Disability Arts Online

Using her charcoal drawings as a starting point, Pauline Alexander has been working with disabled sound and media artists Jon Adams and Caglar Kimyoncu to produce a unique series of digital artworks

What does discrimination feel like? If it were a sound, what would it sound like? If it were an image what would it look like? All feelings carry something of beauty. How would you convert the ugly experience of being discriminated against by an employment agency – of all things - into something of beauty? We are so used to discrimination being bandied in terms of disability equality, legislation, policy and statistics – dry words and numbers on dry paper – that we forget the impact discrimination makes on the lives of individuals.

In 2006 Pauline Alexander encountered a series of incidences of discrimination on account of having a hearing impairment. The final straw came when after initially being offered a job interview by an employment agency, she was then presented with a litany of excuses and told she would have to reapply directly to the firm they were acting on behalf of. The agency had not heard of reasonable adjustments, nor the duties imposed on them by the DDA. The fact that she had more than enough knowledge and experience for the demands of the job meant nothing. She was told that she was the one who was being prejudiced on insisting that through using Typetalk and the facilities available on her mobile phone, she could overcome any barriers to communication.

Alexander told them that if they looked up the Employers Forum on Disability website they would see they had a legal obligation to interview her. They retracted and invited her for interview, but presented her with so many obstacles and an atmosphere in which it was apparent that the process was a formaility.

Few find the strength to challenge disability discrimination. However supported by her practice as a Buddhist Alexander decided to take the employment agency to tribunal. It was during her periods of chanting that Alexander began to see images of faces in her minds eye. She realised that the mental images expressed something of the turbulent feelings she was experiencing and she began to commit drawings of these images to paper. Eventually she made a series of over seventy charcoal drawings. The process involved erasing each drawing after recording it and then using the same piece of paper over and over again.

The faces are harsh, animal, trapped specimens. There is a pathos to the way they merge and shimmer within the animation. The traces of marks made with an eraser, describe a language of violated boundaries and exclusion. The drawings are expressions of separateness and indifference. They ask questions to do with how much choice we have in the world – choice to be who we are – and choice to allow others to be who they are. Alexander’s own photographed image merges with the drawing. We are all reflections of each other. Our sense of being an individual is at best transitory, although we often delude ourselves that our personalities are set in stone – that we know who we are.