited next year. And, yeah, working on this kind of finding my place as this rural artist. And so with the developing your creative practice grant, I also kind of get to do research and explore what it's like in a different country. So I'm going to Japan, because Japan has values arts in rural spaces in a different way to the UK, and they have kind of like festivals that are funded through the government, that are also they are an arts festival, but they're also about kind of supporting that local area. So it's not kind of like doing to it's doing with, I'm going there, to kind of like explore that, and to meet with different artists, and meeting with, kind of rural artists and organizations around the UK, and kind of looking at this concept of rurality, and especially rurality and disability, and kind of thinking about that, because I think there's people doing incredible work out there on this, but I think for me, there's something about that it can be healing and that it can be helpful, but it can also be the opposite. It can add to your costs, it can also add to your access. It can also add to stigma and so kind of like really thinking about that with the work I make and the research that I'm doing,
Aidan Moesby
It's always amazing to listen to an artist talk about their work. And you've, you've given us such an insight into the work that, or not only just like that went into creating it, but, uh, you know, but a lot about, kind of, like the things that influence and you know, certainly, when you're looking at that work, it's, you know, it, it's very clearly rural, but all the issues behind it, you know about class, gender, precarity, disability, you know, it's, it's, it's a real kind of a distillation of everything into like, well, I guess that's what photography does, you know, it brings in so much, you know, to use the metaphor in to focus.
Joanne Coates
I think that's something that when you're put in that that other stuff, that hidden stuff, and that stuff that you've had to hide, maybe because of the community you're from, or because of that, when you're able to safely do that, there's something about how that opens up, you know, like, like, a game that helps you, like, level up your practice, because it's someone allowing you to do it. And I think there was that, like, Dax report that came out end of November 2024 and it's kind of about how the average disabled artists only take home, I think it's £3750 that might not be the exact figure, but I think when we kind of look at that, and look at what whatever work they're having to do, the extra things they're having to do and how that impacts them, and the fact that arts earnings are falling and the fact that these provisions are being taken away a work that might not seem like an act of protest or an act of like for me, sometimes it makes sense, and I'm always I don't want to like over explain. I want the audience to come and take away what they take away. And I think some people get it, and some people will be like, you just stood in a barn. But I think, like the I think the thing is, it's like, you have to make that work, so that those that you're expressing those things and that so even if it's like 5% of the audience gets it, then that's a success for me.
Aidan Moesby
And I think also sometimes it's like we can be presented with something that was that is clearly protest, and we can have like, a knee jerk reaction of resistance to that kind of imagery, but this kind of subtle protest, where it's so implicit rather than explicit, and that's where, like, some of the real strength lies. Yeah, I would just like to thank you, Jo for spending the time talking to us this afternoon.
Joanne Coates
Oh,thank you very much.
Aidan Moesby
In our second interview, I had the pleasure of interviewing artist Louise McLachlan. Based in Edinburgh, she works predominantly with digital photography. McLachlan's work explores photography as an accessible tool to create whilst living with disability. Her recent work researches the correlation of disability representation within photography history, and aims to place power back into the present disabled perspectives. McLachlan advocates for alternative education and pathways into the arts whilst working at Stills, centre of photography and Craigmillar Now, Edinburgh. A selection of photographs from the series Motae 2019, to the present are currently on display in Towards New Worlds. Welcome Louise.
Louise McLachlan
Hi, Aidan,
Aidan Moesby
Thanks for joining us. I would just like to start off with an overview of your practice. How are you working now, and what are you working with?
Louise McLachlan
Yeah, so I predominantly would say I'm a disabled artist, but I work with photography. I find it the most accessible tool for me to create, but also I think it allows a lot of conversations, because photography has such history of capturing time and life, it's very interesting as an art form and as a medium to evoke conversations about humanity and society and how we see people and with the change of accessibility around digital photography, people have access to cameras in a way which they didn't previously even just through their phones, which is allowing people to have control of how they are seen and documented and placed within history. So for me, as somebody who is disabled and has experienced long periods of being disabled and having a loss of control of my body, my work, particularly Motae, looks at reclaiming control of a body whilst using the camera as a way to capture time and composure in that way.
