Disability History Month 2022 – Shedding A Light
The Covid Pandemic has demonstrated across the UK and around the world just how fragile are the Rights that Disabled People have secured for themselves and how easily we become expendable.”
ukdhm.org
Shedding a light on Learning Disability History
DIY Theatre Company has contributed to UK Disability History Month for a number of years. This year we are shedding a light on Learning Disability History with a look back to the institutions of last century and to the more recent experiences of people with learning disabilities during the Coronavirus Pandemic.
UK Disability History Month (UKDHM) is an annual event which creates a platform to focus on the history of disabled people’s struggle for equality and human rights. This year’s theme is Disability, Health and Well Being. UKDHM 2022 runs between Wednesday 16th November to Friday 16th December.
Shedding a light – a look at the institutions
Contributing to a landmark exhibition on Disabled People’s Activism
DIY Theatre Company are proud to be contribtuting to Nothing About Us Without Us an empowering landmark exhibition at the Peoples’ History Museum. The exhibition explores disabled people’s rights and activism and has been co-curated by four community curators who identify as disabled people.
One of DIY’s mini-installations from our Looking Back: Facing Forward performance project is being displayed as part of this major exhibition. The installation, (seen in the photo above), was created with artist Nerissa Cargill Thompson. It represents a scene when the actors demand that their voices are heard.
Performing at the launch of Nothing About Us Without Us
DIY has also been invited to perform for an invited audience as the launch event on Thursday 17th November. A memorable evening is expected with presentations from screenwriter and Chair of TripleC Laurence Clark and disabled activist Mx Dennis Queen. The evening will begin with DIY providing a series of excerpts / moments from our Looking Back: Facing Forward performance. DIY actors will create scenes from the institution and protest the way people were treated in institutions in the past and shockingly continue to be treated in the current day.
After the launch speeches, as invitees move around the museum, DIY members will celebrate the achievements and identities of disabled people with a rendition of our song ‘We Have a Voice!’
To see photos from the event please visit our Looking Back: Facing Forward show page
The exhibition Nothing About Us Without Us will be on display at the Peoples’ History Museum until October 2023. It opens to the public at the start of Disability History Month, Wednesday 16th November 2022. We encourage all DIY members and supporters to go along and see this fantastic exhibition!
Thanks to the National Lottery Heritage Fund for their support of Looking Back: Facing Forward.
Shedding a light – experiences of DIY members during the Coronavirus Pandemic.
I Wish Everything Was Back to Normal
DIY’s film I Wish Everything was back to Normal has been included in the North West Film archive as part of a project to preserve peoples’ experiences of the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, DIY’s base at The Angel Centre in Salford was closed, and members had to stay at home as the world went into lockdown. DIY members felt it was important to document their lives and feelings during this time. Working with film-maker Hilary Easter-Jones, members filmed their Zoom calls as well as their individual experiences at home.
North West Film Archive’s Lockdown Life is a project that is locating and preserving local peoples’ moving image footage of experiences of the 2020 global pandemic. Visit the Archive to watch our film.
DIY is proud to contribute to this important documentation of this frightening and challenging time.”