The Explorer

From time-to-time Dada-South aims to feature work from Disability Arts Online (dao) - a national disability and deaf arts online journal, which seeks to review, profile, discuss and commission visual, performance and literary arts by disabled and deaf artists.

On 24 August 2009 dao presented The Explorer, a new commission by Allan Sutherland which reflects the creative journey of artist Nancy Willis. In response to the work, Nancy Willis created a new animation, Transformation, with music by Chris Morris, which is also presented on dao.

The Explorer (named after an artwork by Willis) is a raw, moving, insightful account of Nancy Willis' artistic development. Allan Sutherlands' cycle of 'transcription' poems uses Nancy Willis' own words to convey the stories behind her imagery.

Below is a sample. For the complete works, please visit http://www.disabilityartsonline.org.uk/DAO_Commissions

 Drips, Lines, Spatters: Nancy Willis (1980)

Application

I stayed in like a hostel place,
just a regular hostel for single people
and I remember there,
and at the college,
I just blithely said yes to everything.
Yes,
certainly I can do that.
Of course
I can push myself up that slope.
No problem.
I can
get through those, you know
ten hundredweight double doors.
Easily.
And I know the lift breaks down
every other day.

I thought if I sound
absolutely confident
about everything,
nothing will be difficult,
then they might say yes.

And they did.

Disability Arts Online (dao), the national disability and deaf arts website, is proud to present The Explorer, a new commission by Allan Sutherland which reflects the creative journey of artist Nancy Willis.

In response to the work, Nancy Willis created a new animation, Transformation, with music by Chris Morris, which also premieres on dao as The Explorer launches.

The Explorer (named after an artwork by Willis) is a raw, moving, insightful account of Nancy Willis' artistic development. Allan Sutherlands' cycle of 'transcription' poems uses Nancy Willis' own words to convey the stories behind her imagery.

In recent years, Allan Sutherland developed 'transcription' poetry based on oral history interviews with disabled people. This work, though influenced by twentieth century modernists, exploits skills derived from script writing, rather than the methods of lyric poetry.

He uses lines directly from transcribed interviews, which emphasise the unique voices of disabled peoples' experience. Sutherland's new work tells how disability informed Willis' way of working in painting, printmaking, mixed media and sculpture.

In turn, Nancy Willis used the Sutherland poems as a basis for creating an artistic response. The resulting work - Transformation - is an animation piece that draws on Willis' digital skills as an award-winning film-maker to tell the narrative.

'Transformation' and 'The Explorer' are published online on dao on 24 August 2009. For the complete works, please visit www.disabilityartsonline.org.uk