Aidan Moesby
And how did you get into photography, if you could just give us a little bit of a snapshot to use a photographic metaphor, of the development of your practice.
Louise McLachlan
I always wanted to really go to art school. And I always wanted to go to photography school. Once I gained access to photography, which would probably within my teens, actually, it became something in which digital photography was more accessible. Originally, I started with paintings, and I'd worked with abstract paintings, and I was really interested in the way in which you could explore using paints and creating a narrative through sort of abstract forms. And then photography, I think there's a quite a sort of pool with photography, particularly when you become sort of an adult and you're gaining independence. And I wanted to sort of find and discover in that way that you do when you're a teenager, and the camera is a really exciting tool to do that allows you to dip into worlds, and you get a sort of adrenaline rush for movement as you move along with it. So I wanted to study fine art photography as a teenager, and that was my that was my five year plan, which didn't quite go the way that I expected, but we got there in the end. And I think photography allows me to dip into many mediums. You can dip into cinema and performance and sculpture and arts, and it's allowing you to use that in a way that's very controlled, but it also does kind of move into that way of exploring time. So I think all of that became a process of it, and it became a very accessible tool for me, which later on, we learned was the most accessible form for me to create.
Aidan Moesby
How has that fitted in with working with MIMA? And how have you found the process of working with MIMA, getting from like the initial conversation, through to the opening and it being on show now?
Louise McLachlan
Yeah, I mean, I feel very privileged to be part of the show and just to be part of the space. It is like a real gift to be surrounded by artists and many of the artists in the show, you know, I've really admired their work for a long time, so I think having like yourself co curate the show, and the way in which you've worked with MIMA over years to build up this relationship, and yourself and Helen collaborating to have a main show in a main gallery space for a long time. You know, it's something in which it's how it should be done. You know, curators and exhibitors and art institutions and art education should all take note of this show, because it really is something which there isn't enough representation of, but it showcases how it should be. And I think even just as a as an artist, you know the way in which you know, you and all the MIMA team worked alongside me to give my practice space you would accommodate through having meetings like later on in the day, after working hours and having it, you know, be time between emails in which, like, I was having that space, which I really appreciate. Because I think, I think often people potentially have this space to have the entirety of their life the arts and creating in the arts, and it is a great privilege, but it's not really the reality of being an artist. Because if you are an artist, you know that you just, you don't earn a lot anyway. So I think to have the space and the priority for that, I really, really appreciated it. And it was very, it felt very sort of artist led, and of making it work for you, which is sort of my ethos as well, within the work that I do with communities and with people, and so I really appreciated that, and it allowed me to think about how I would display my work and how people would engage in it in a way in which you often don't have the space and the opportunity to do that. Yeah, a real privilege and such a positive experience.
Aidan Moesby
And what do you think's been the impact on your practice of that process, but also of showing,
Louise McLachlan
you know, the work that I've made with Motae, it was, it was created over quite a long period of time, over sort of years, but also it hadn't really been shown before. It had been shown at Stills when I was part of Still School, which is an alternative photography school, it had been the body of work that I'd made I'd worked it with. I'd been taught by a tutor called Marina Causley, who's amazing, and the work sort of started evolving from there. And she was the one that told me, you know, put it up in a grid, because I'd plastered them on the wall, because I had these hundreds of photographs, I had no idea what to do with them, and it was just so nice to evolve that work into being within a space in which we've not we've not got as many in the show, but they're a larger scale, and they're working with a different material, which I haven't shown them on before, even just the the way in which they're lit, they're lit in quite low light, which I think works beautifully, and the artists that I share the space with, it really like aligns so nicely that the room that I'm within that in a way which I think it contributes to how I think the work it's kind of evolved the way the work has shown you know, I've got, like Molly Martin's beautiful piece beside mine, which has sound and movement alongside it, which I think is adding to my work very kindly, sort of neighboring. They really sort of flow together. And you're able to, like viewers, are able to interact with the work in a way that also kind of evolves your work, the way that you're showing your medium, in a way that I really it's, yeah, I really appreciate it. It's exciting.
