A disabled film-maker’s award-winning video installation about the killing of hundreds of thousands of disabled people in Nazi Germany has had to end its run in Gloucester Cathedral after a vital piece of equipment was stolen.
Liz Crow’s Resistance: which way the future? has received critical and popular acclaim in the UK, Ireland and at the renowned Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.
The installation was approaching the end of its six-week run in the cloisters of Gloucester Cathedral when the projector was stolen.
Crow believes the thief used benches and chairs provided to make the installation more accessible to reach the £500 projector, which was insured.
Crow said the theft was “sickening” but she was “not taking it personally”, and added: “I don’t imagine it had anything to do with the location or the content (of the installation). I suspect it was just opportunistic.”
Although the run at the medieval cathedral was forced to end early, Crow’s team has been able to source a new projector in time for the installation to open next week at the University of Bedfordshire’s students’ union (18 November to 15 December).
She said: “In the spirit of Resistance, we are back out there.”
The Aktion-T4 programme is believed to have led to the targeted killing of as many as 200,000 disabled people, and possibly many more, and became the blueprint for the “Final Solution”, through which the Nazis hoped to wipe out Jews, gay people and other minority groups.
Crow’s film-based installation explores the values that allowed T4 to happen but also shows how some disabled people found the courage to resist.
It also draws close parallels with issues that challenge disabled people’s right to exist today, such as the campaign to legalise assisted suicide, the rise in disability hate crime, and increased pre-natal screening and abortion.
Even though the installation has now been shown in eight UK venues, in Dublin, and in Washington, DC, Crow is still seeking the first venue willing to host it in London.
9 November 2011
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