The aim of this exhibition is to bring an awareness to a general audience that people with disabilities are 'normal people' and that they have a valid place in society. To continue the erosion of perceived barriers Switch on/Switch off will explore and investigate the high level of artistic endeavour that artists with disabilities possess.

As a teenager I remember being taken to an institutional school for people with disabilities. I realised that I had an unreasonable fear of the residents that lived there, they were bursting with an unconditional love and trust, and I was and still am terrified of their uninhibited sense of touching and loving. In the 1990's we see people with disabilities joining the community, being at one with society.

But these more obvious disabilities are not alone, I have never considered myself as disabled, but the sad reality is I am, mine is a hidden disability that rarely receives recognition, but the scars are just as deep, the emotional trauma long: mine is a learning disability. Visibly I am just one of the crowd, but send me into a library, bank or unemployment office and I am a helpless child.

In my portfolio I have images of hundreds of children dancing in a civic square. They are aged between 7 to 10 years old. From the black and white images you can see joy, children joined together in a day of dance, what you can't see is the child with a disability, a severe stammer, hearing loss, learning difficulty, Attention Deficit, Asthma, Muscle Dysthorphy to name but a few.

As a parent and photographer I know that some of these disabilities are present. I could even point out some children suffering from them. The point is, it is a learned behaviour to ostracize difference: it is only as these children reach adulthood that they will be singled out, isolated and segregated.

Each artist is asked to submit work, which addresses their concerns in some way on any of the following issues.

 

1. How they have been treated in society by family friends and peers?
2. The effects that that treatment has had?
3. How their art has changed things?
4. And how they are eroding the barriers?

Ideally I am hoping that the artists will use photography or computer imaging. It is my hope that at least some work from each artist with be presented by way of transparencies and or positive 35 mm slides as I am considering a display which symbolizes how society switch on and off their attitudes and feelings to people with disabilities. I intend to use medical light boxes.

'my friends; and those that see me in the street shrink from me. I am forgotten like a man out of mind; I have become like a broken vessel. For I hear the whispering of many; And fear is on every side.'

Psalm 31

Suggested Artists:

6 - 7 artists with disabilities

1. David Archer: Tasmania
2. Romaine Temple: ACT
3. Christopher Mclauchlan: ACT
4. Cinmayii: ACT
5. Bob Williams: Queensland
6. Jenni Heckendiorf: ACT
   Dean Pusell: Queensland

Five artists from Western Australia to be confirmed>

Medium:
Photography, hard copy, slides or transparencies, digital images

Target Audience:
A general audience: people who have preconceived ideas, people with barriers to erode.