Aidan Moesby
How do you want the audience to engage with your work, and what would you like them to take away from it?
Louise McLachlan
When I made motae, I was very focused upon creating work that looked a certain way. I wanted to basically incorporate painting and photography. So the way that motae is made is I create quite an abstract painting. It's just brush strokes, colors, texture. And then I place a camera at the painting, which is within a frame, and I photograph the reflection, which throughout motae is my body, and through like specific light and color, and focus on the camera, it creates this overlay of the reflection, which creates, like a painterly effect. And I wanted to create that look, and I wanted to develop the craft of working with photography and painting Camera, camera on canvas. But that was the priority when I made the work. But during that time, actually, I started motae when my face and my eyes were damaged when I was 20, and I wanted, like I say, to go to art school and study photography, and that was the priority of my practice. So I was very much not interested in the narrative being around being disabled or being chronically ill. I absolutely did not identify as being disabled when I was making this work, because it was just me, myself and I and it was the sort of only option, and I was very much within one space, one room, for long periods of time, which I think is where the abstraction of my practice is kind of born from, because I was sort of trying to create the new within the familiar. I was in a very similar space with the specific lighting and the specific environment, and I couldn't really change where I was, but I could change the way in which I created artwork. And so during this time, I started photographing myself in a way in which I had control of a body that I didn't really have control of, and it allowed me to reclaim control of my identity and how I was seen, and how I was kind of placed within history, you know, if I had a very visible difference, and if you saw me, if anyone saw me, there was no privacy within, you know, the body that I had and the sort of experience that I'd had, which I found very frustrating, but I also, You know, didn't have control as to how I lived and how it was seen. In hindsight, it allows me to have been placed within history in a way in which I have control of, you know, if you ask somebody to photograph me during this time, it would not be, you know, the images that are on show, I wouldn't be, have been seen like that. And you know, it probably was the time in which I made this probably was the worst time of my life, but it allowed me to have this kind of like documentation in a way in which I was in control as to how I was seen, but also placed within history and how I created a craft. So I think from that, I would like people to maybe see it as a way in which a body can be reclaimed and controlled, and how artwork is a way of placing yourself and archiving your life that in a way that you would like to be seen or like to be remembered. And also, I hope it challenges maybe how people see disabled bodies and what disabled is, a lot of motae means motion. And when I was in the shoots, I was trying to create a sense of movement through sometimes frustration, and sometimes it was, it was through feeling quite stable and energized. But these like fleeting moments. They're in a way of sort of reclaiming control of how disabled bodies are seen, but also reclaiming control of how a disabled artist and disabled art is potentially seen.
Aidan Moesby
You have mentioned in the conversations that we've had about not wanting or resisting having eyes and faces in those portraits. Could you just say something a little bit about that, please?
Louise McLachlan
As soon as you put eyes and faces within a photograph or within a piece of art, just for human nature, we look for the eyes, and we sort of look for the face, and we scan the face. And so with taking portraits, I've always enjoyed like the back of the head or like people's eyes being closed, because I find what happens is then your eye will naturally follow the lines of the body, and it'll become more of like a sculpture, more of an abstract shape. But also, you know, alongside that, because of my lived experience and because of what was happening, because I had damage to my face, it was something in which, I think removing that, it allowed the composition to flow, but it also allowed me to have a bit of privacy and a bit of freedom to create which wasn't necessarily about something which had happened to me, and I think that was important to me. So I think both of them aligned quite nicely in the MIMA show. I have one photograph which has my eyes open, which is in the center.
Aidan Moesby
You were saying that during the process of making this work, you didn't identify as disabled. Could you say something, how that transition from making that work, not in a disability context, and then showing that work with 14 other disabled, Neurodivergent, chronically ill artists, although the work is not about only about the lived experience. Could you say something about that shift in identity?
