The National Disability Arts Collection & Archive

An interview with project archivist Alex Cowan about the collection and how the UK Disability Arts Movement continues today. 

Posted on June 26, 2024 in Ask an Archivist

In this interview, project archivist Alex Cowan talks with Choice about the National Disability Arts Collection & Archive (NDACA) and provides an overview of the UK Disability Arts Movement. Throughout the conversation, Alex details how the social model of disability shapes NDACA’s work, and the ways disability art can act as a form of protest. Alex further describes the accessibility of NDACA’s physical and digital spaces, highlights the collection’s efforts to support emerging disabled artists, and shares how the Disability Arts Movement continues today. 

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How would you describe the National Disability Arts Collection & Archive to a stranger? Could you provide a brief overview of the Disability Arts Movement (DAM)? 

NDACA is a physical and digital collection of art produced by Disabled artists across many different media. Combined with other archival supporting materials, NDACA presents the work of UK-based Disabled artists who documented, inspired, or commented on the struggle for Disability rights in the UK from 1972 to the present. NDACA documents Disabled people’s activism and the culture they created as part of this struggle. Originally conceived by acclaimed Disabled artist Tony Heaton in the early 2000s, NDACA recognises and preserves work by Disabled artists that examines their experiences as Disabled people and, often, their involvement in disability politics and rights. Funds were secured from the National Heritage Lottery fund in 2014 to formally develop the archive, which is physically based at Buckinghamshire New University in High Wycombe, and digitally at www.the-ndaca.org. 

Disability art relates to expressions or examinations of the lived experience of disability. Work that falls into this category can be highly personal, political, or otherwise. I would date the creation of the UK DAM from around 1972, the time that modern disability activism really began to manifest itself with various disabled-led campaigns for independent living. At the same time, the concept of the social model of disability began to be developed. This is the recognition that disability results from barriers imposed to Disabled people’s full participation in society, rather than an individual’s health condition. The focus shifts from the medical model of disability’s focus on impairment and “cure” to recognition, challenge, and removal of barriers to full participation in society. This radical shift in the perception of disability provided fertile ground for artistic expression and I would argue that with its cross-media focus on lived experience, disability art can be regarded as a “school” like the Impressionists or Surrealists. Many of the DAM artists in NDACA also directly participated in the campaigns to secure civil rights for Disabled people. 

Disability art and artists are still very much a part of the UK’s cultural fabric, some with high recognition across all audience groups.  

NDACA is centered on the social model of disability, which, as you mentioned, posits that disability is socially imposed due to systemic barriers, rather than due to one’s impairment(s). How does this perspective influence how the collection is managed and the themes it portrays? How does being part of the disability-led organization Shape Arts further impact the collection’s focus?   

The Social Model of disability is at the heart of NDACA, as it defines the common perspective of all the depositing artists. Our acquisitions policy is built around the concept of disability art as expressing the social model of disability as a lived experience. As a result, the collection is organised around the work and experiences of individual artists, rather than simply a medicalised group called “the disabled.” Collection themes are much more likely to concern common human experiences. The social model and our focus on individual stories leads to higher levels of audience recognition, whether those audiences are disabled or non-disabled; everyone can identify with the negative effects of being excluded from fully participating in society. 

Being a project attached to a long-established organisation like Shape Arts that supports Disabled artists is definitely beneficial—we can access or acquire new works to keep NDACA open and current. Shape’s history also means that historic figures and collections we’d like to include have sometimes already been identified and assessed. 

The National Disability Arts Collection & Archive includes “3,500 images of artworks, photographs, films, articles and exhibitions.” With such a breadth of content, how does NDACA ensure the accessibility of its website and physical spaces? Does digitization help or hinder efforts to make disability arts history more accessible?   

NDACA was originally conceived as a relatively small collection of around 1,500 objects, but upon visiting our depositors we discovered and were offered a wealth of other material which we felt should be included as it was at risk of being lost to the record. Digital preservation and access had always been a cornerstone of NDACA for reasons of access, and this wealth of material made it vital: Many of our holdings exist only as digital items. Our physical spaces in modern university buildings are fully accessible but the website and catalogue remain primary points of access, further enabled by some audio description, screen reader compatible listings, and carefully written catalogue entries. Digitization is a positive thing in terms of access and findability with users travelling for a more hands on experience. 

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The NDACA website features The Archivist’s Corner, in which you examine various works and events from the Disability Arts Movement. Could you describe the Corner in more detail? What have you learned from analyzing deposits in the collection? 

The Archivist’s Corner is an infrequent collection of posts by me on items that stood out from the collection as we created NDACA. There was no overall strategy to my choices, other than items that surprised or delighted. Regularly surveying the collection has provided many insights, probably the two key ones being that disabled artists are often very early adopters of creative digital technologies and that I have come across so many of these artists’ works in the past before I joined NDACA.  

Georgia Macqueen Black, Marketing and Website Officer for NDACA, described disability arts as a “set of practices that strengthens disabled people’s collective awareness” in a talk for the Battersea Arts Centre. How is disability art both a personal and community practice? What role does NDACA play in building “collective awareness”?   

Disability art is created by individual artists commenting on the lived experience of disability. With this focus on lived experience, much of which may be familiar to all Disabled people, a sense of cultural, community, and collective awareness is created, interpreted, and strengthened. “Nothing about us without us,” is one of the campaigning slogans of UK Disability rights and Arts. NDACA represents another opportunity to experience these works and to build Disabled people’s awareness of their personal and communal experiences. 

