• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • About DNS
  • Subscribe to DNS
  • Advertise with DNS
  • Support DNS
  • Contact DNS

Disability News Service

the country's only news agency specialising in disability issues

  • Home
  • Independent Living
    • Arts, Culture and Sport
    • Crime
    • Education
    • Employment
    • Housing
    • Transport
  • Activism & Campaigning
  • Benefits & Poverty
  • Politics
  • Human Rights
You are here: Home / News Archive / Artists will pay Liberty tribute to David Morris

Artists will pay Liberty tribute to David Morris

By guest on 3rd August 2010 Category: News Archive

Listen

Friends of the disability rights campaigner David Morris are to pay tribute to his life and work at next month’s Liberty disability arts festival.

Morris – who died in April – was a leading figure in Liberty’s development and this year’s festival – the eighth – will be dedicated to his memory.

But disabled artists Ju Gosling and Katherine Araniello are also organising a tribute to Morris’s creative and cultural legacy through their Red Jesus chill-out tent at the festival in Trafalgar Square.

Red Jesus was the name Morris gave to a cultural “salon” he hosted in his apartment in Limehouse, east London at which disabled friends showed their films and recited their poetry, as well as socialising and eating good food in an accessible environment.

Gosling and Araniello will be showing several of Morris’s films, including the first four showings of Together!, a short film for the United Kingdom Disabled People’s Council he had nearly finished when he died.

There will also be portraits of disabled people by the artist Silvia Jahnsons that were commissioned by Morris for his film, open mic sessions and an exhibition on Morris’s life and work.

Gosling and Araniello are now setting up a Red Jesus social enterprise that will continue Morris’s work, with several events a year in which disabled people will be able to meet, socialise and share their creative work.

Gosling said: “We were just very, very keen to carry on David’s work in the way that he would have wanted it to be carried on, and continue with his projects.

“It was very important to him to encourage disabled people’s creativity and to create a space where disabled people could come together, meet each other, network, relax and socialise in an atmosphere where everybody was equal and it didn’t matter who you were.”

Liberty’s Red Jesus tent is being sponsored by Disability LIB, which focuses on building the capacity of disabled people’s organisations and is supporting Gosling and Araniello to set up Red Jesus.

Stephen Hodgkins, director of Disability LIB, said Morris was a “renaissance man” and the Red Jesus Liberty event would be a “lovely tribute” to him.

As well as featuring the cream of disability arts talent, this year’s Liberty will celebrate disability sport, with two years to go until London hosts the 2012 Paralympic Games.

The worlds of art and sport will be brought together by contemporary artist Rachel Gadsden, who will capture the action on life-size canvases as athletes from wheelchair sports charity WheelPower play wheelchair basketball and tennis.

Other festival highlights include a preview of Graeae’s new musical Reasons to be Cheerful, which features the songs of the late Ian Dury.

Another new Graeae production will feature the powered wheelchair dancing troupe Rhinestone Rollers, with a “witty insight into dance through the ages”, while bhangra legend Kuljit Bhamra will lead a street theatre performance inspired by Chutney, the popular music style of the Indian community in Trinidad.

Live music performances will include Yunioshi, singer Lizzie Emeh – with songs from her new album Loud and Proud – and The Fish Police, while the line-up in the cabaret and comedy tent includes Mackenzie Taylor, Francesca Martinez, Steve Day and Liz Carr, and poets from CoolTan Arts.

There will also be an aerial performance featuring Amici Dance Theatre and Cirque Nova, and an aerial collaboration between Candoco and Scarabeus Theatre inspired by the myth of the minotaur.

Liberty 2010 is at Trafalgar Square, London, on Saturday 4 September, from 1pm to 5pm. Entrance is free. More information and access details at: www.london.gov.uk/liberty

18 August 2010

Share this post:

Share on TwitterShare on FacebookShare on WhatsAppShare on Reddit

Related

‘Muddled’ blue badge reforms ‘are to blame for renewal delays’
6th February 2015
UN debate will be reminder of true inclusive education
6th February 2015
IDS breaks pledge on PIP waiting-times, as tens of thousands still queue for months
30th January 2015

Primary Sidebar

Access

Latest Stories

Claimant deaths still linked to systemic flaws in benefits system, DWP document shows

Coffey scrapped plan for independent review of sanctions, DWP admits

Second Labour-led inquiry in two months fails to demand end to care charges

Silent vigil will mark latest stage in fight for second Jodey Whiting inquest

Disability poverty campaign calls on PM to act urgently on prepayment meters

‘Halt new mental health bill until there is a public inquiry into deaths and abuse’

Investigation reveals ‘discrimination and hostility’ faced by disabled parents

Warning of ‘humanitarian crisis’ if governments fail to act on disability poverty

Fresh plans to shut down protests ‘show government is running scared’

Universal credit judgment ‘shows legal system has failed us again’

Advice and Information

Readspeaker

Footer

The International Standard Serial Number for Disability News Service is: ISSN 2398-8924

  • Accessibility Statement
  • Privacy Policy
  • Site map
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2023 Disability News Service

Site development by A Bright Clear Web