Face On: Disability Arts in Ireland
Lois Davies: Red Bank Curracloe.
Joe McConnell reviews Face On, a new disability arts reader, published by Arts and Disability Ireland.
Face On is an anthology which is clearly greater than the sum of its parts. Pádraig Naughton, one of the instigators of the project, tells us that one of the editorial aims was to 'encourage contributors to frame new debates which can now move out beyond these pages.' The book succeeds with flying colours in doing this.
Reflections on many essential aspects of disability arts are provided by both Irish and British disabled writers and artists. These are interspersed with creative writing and reproductions of visual art.
The book works well on many levels - the two most important being an explanation of what people currently understand in the term 'disability arts' and also an exploration of why Ireland - North and South - has not developed a disability arts movement comparable to the one in the UK.
One of the many strengths of this anthology is the way in which the editors have given freedom to individual contributors to define key terms (disability arts, social model etc) in their own individual contexts. This removes the bullying demagogy that hangs over some of the writing in this domain.
An illuminating contribution from Allan Sutherland explains how disability arts in Britain went hand in hand with the disabled people's movement. Against this Michael Morgan explains that: 'A disability movement in the sense of a self-organised body ... of disabled people acting together in a bottom-up, radicalised sense is still largely missing.' Both Morgan and other contributors explore the way in which the charity/consensus model has dominated in the Republic and how, in the North, the sectarian divide has eclipsed the identity-based politics from which gave birth to the movement in the UK. It is great to see Morgan marking the decline of church influence, a great purveyor of the charity model, in the Republic. This is not often acknowledged by mainstream commentators who when it comes to Ireland often seem eager to perpetuate received ideas based on a past reality which has, in fact, moved on. Steve Daunt crystallises the lay of the land in the Republic where 'the term "disabled people" came to include parents and carers, while the idea of stakeholders threw service providers into the mix.'
Although it is clear that the UK has a more vibrant rights based movement, several contributors agree that it is not a given that Ireland's fledgling movement should reinvent itself in the image and likeness of the British picture. Editor Kaite O'Reilly boldly sets the tone for this in stating that both Ireland and the UK have a lot to learn from one another. Much has been written in the past of Ireland's traditionalism and conservatism. But it is a country undergoing rapid dynamic change and - as acknowledged by Donal Toolan - there are many other ethnic groups now being absorbed into the national identity. So old certainties and old chestnuts get swiftly booted out. Face On acknowledges this to its credit.
last updated: 2007-05-10 16:00:45
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