Firing the can(n)on of disability arts

"Tate Liverpool has a constellation of visual artists up on its stairs (how accessible is that?!) - I don't recall any disabled artists amongst its listings, not even the legendary Kurt Schwitters - the author of What is Madness? amongst many other works." sean burn

"Until recently, Tate Modern had a timeline of artistic movements of both the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, it did not include disability arts." Mike Layward - DASH

In response to the above, sean burn was commissioned by DASH to make a short, compelling new experimental film - mixing animation, live-art, spoken word and a wholly original soundworld to challenge this absence; this disappearance of us from the can(n)on of art. The film intended on being witty, provocative and poetic and an utterly unique take from outsider artist sean burn. It was to utilise in part, sean's own responses to the all-consuming world of merz that Schwitters conjured up.

sean burn is a writer, performer and outsider artist with a growing international reputation. He is actively involved nationally in disability arts.

He works across film / live arts / digital arts / installation / soundmapping / visual poetry and spoken word to challenge ownership of narratives – and has particular experience of challenging the narratives of psychiatry which is a privileged form of storytelling rather than a science. What sean creates tries giving voice to alternatives, to strategies for survival.

He was shortlisted for a Dadafest disability arts award in 2009 and in 2011 successfully completed a major artist in residence project at the New Gallery Walsall in association with DASH, 'reclaiming the languages of lunacy'.

Since 2011 he has been an artist and mentor-in-residence with arts charity Celf o Gwmpas, in Wales.

His thirty short experimental films have received many screenings worldwide, as well as at Tate Modern and the National Film Theatre Studios in London.

The film was project managed by DASH and shown at the Awkward Bastards symposium in March 2015.

The symposium was the final part of the DASH project 'in' - Disability Arts in the Mainstream. A project which commissioned Disabled Artists/Curators to produce new work in partnership with mainstream galleries.