Join us for an afternoon of conversation and poetry to celebrate the Nothing About Us Without Us exhibition on its closing weekend.
Compered by one of the exhibition’s Community Curators Anis Akhtar and PHM’s Programme Officer Michael Powell, the event includes:
This event is in partnership with Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People and the Deaths by Welfare project at Healing Justice Ldn – and will also celebrate the launch of the Deaths by Welfare timeline.
Suitable for 12+ (under 18s must have an accompanying adult).
Part of PHM’s co-curated programme of activity exploring the history of disabled people’s rights and activism.
Anis Akhtar: Hello. My name is Anis. I am a mature undergraduate student at a Russell Group University and my degree area is; Humanities, Social Sciences and Asian Studies. My research interests are; disabilities, social inequalities and issues, equal opportunities for all, accessibility, inclusion and reform, with specialism in East and Southeast Asia. I represents intersectionality within the; disabilities, LGBTI+ and POC (People of Colour), BAME (Black Asian minority ethnic communities). I also try to be open, honest and genuine about being; pan-disabled, heterosexual and how my family’s and my own intersectionality impact my life. I am a vulnerable adult who feels; lonely, isolated and ostracised from the various communities I belong to – yet doesn’t belong anywhere as I feel each intersection fails to recognise one another and work in solidarity. I have been known to the intersex community online since 2008 and been proactive since 2011. I have been a disabilities advocate since 2007; having attended meetings, conferences, campaigned and volunteered in the UK and overseas. I want the Nothing About Us Without Us exhibition to be inclusive, representative and most of all fun!
Dolly Sen (She/They) has a brain of ill-repute. Because of this, she is an internationally renowned writer, filmmaker, artist and activist. She is a disabled working class, Brown, Queer person who is interested in the disability and madness given to us by the world. She wants to disrupt systems that produce that programming called oppression, not through trojan horse viruses but with My Little Ponies on acid with a little sadness in their hearts. She does this by using creativity, love, rage and sheep. Her recent work includes sectioning the DWP and confronting misogynistic medicine. She lives in Norwich with her partner and dog.
Dennis Queen: Disabled, transgender grassroots activist working on disability rights, with some experience in activism relating to people with marginalised sexualities and relationships. Everything I do is about helping build community power and pride and creating opportunities for everyone to join in the fight back against unfair systems. I have 25 years’ experience in the UK disabled people’s movement as a campaigner, media spokesperson, musician, workshop leader, speaker and civil disobedience protestor. I am Co-Chair of the Executive Committee of Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People, Co-Chair of Disability Arts Online, and on the board of Manchester Disabled People’s Access Group. I’m involved in Manchester Disabled People Against Cuts and Not Dead Yet UK, also working closely with our colleagues at Not Dead Yet the original USA campaign group, and provide radical peer advocacy in line with the UK disabled people’s Direct Action Network’s (DAN) Free Our People principles against institutionalisation and exclusion.
Dr China Mills is the Lead of the Deaths by Welfare project at Healing justice Ldn – researching welfare state violence alongside disabled people who have been impacted. She has published widely on state, and corporate, violence, structural oppression, suicide and mental health. She is also a member of the Poverty, Power, and Stigma design team at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, working alongside people with lived experience of poverty.
Colin Hambrook has been working at the hub of the Disability Arts Movement for nearly 30 years, having been editor of LDAF’s Disability Arts In London magazine through the late 1990s. He founded Disability Arts Online in 2004 striving towards his vision for the site as a journal dedicated to being a voice for disabled artists, whilst supporting the development of arts programmes that reflect on disability as a social and political construct from a Social Model perspective. Colin is also a disabled artist and poet in his own right and has published two illustrated poetry collections: 100 Houses (DaDaSouth 2010) and Knitting Time (Waterloo Press 2013) which was shortlisted for a Ted Hughes Award.
Anne Plumb is a mental health system survivor activist and grassroots archivist and historian. Having married disabled activist Ken Lumb (a founding member of the Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People) in 1977, she sees her activism as being alongside that of the disabled people’s movement. She has recently organised numerous items she has picked up over the years – leaflets, pamphlets, cuttings, newsletters, and books into a UK archive collection, Ear to Ground – Survivor Service User Mad Identified (SSuMI) and Ally Voices: Organisation and Action in the UK from 1971 to 2010. This has been loaned to the Manchester Libraries Archives+ and the catalogue published in book form. This accompanies her organisation of Ken Lumb’s items into an Archive of a Grassroots Disabled Activist.
Carol Batton is Manchester’s Unofficial Poet Laureate, giver of poems. Gardener, recording artist, hill walker, dancer, tai chi practitioner, astronomer, and Survivor. Carol started writing poems in the 1980s after being prescribed lithium; ‘it sent me to sleep, the worst thing that ever happened to me but it gave me poetry.’ She distributed her poetry across the streets of Manchester, becoming part of the cultural fabric. She has been published in numerous magazines and appeared on two albums.
With thanks to Natalie Bradbury.
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