Cultivating spaces for extraordinary artists

FCP Resources and Reading

Since Autumn in 2024, DASH has introduced Homework to the monthly FCP meetings. We invite the FCP network partners to read and reflect on a piece of writing or work that we feel is relevant to the ongoing learning and sharing of the Future Curators Programe.
We'd like to share the work we have been doing and the resources more widely. 

Please find details of the homework below. (Please note: There is not homework for every month of the year as on occassion time was taken for inward reflection on the programme).

March 2026
1.Introduction
This month's homework reflects on some of the previous homework we started looking at and discussing in 2024, which Jade Foster (former DASH Curator) introduced to the network.

2.What is intersectionality?
In 1989 Kimberle Crenshaw coined the term Intersectionality - she is a leading thinker and scholar in the field of critical race theory.

One of the pieces that explored the connection between race and disability was a Conversation between Rebekah Ubuntu and Leah Clements.  This conversation opened up how the artists navigated disability, intersectional identities, and the concept of "crip time" within the art world. Ubuntu highlighted the necessity of boundaries, access documents, and controlling one's own narrative, challenging the pressures of disclosure and advocating for slow, sustainable creative practices.

“The issue of trauma is further complicated and compounded by the fact that the conjunction of COVID and climate collapse has provoked a burgeoning mental-health crisis, especially among BIPOC and dis/differently abled communities, at a time when our health services are under unprecedented attack by neoliberal establishments.” Rebecca Ubuntu

Furthermore, in conversation with Rachel at DASH, and peers, it felt important to come back to this conversation as well as explore new conversations/works that are the forefront of intersectional practice for example the Vital Exposures - a disabled-led intersectional experimental theatre company who you'll learn more about in point 3.

Here is a video of Kimberle explaining Intersectionality (5mins)  

“Intersectionality is a framework for understanding how multiple social identities—such as race, gender, class, and sexuality—overlap and intersect to create unique, compounded experiences of discrimination or privilege. It highlights that marginalized people, particularly Black women, often face interlocking systems of oppression that cannot be understood through a single lens of racism or sexism alone.”  Link

3. Vital Xposure report on race and disability
In 2025, the disabled-led touring theatre company, Vital Xposure (VX), produced a compelling report on their three-year research programme, VX Labs.

Vital Xposure creates radical, political performances highlighting marginalised voices. Their programme, VX Labs, was supported by Arts Council England and delivered with the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and regional theatres. It explored innovative, disabled-led performance, providing experimental spaces for artists to develop new approaches to access and storytelling.

The programme critiqued current theatre access practices such as captioning, audio description, and signed performances, arguing they are often superficial, added late, and limit creative potential. VX Labs instead promoted embedding access from the outset as an artistic tool.

Another key focus was challenging ongoing political, cultural, and professional barriers faced by disabled artists. While the Social Model of disability has improved inclusion, many artists still experience restrictions around creative scope, collaboration, audiences, and funding. Mid-career disabled artists, in particular, lack clear development pathways.

The Decolonising Disability Lab, which was part of VX Labs, built on the programme's founding aims by addressing intersectionality, specifically the experiences of disabled artists from the Global Majority. Recognising gaps in representation within its own leadership, VX developed the Lab through consultation with Global Majority artists, ensuring the space was shaped by those with lived experience. This preparatory research was central to the lab's design and outcomes.

A full report was published from the 2024-25 programme, which can be found here (see also below, under 'Further Reading', with reading time).

 

QUESTION

Please read the quotes below from Vital Xposure's report, and consider:

  • Beyond the social model, what tangible next steps can we take—both with FCP and within our own organisations—to ensure our work is truly intersectional and addresses the overlapping barriers people face?
     
  • How do we move from theory to practice to ensure this work meaningfully supports the daily experiences of the artists, staff, and audiences we work with?

Further Reading:

Vital Xposure Full Report. Reading time 1 hour 45 minutes
https://vitalxposure.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/VX-Labs-Decolonising-Disability-Report.pdf

Shorter Read Summary of the Report. Reading time 5 minutes
Arts Professional report of Vital Exposures VVX Labs
 

Disability Solidarity:  Completing the “Vision for Black Lives” by the Harriet Tubman Collective.

Further reading on the intersection between race and disability. The Harriet Tubman Collective are a collective of Black Deaf/Disabled organizers, community builders, dreamers, lovers striving for radical inclusion & collective liberation.

Reading time 10 minutes
https://ccpep.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Disability-Solidarity.pdf


February 2026
This month's homework is in relation to Home Based Situated Practice (HBSP), a year-round virtual residency, commissioning programme and peer-support network conceived and delivered by DASH.

It has been generously shared by the Home Based Situated Practice (HBSP) Artist-in-Residence Grace Currie with support from Lucy Mounfield, Creative Producer (DASH) and Ila Colley, Folk Art Curator (Compton Verney). This residency is in collaboration with Compton Verney, Warwickshire and forms the pilot to DASH's Home Based Situated Practice programme.

We asked partners to consider what it means to have a home-based artistic practice and to reflect on the following questions: 

  • How can organisations better support artists who work from home?
     
  • How do we, as organisations, hold space for artists during a remote project over both short and long periods of time?
     
  • How can curators better showcase work being made by home-based artists?