Louise McLachlan
It actually came probably from lockdown in the UK, and I was told to shield. And shielding in the UK was basically like more strict, and it was one of those things in which folk that were shielding were very much slightly forgotten about, you know, but I was high risk in shielding, and it was a funny alignment of time, because I'd actually, for the first time in probably about seven years, I had started to regain stability of my health, and I had started to be able to, you know, have basic things like sleeping and being able to move around and so I was sort of ready to start having a bit more stability in my life. And then, of course, the world was placed into lockdown. And it was a really interesting experience, because I had sort of been in a form of lockdown for like seven years since my face was damaged, but then I'd also been chronically ill since I was born. So the way in which the world started to react made me realize that I was never going to be this person that I sort of imagined. I was never going to have a space in society in which I was like them, in terms of people in my community, because I was the only person that I knew that was shielding. And it made me realize that there was a very like us versus them within society, and I was chronically ill was always going to be chronically ill, and so this was something that was always going to affect my life. I'd read a book by Virginia Woolf called On Being Ill, which in it, she writes so beautifully around the sort of strength and the value of being ill, you know, the way in which it can be utilized as such. She says this quote which I will be misquoting, but she talks about how strange it is given the fact that illness is so common that it is not placed upon the great themes of literature, like jealousy and war and love. And I would say that within art as well, and I'd never heard somebody or read somebody talking in that way about illness, I never considered it as something which was potentially valuable to my life. It'd always been something that I had to get over and get past, and I had to sort of deal with whilst trying to keep up with the rest of the world, you know.
Aidan Moesby
And how did that transform your kind of opinion or experience?
Louise McLachlan
Yeah, well, I started looking into it, and I started realizing, you know, I look, looked into the social model, and I looked into other artists. Because I remember when I started talking about disability with people, people would sort of say to me that, oh, you can, you know, you can get away with it, and that you don't want to, you know, you don't want to, you know, dilute your practice, or you don't want to be put in that, say, and you know, which, naturally, for me, was about, well, I will, I'm going to identify as that then. And I felt like, by not identifying as it I was, I personally feel like I was contributing to the problem, the discrimination and the fact that it was a shameful word, it was a bad word. And actually I wanted to, in a small way, be a sort of drop in, in the pond that was another person contributing in these spaces. And by placing it beside my name, I wanted it to be something where it was helping people's perception of it, people's like thoughts as to what disabled artists are, what disabled people are, and what disability arts and disabled arts mean, you know. And actually, you know, it's it's meant that my entire practice is actually like so entwined, and also like my work and the roles that I work in so much my entire life is like entwined within a representation of disability, of disabled artists, of disability history, particularly in photography and of like alternative accessible education.
Aidan Moesby
But it doesn't feel to me that you've changed your practice since you've been identified. It's like you had your practice and then you identified, but you just kept on doing what you did.
Louise McLachlan
Yeah, totally. I think it's more so my awareness of how it's contributed to my life. But also I think my work is more so I try and use it more so as a backdrop of conversation to you know, the fact to around disability and to around being disabled because the fact that it was my body in these photographs, in hindsight, just through photography. And this is what it's so fascinating about photography and time is the way in which the narrative and your association of the work of the person, the image of whatever is within the image that is captured in that moment time will inevitably change the narrative and the association of that image. So it's a kind of ever evolving thing, and having my body in that allowed it to be this sort of ever evolving thing in which it sort of started with the craft and the practice of photography and developing this new technique, and then it moved into a narrative in which it was around a body as my body evolved and my you know, narrative and association with what disability and being disabled is and was changed, so did the narrative of the work, which is why I think it's so important for artists to have time with their work. Because I really time is so valuable to my practice, with it being photography, but also with it, you know, said, like we're speaking about, you know, folk identifying as disabled. It's a long process. You know, internalized ableism is real. And, you know, I was born with chronic health conditions. You know, following the social model, I have not had, like a day in my life in which I was not disabled, but, you know, it took me, like 20 plus years to be able to even start considering that I was anything around that. So, you know, it's, it's a process for folk, but art is an essential and valuable tool for dismantling these kind of stigmas, but also for like, highlighting the value of it and the necessity. And the more people are within these spaces, like with the MIMA show, the more people's pre like, preconceptions and conceptions of it change,
Aidan Moesby
yeah, and I guess, like, as you approach your work as an audience, you initially think, oh, that's like a painting. And you really do feel that it's an abstracted painting. And then it's like, you know, it draws you in, and then you can see other elements. And it's, it's, it's not a reductive kind of, you know, this is about a disabled life. It has those multiple layers to it. So what are you working on now, and what would you like to work towards, like, you know, in the future?
