Unlimited, the arts commissioning programme offering talented disabled artists funds and mentoring support to develop, produce and show ambitious work, has launched nine new commissions.
The recipients are Liz Carr, Noëmi Lakmaier, Kaite O’Reilly, Aaron Williamson, Bekki Perriman, Jack Dean, Sheila Hill, Cameron Morgan and Claire Cunningham. Among the commissioned works are a durational 48-hour living-installation, an irreverent musical about assisted suicide and public artworks reflecting on 70s and 80s television.
Unlimited will provide more than £500,000 as well as mentoring support to the nine artists with funding from Arts Council England, Creative Scotland, Spirit of 2012 and Arts Council of Wales. The programme is delivered in partnership with Shape Arts and Artsadmin.
The awarded works were chosen by 11 panelists including various disabled artists and representatives from the British Council, Southbank Centre and Tramway, with Ruth Gould, Artistic Director for DaDaFest chairing the panel.
Diverse in every way possible
Jo Verrent, Senior Producer at Unlimited said of the announcement: “The commissions are diverse in every way possible – art form, ambition, take on the world – just showing that disabled artists and disability-led companies truly can’t be categorised into just one box.”
Artist Aaron Williamson, whose commissioned performance work Demonstrating the World features reinterpretations of mundane YouTube ‘how-to’ videos, added: “Unlimited recognises that artists thrive when trusted to be ambitious, and this project would not even have been imagined, let alone made possible, without Unlimited’s integrated approach to artist development.
“We are extremely proud to be included in Unlimited’s programme of critically rigorous, innovative, and uncompromising disabled-led work.”
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