Homework reading/ viewing 

Put Away Neatly - film of performance at HOME gallery in Manchester (16:30 mins) https://vimeo.com/730170076/dbbf5882e9?turnstile=0.5iDj5kQ7Q11hAbov497lJPb8rKjs2iYKpU-IOCiFN6Vv4qH 
A performance piece that explores Grace's relationship with their support team.

Link to read more about exhibition and performance piece: https://gracecurrie.art/journal/put-away-neatly

Put Away Neatly - timelapse of performance at HOME gallery in Manchester (30 sec) https://vimeo.com/727413031/e756dab577

About the Artist: 
https://gracecurrie.art/

November 2025 
This month's homework was been generously shared by the team at John Hansard Gallery.  Following a lot of work and discussion internally the team have worked collaboratively to create and Institutional Collaboration Rider.

Institutional Collaboration Rider 
Artist Jack Ky Tan is the Guest Curator of Organisation Development at John Hansard Gallery. In July 2024, he facilitated the workshop Access and Collaboration Riders for Institutions, introducing these tools to the JHG team and exploring how they might support their collaborative practices.

The FCP were invite to learn more about this process and to reflect on how this might be a useful tool within their own organisations. 

Detailed documentation of the workshop is available on Jack Ky Tan's website: https://jackkytan.tiddlyhost.com/#2024-07-09%20Access%20and%20Collaboration%20Riders%20for%20institutions

Following the workshop, the John Hansard Gallery team reflected on how artists and collaborators might perceive institutional spaces. They recognised that some individuals may assume they operate as a neurotypical, heteronormative, or white-supremacist institution – assumptions rooted in multigenerational trauma and broader institutional histories, even though they do not reflect our values or practices. 

In response, they have spent the past year developing an institutional Collaboration Rider for JHG. This document is shared with artists, freelancers, and partners at the start of their collaborations. It outlines how they work as an organisation, their individual access and support needs, and the institutional structures they navigate as part of a university. The rider is a living document, and they plan to commission artists to create illustrations for specific sections to enhance accessibility and engagement.

Additional resources that the JHG team have consulted:

Access Toolkit for Art Workers: https://accesstoolkit.art/#/

Access Docs for Artists: https://www.accessdocsforartists.com/


October 2025
This months homework is to read and think more deeply about disability justice.

 Please read and watch the following, ideally in this order, all of which come from key figures and organisations in the disability justice movement:   

  • Videos from the No Body is Disposable Project, Stacey Milbern and Patty Berne: 'Ableism is the Bane of My Motherfuckin Existence' (4.44 mins) & 'My Body Doesn't Oppress Me, Society Does' (5.08 mins)   

Additional Reading (for those who are really keen!)   

  • If you'd like to dive even further into reading about disability justice, this early text reflects on the differences between the disability rights and disability justice movements in North America: Skin, Tooth and Bone: The Basis of Movement is our People, a disability justice primer by Sins Invalid – see page 4 for the full list of contributors (11 mins reading time)  

You can read more about the origin and definition of disability justice as a movement and framework from the Disability & Philanthropy Forum, previously shared by email by past DASH Curator, Jade Foster (4 mins reading time)

September 2025
At the August FCP Network meeting, partners undertook training about The Social Model of Disability. The September homework was to consider the training and to answer the question:  In what what has the training been influential in your practices?

Read More about The Social Model of Disability:


June 2025

This week's theme is “comedy series' and Stand Up!”

We've selected some of our favourite comedians who could identify as disabled (anxiety, adhd, dyslexia, depression, endometriosis, chronic ill health, autism).

This might not feel relevant, but for us it's 100% relevant! Things are tough at the moment, and we want to laugh together. 

Available to watch on TV/online:

Radio recordings:


May 2025
The disabled experience is increasingly visible in the artworld yet an ableist political landscape is constantly on the attack. This affects us all. Reflect on the following 2 articles:

March 2025
Reflect on blog Access Intimacy: The Missing Link | Leaving Evidence by Mia Mingus.  

Biography 
Mia Mingus is a writer, educator and trainer for transformative justice and disability justice. She is a queer physically disabled korean transracial and transnational adoptee raised in the Caribbean. She works for community, interdependence and home for all of us, not just some of us, and longs for a world where disabled children can live free of violence, with dignity and love. Read More  

February 2025
Reflect on Episode 1 from the Call Me Disabled podcast: Poppy Field in conversation with Jameisha Prescod, 'Disabled Identity and Radical Resting', shared by Rachel Fleming-Mulford. (33 mins). 


January 2025
Consider ways to implement Accessible Recruitment within your organisation: 
A Guide to Accessible Recruitment - Disability Arts Online

November 2024
Reflect on the actions list, 'Socioemotional skills to sharpen so the women & femme organizers in your life don't have to do everything' by Stacey Park Milbern featured (pp.298-299) in the book, The Future is Disabled by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. 


October 2024
Reflect on text shared by Jade Foster, HOLDING SPACE ACROSS CRIP TIME: Leah Clements, Taraneh Fazeli and K MacBride, 28 October 2021, published online article by Serpentine Galleries.

GLOSSARY OF TERMS 
As part of our ongoing practice we are building a Glossary of Terms that references common words or phrases we refer to in our work. This is an ever evolving document and will be updated periodically.