Louise McLachlan
Yeah, I've started a few things. So I've been working on a project again, like we're saying, with time, and my practice being slow. And I'm doing a project which is a photographic project, but I'm I've been working on it, really for quite a few years. I had a residency at Craigmillar Now, which is the arts and heritage organization that I work on. And Craigmillar is a community in Edinburgh, and the Arts and Heritage Center have the Craigmill archives, and there's a photographer called Sandra George, who was a youth worker in the Craigmillar community, but she also was an artist, and she was also Neurodivergent, and she photographed the community beautifully. She photographed so much of Scotland and Edinburgh beautifully in a way that documentary photography is actually pretty rare. Normally, it's folk going into spaces and into communities in which they don't have a lived experience, and then documenting difference and leaving and it's usually pretty damaging to the narrative. And I came to Craigmillar Now as I was looking at disability history and photography. I was doing a research residency of disability history in Craigmillar, and I was really interested in discovering how disability had been represented within history and how that's contributed to our stigma. But also I wanted to, you know, develop new work and work with the community to change and to evolve the way that it was represented. And researching disability history is pretty it was pretty depressing. It was pretty soul destroying. In photography, it was very I mean, it's a lesson on lived experience research. I think time you need a lot of time, because actually, when you're reading about the lack of value that is placed upon you as a person, historically, especially as you know we were, we were, this was around the time of lockdown, and there'd been a huge, huge reminder of the sort of lack of value and the difference between disabled people and society. It took me a while to get my head around it, but Sandra George's archive was like this rarity, in which she documents disability beautifully. And I started looking at that, and then I went to the thistle foundation village, which is a village in Craigmillar, which is a gated community that was built just after World War Two, and it was for disabled veterans and historically disabled veterans. You know, if you if you returned from the war and you were disabled, you would be placed within an institution, despite having families and communities and homes and this family, the tudsburys, they basically wanted to create accessible housing and a community in which disabled people could live with their families or veterans. So they built these beautiful little bungalows, which were designed by an architect called Stuart Matthews, and he basically created these really accessible spaces. So they've got things like the flower boxes on the Windows are wheelchair height, and there's metal linings around the door frames for wheelchairs and to not bash them and not ruin them. They've got dividers in the living room, in the bedroom, so that folk could be, you know, within the same spaces if they weren't able to access stairs, there was like a bowling green and lawns. There's a church. And it's just right in the middle of Craigmillar, it was gated but it's now open, and the houses are now listed. A disabled artist called Archie Ramsay, he advocated for them to be listed, who lives on the estate. So now saved, but they haven't really been documented. So I've been photographing them because I work in Craigmillar. I go through this so quite often, and I've been photographing them on black and white film, which I haven't done for a long time because of my eyes. But I'm trying to figure out ways in which I can create with analog photography in a sort of accessible form, rather than just not doing it at all.
