Working Parts

In 2010, Working Parts supported “Wolverhampton Disability Network”, The Network is One Voice project. Working with Kevin Bailey who  championed the idea of using the arts to increase involvement and participation in the Disability Network.  The aim of Carnival Buzz is to create a user led Disability event, that delivers a public procession that celebrates Disabled people in Wolverhampton and headlines the highest quality Disability arts in the UK, by presenting Marc Brew’s Dance work “Noctune”

I was invited to the Disability Activity Day by Kevin Bailey to run a creative workshop for visitors of all ages and abilities and wanted to bring along something exciting to the day that everybody could enjoy.
The event was indeed a tremendous success with numerous activities to engage and entertain with archery, cookery, seed planting, painting flower pots, henna tattoo-ing, information about the Census and other stands sharing information about health and wellbeing.
The Community centre filled quickly in the morning with most visitors staying for the day, topped off with a hot buffet which smelled and tasted delicious.  The Centre was so full there were barely enough seats for everyone but nobody seemed to mind.  The atmosphere had a real community feel about it with lots of chatter and laughter.
I took along my giant motorised wobbly pens which consisted of a marker pen, a length of recycled water pipe, crocodile clips, a battery pack, a motor and various fittings with springs and bells to create the “wobble” along with my bug-bots which were made with a kitchen dish cleaning brush, a motor, battery pack and various attachments and eyes for decorating.  These activities were a huge hit with all ages; easy to assemble and very entertaining with the bug-bot races, generating a lot of excitement with children and parents alike.
I had one young man with severe autism stay with me for most of the day.  He was fascinated with the motors, attachments and fittings and my toolbox!  He experimented quite happily on his own at my table. I had a chat with his mum who said he was passionate about trains, planes and cars and putting things together.
I had some very positive feedback and made several new contacts and left the event on a real high after a great day’s work and spreading my passion for crazy, motorised gadgets.  Thank you very much Alan!!

http://www.vimeo.com/20915646
Working Parts became aware of ‘SUPERHEROES’ – the working title for a new performance-based project to be created by and with an integrated company of Deaf and disabled performers.  The project (centred on Graeae Theatre, who delivered our artist training) will be interdisciplinary, employ an accessible aesthetic drawn from the vocabularies of sign language, audio description and written text, and combine traditional theatre spaces with outdoor theatre.  It will be international in ambition and will be developed through participatory work with Deaf and disabled young people at Hereward College and Penn Hall School in the West Midlands.

I have been a member of the Working Parts steering group now for the past three years and it has always been hugely rewarding and beneficial to me, both as an individual and for the organisation I work for. Working Parts has enabled me to discover and learn about a wide range of access and disability issues as well as find out about disability-led organisations and organisations working with disabled people in the Black Country, who may have otherwise gone unnoticed. It has provided essential and useful information about the issues surrounding accessibility and the arts and opened the debate around how creativity and arts can be used to benefit and add value to organisations and individuals’ working practice.

As a result of the networking and advocacy events developed by Working Parts, Multistory have worked with a number of disabled artists, attended and facilitated numerous networking events and recently developed a pilot digital storytelling project at Hallam Street Hospital, West Bromwich.

This pilot project developed as a result of Alan McLean speaking to the psychologist from the hospital who attended a Working Parts networking event. Alan mentioned the aims and the benefits of the group and the psychologist discussed how she would like to use more creative activities within the hospital. As a result, and an informal conversation with me following the event, Alan put me in contact with the psychologist to discuss setting up a series of creative workshops in the hospital. The digital storytelling project was formed as a result of these informal conversations and networks.

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http://www.vimeo.com/18896119
Videos showing how art helped groups from Wolverhampton’s Learning Disability Advocacy project get involved in International Day of Disabled People, which was organised by the Wolverhampton Disability Network. Co-ordinator Kevin Bailey  asked Working Parts to help make International Day of Disabled People a success, working parts offered outreach workshops with artists, in the lead up to the event, and identified a disabled artist to run a workshop on the day. On the day was the Disability Film Festival organised by Paul Darke of Outside Centre. Working Parts responded by providing an artist Peter Chaplin, who has creative approach to film making. Working Parts are now helping the network use the arts in the future, to create events and deliver activities that demonstrate user involvement.
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I am the coordinator  of the Wolverhampton Disability Network.  98 people attended the event I organised at the Lighthouse for International Day of Disabled People on December 3. 70% were disabled people, representing all types of disabilities we managed to get 15 out of the 31 groups from our network to the event, so I am well happy. We had a good number of deaf people attending, which I was pleased about. I think having a deaf artist helped and the films were subtitled, well nearly all the films. Success on the day was the result of disability groups in the network pulling together and making this whole happen, for example Paul Darke’s Outside Centre kick started the event with the Disability Film Festival. Working Parts helped involve disabled people in the event by providing artists who delivered workshops with groups before December 3 and found a deaf artist to run a brilliant workshop on the day.    Working Parts benefited the event in two ways,  firstly participants came along to the event and secondly the quality of the art work created.  Groups who were involved in more than one workshop with an artist, understandably produced better artwork, giving more depth and telling a visual story about their experience of disability. Stowheaths and Oxley’s work was more defined. Working Parts also contacted Expressions Choir to sing at Lunchtime, who were great and very well received.

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A unique training opportunity for artists to explore a deaf and disability perspective to Superheroes with children from Penn Hall School. One interpreter Jessica Heller  said “Last week was probably the most challenging yet enjoyable week of my career so far and feel so privileged that I was part of the experience, It was brilliant to meet so many amazing and wonderful people and to feel so much apart of the project” Deaf artist Linda Bagnall said “It was Fab working as part of a team”  Penn Hall school are presenting Superheroes artist training project at the School of Creativity Conference on March 9 2010.

Have a look at photos of the event on the microsite Superheros

I was asked by Kevin Bailey of Wolverhampton Disability Network to create a banner for International Day of Disabled People. I was asked to do this by running a workshop with Deaf and Disabled people during the Disability Film Festival at The Lighthouse. I met Kevin and Alan McLean from Working Parts a week before the workshop. This helped me to get the general idea and they were keen to visualise people’s ideas of independence. I really appreciate the fact that it was a face-to-face meeting because it’s easier for me to understand. The access for the workshop was brilliant – I would have not coped if it wasn’t for the wonderful interpreter Natalie. It enabled me to confidently communicate with everybody and allowed them to get used to me as a signer. I cannot think of a better way to improve this as I received the support I needed (thank you to both Alan and Kevin!) Read the rest of this entry →

Our Talk prepare for the presentation of their banner on International day of disabled people at the Lighthouse in Wolverhampton on Dec 3. There will be events organised by the Wolverhampton Disability Network, Including films from Oscar bright, songs by Expression choir and performance from no nonsense. Contact the Lighthouse in wolverhampton to find out more. Before the visuals above we asked the group what was important to them, the words will be layed on top of the images for the final banner.