SHAPE ARTS
Shape Arts is a disability-led arts organisation which works to improve access to culture for disabled people by providing opportunities for disabled creatives, training cultural institutions to be more open to disabled people, and through running participatory arts and development programmes.
Source: https://www.shapearts.org.uk/Listing/Category/about-shape
Announcing the 2025 Shape Open exhibition... Rights Cuts Action: the creativity of disabled resistance. The exhibition will be open from 6 October - 5 November 2025, at the Brunel Engine Shed, High Wycombe.
Featured in this post are three photographic portraits from a wider, brand new commission for the exhibition by @emmabfox, documenting the manifest voices and methods that make up the ongoing fight for disability rights. In order, meet: Amari, @linden_archives and @artwithdawns
Rights Cuts Action places the work of contemporary artists in conversation with archival photography from Keith Armstrong, disabled activist, artist, and writer. The exhibition is set against a backdrop of ongoing cuts to benefits and vital support systems and the continual fight to protect disability rights.
Exhibiting artists: @emmabfox, @weeannabee, @elrkdr, @faekilburn, Vince Laws, @zoevisualart, @the_guy_morris_project, @dea.styx_and_stone.willow, @kristinrawcliffe, @ivan360.go, @benedictrobinsonart, and @kwainethomas
Jeff Rowlings, Head of Programme, Shape Arts, said: “It’s 2025, and with each new cut disabled people face, their rights are further undermined and diminished, along with their standards of living. In the case of Access to Work, even the right to work and earn is being severed, shuttered down. This was as true of the 1980s and 90s as it is today, when a new government is stripping away the dignity and welfare of the most marginalised of communities.
Yet across the country disabled people are refusing to stand down and yield these hard won rights, many of them achieved in the recent past, after years of protest and campaigning. In this exhibition, we capture what it is to take action and go to the streets in defence of basic human rights.
As these disabled artists show how through riotous sound and colour, while facing every pressure to shrink and diminish, the disabled community grows larger.”
This year's Shape Open is supported by the National Disability Movement Archive and Collection and @heritagefunduk
Dawn, a tall woman with dark, curly hair. She stands in front of a block of flats, holding a sign reading “I’m worried”. White stencil-like font reads "6 October - 5 November, Engine Shed, High Wycombe." White Shape Arts, Heritage Lottery Fund and NDMAC logos are at the bottom.
Amari, a white non-binary person with brown eyes and pink hair, is standing outside of a red brick terrace with purple scaffolding, wearing a long floral print shirt and skirt, with an orange bandana. They hold a sign reading “Compassion not cuts”. White stencilled text along the top reads "Rights Cuts Action". White Shape Arts, Heritage Lottery Fund and NDMAC logos are at the bottom.
Stuart, a white 68 year old man with blue eyes and short grey hair stands out in front of a red brick block of flats, holding a sign that reads “My disability is hidden. Your discrimination isn’t!” White stencil-like font reads "The creativity of disabled resistance." White Shape Arts, Heritage Lottery Fund and NDMAC logos are at the bottom.