What does NDACA reveal to observers about disability arts’ relationship to the broader art world? Beyond centering the art in an advocacy context, how is the collection celebrating the art for art’s sake? 

NDACA reveals many aspects of this relationship. There are repeated moments when Disability arts has entered the mainstream, whether in the form of Disabled actors in TV and film, Disabled artists’ inclusion in major exhibitions, or even the performance of a Disabled dance group on Strictly Come Dancing. I think this is mainly the result of two things. Firstly, the focus on barriers and access to social participation of the social model is something that non-disabled audiences can easily understand. Additionally, the quality and range of the works created by DAM artists speaks for itself—it can’t fail to be noticed. 

In “The Price of Nice – are Disabled Artists Cotton-Wooled?” disabled artist Steve Cribb writes that “The Disability Arts Movement…has given us the confidence to express those many emotions we have been denied.” Could you speak to the ways art can bolster self-confidence and offer a voice to a community that has often been overlooked?   

Art that recognises an individual’s voice, experiences, and aspirations and shows and explains these things to the outside world can’t help but build self-confidence. If participation in the arts takes place as part of a community of likeminded individuals, then confidence and visibility are further increased. If that art is the sole domain of that group, then that group can describe itself and advocate its wishes with a completely authentic voice. 

The National Disability Arts Collection & Archive features work from a variety of disability-led organizations including poetry groups, touring cabaret groups, forums, and more. How were disabled artists organizing early in the movement? What changes have you seen in how disabled artists and activists organize today?  

Disabled artists have always organised in a number of ways. Some artists were and remain individuals, feeling a need for creative independence and recognition so strongly that they chose to distance themselves from being seen as part of the DAM. Others became part of the DAM when at art college or by participating in a campaign or demonstration. Still further connections were made by those who had been part of a collective experience, such as Survivor’s Poetry, a poetry workshop where participants sought to explore experiences of escaping the residential asylum system. Other artists worked through the national network of now sadly defunct disability art forums. Disability arts had its own publications (Disability Arts in London or DAIL) and review media. The key factor of these organizations was (and still is) that they are disabled led. Though the rising reliance on the internet definitely had a negative effect on hard copy publications, organisation, exhibition, and review is more easily and cheaply achieved online. 

How does art function as a form of protest? Further, how do disability art and disability politics intersect?   

Disability art functions as a form of protest. Many rights struggles post World War II can be viewed as making the personal political, and Disability art is no different. As a manifestation of personal and collective lived experience, it challenges the idea that Disabled people and their experiences should remain unseen and unheard or, worse still, allow their needs, hopes, and desires to be defined by others, whether they be doctors, charities, or other representatives of a non-disabled society that seeks to exclude them. Disabled artists refuse the requirement of the past that Disabled people should remain passive and silent—nothing about us without us. Many of the personalities in UK disability rights also worked in Disability arts, defining a powerful intersection between the two. 

I understand that NDACA organized a Research and Development (R&D) Award program for emerging disabled artists. Could you describe the mentorship offered by this program and how supporting emerging artists furthers the Disability Arts Movement currently?  

When NDACA launched, six young emerging Disabled artists were paired with established artists and mentored for six months while they produced new work that was then lodged in NDACA. This included advice on the creative process, as well as the business of being an artist. We were able to draw upon the expertise around the key purpose of Shape Arts, which exists primarily to help Disabled artists reach their full potential. The NDACA mentorship programme was conceived as a way to nurture new artists, but also as a way to show that NDACA will document and preserve disability arts as an ongoing creative movement, rather than one bound by a decade or defined by a fixed group of artists. Disability arts hasn’t “stopped”: the lived experience of disability continues to find expression and the fight for disability rights is still very much ongoing. 

Disability arts hasn’t “stopped”: the lived experience of disability continues to find expression and the fight for disability rights is still very much ongoing. 

What outreach efforts is NDACA engaging in? How do the Learning Wing and Repository at Bucks New University and Disability Arts Online’s Audio-Described Gallery fit in?  

We’re lucky enough to have a highly accessible physical site at the University which includes a secure repository, and the institution’s library staff have been fantastic. In an increasingly digital world, many university libraries are looking for unique archival collections to distinguish their own, and I think NDACA has provided some “pull” for the University. We’ve integrated elements of NDACA into courses and events on campus on a number of occasions. A steady stream of academic and non-academic users find the archive online and then organise visits. We have the study space to host them, but also enough room in the learning wing to put on events for disabled and non-disabled groups that want to find out more about disability art. A steady stream of exhibitions continues to access the archive for works to display on a national and international level. For some, we are just one of many sources, but others are all our own work. For instance, Shape & NDACA are currently exhibiting at the Venice Biennale.  

However, I think the ongoing drive to acquire new holdings is probably the most important outreach work at NDACA. This aims to prevent the loss of what has come before and to identify new artists and voices in Disability Arts. This will ensure that NDACA remains current and that disability arts continues to represent a lived and living experience. 

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About the interviewee:

Alex Cowan
NDACA Project Archivist

Alex has worked as an archive researcher / producer since the early 1990s, working in TV, films and the museums and archives sectors. This included the BBC historical documentary series, “Disabled Century.” In 2014 he became project archivist on NDACA. Now he’s working in a similar role for the NDMAC project, locating potential depositors and developing the NDMAC offer. He enjoys helping to uncover histories, cultures and stories and making them accessible to wider audiences.

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Learn more about the National Disability Arts Collection & Archive (NDACA).

This interview was conducted by Ashley Roy. She is the digital media assistant at Choice.

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