Aidan Moesby
What kind of scale is that? Is that like medium format or
Louise McLachlan
So I've started with 35 mm, but I would like to do quite large format. I'd actually like to do like five by four and that kind of traditional film photography in which you would sort of be sort of architecturally documenting, you know, and sort of explore that, because the houses, they open up so much conversation around home and disability and a space you know, for me, home is, you know, my home is probably the only accessible place for me in the world. You know that I have curated and cared for and made my space, and I can control that environment. You know, a lot of disabled artists, it's like your work is made from your home. You know, my work is generally made from a bedroom or, you know, that's where you even just do your emails or whatever. It's very much like your little world that isn't necessarily seen within art history in the same way. So I'm interested in developing that, and I've started that project, and I also have started an event called ‘Where are the disabled photographers?’ with Stills, which I hosted the first event in July. And the the event is basically an open call where we invited disabled photographers to present their practice over five minutes. And it was a hybrid event. It was the first hybrid event that Stills has done, and it was so valuable because I wanted to, even though I work in the arts, and I'm very lucky to be within art spaces I am, you know, I don't meet a lot of disabled folk, you know, I don't meet a lot of disabled artists, and I find very much that being within these spaces, generally, you know, events and openings and stuff are just not accessible for me, and so I wanted to try and create an accessible way for folk to meet each other's practices, learn about each other, elevate disabled photographers work, and also, just like, you know, make some space and carve out some space. So I'm hopefully going to be doing the second event, which will be around education for the Stills School annual exhibition, which is kind of like our alternative graduate show, which is in the main gallery at Stills, and I'm wanting to have it around a theme of education, because, as I mentioned earlier, you know, I always wanted to go to art school, and my plan was always to go to art school. And actually, when I went to Stills school, Stills School is a free alternative photography school. It's once a week for three hours, for 16-25 year olds in Scotland, and you get access to all facilities and materials, and you have to face barriers to really access the school. And I went, I had never really heard of anybody, particularly Stills, which is a pretty known, you know, charity and institution in Edinburgh in Scotland, around photography, to sort of seek out people like me. And at the time I, as I did not identify as disabled, and it was very much not something that I would have wanted to talk about, but they were saying, you know, we'll make it work for you. We know that things are imperfect, but we'll make it work. And then through that experience, I had the realization that I was not the problem, and it was actually the structures, because it was the first time I was very unwell at the time, and it was the first time that I actually been able to go and experience education in a way which mainstream education. You know, I had a 20% attendance record my entire life, and it was constantly advocating for yourself to be in the space, which actually meant that you just didn't get an education because you were just trying to get support or trying to get into the space. So coming here that contributed to my realization of, wait a minute, this is actually a structural, systematic problem, and it's not me. And so from that, I actually made the decision to kind of boycott mainstream education to slightly make a point, because I felt like I didn't want to give my time and my work and also my health to these massive institutions that fundamentally did not care that I was there and didn't actually want me to be there, given the amount of barriers they were putting up to me, and I wanted more to contribute to alternative education and to that space. So I'm hoping that with this next event. And it'll allow a conversation around accessible education and folk to talk about their experiences within education and maybe alternative programs like Stills School, but also disabled folk do go to art schools. They do go to universities, and they have good experiences. They don't have good experience, but they make it through, and it's can be a really positive one. So I also want folk you know who've gone through these processes to highlight that it is somewhere that you can elbow your way in, but also is there other ways in which you can make it so that it is more accessible for your practice, and create a sort of community of support, but also of representation to elevate people's practices.
Nathalie Boobis
Thank you for listening. We do hope you enjoyed this episode of Disability and… further episodes of Disability and… can be found through the Disability Arts Online website at www.disabilityarts.online.
Hello, I'm Natalie Boobis, the DAO curator. I wanted to tell you about dis_place, our new virtual gallery and our pilot exhibition, Towards New Worlds Digital.
Towards New Worlds Digital was originally curated by Aidan Moesby and Helen Welford for Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (MIMA) and we have adapted it for a digital context for dis_place.
The exhibition features 13 artists whose work draws connections between their internal worlds and external environments. The artworks convey a rich variety of sensory experiences and human perceptions alongside wider issues including social justice, ecological consciousness, connectivity and care.
Sculpture, works on paper, installations and multimedia works feature in the digital context of dis_place, extending access to this groundbreaking exhibition of work by disabled d/Deaf and/or neurodivergent artists.
A little bit more about the access features for dis_place. The gallery has built-in accessibility options that you can toggle on or off, which are large text, low contrast, dark mode and list view. Explanatory text about the exhibition and artworks is available as audio, in BSL and as an easy read. There are audio descriptions available for all artworks and video works for speech also have BSL versions and transcripts. The web address is www.dis-place.art and the exhibition can be navigated to from the homepage. Towards New Worlds Digital is open until 21st of December, 2025.