sick

The piece is about the distinction between being sick and being disabled and the false conflation of the two. I was reminded of this when I watched a television programme where they were discussing the inclusion of ‘fit & healthy’ contestants who are not very thin entering a Miss World contest. So I started to think about the idea of ‘fit & healthy’ and how that relates to role models and disability. I was reminded of the fact that many people associate disability with illness and I wanted to make a work addressing this.

History is entrenched with naïve ideas about disability, and this video regurgitates these often unspoken attitudes and assumptions. Made up of provocative statements, the film is a humorous slap in the face which subverts the image of the weak, unhealthy, incapable and asexual disabled person.

On first glance the film may be mistaken as a documentary about the ambulance service and sick disabled people and some of the additional conditions they are inflicted with on a daily basis. The soundtrack, which I composed especially for the film, starts off relatively calm with an easy listening mainstream dance track which by the end of the film crescendos into a high pitch screeching.

As the film progresses the statements start to transgress into explicit language which in the most direct way confronts the viewer with disability and sexual deviance.

I feel this piece relates to the use of the abject by other contemporary artists such as Cindy Sherman, Gilbert & George and Paul McCarthy.

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Tags: abject, araniello, art, dance, dark, More…disability, experimental, gay, humour, music, sick, sma, subtitled, subversive, wheelchair, woman
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