History of people with disabilities uncovered in museum representation scheme
The Stored Out Of Sight exhibition was put together through a scheme training people with disabilities in careers at museums.
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Your support makes all the difference.An exhibition has revealed the historic works and objects belonging to people with disabilities that would otherwise have stayed unseen.
Stored Out Of Sight, hosted at Hastings Museum & Art Gallery, researched and recovered unused artefacts from the back room and brought them to light in a bid to boost disability representation.
The exhibition came about through the Curating For Change scheme, which seeks to increase the number of people with hearing loss or who are disabled and neurodivergent into careers at museums.
Jack Guy, who has dyslexia, is one of the initiative’s eight fellows at museums around England training in the sector and working with people with disabilities in the community on museum projects.
There's still hardly anybody with disabilities in museums, let alone in other industries, because they just don't want to take risk. It's capitalism and it's money
Seven people with disabilities in Hastings co-produced the town’s exhibition by choosing the items and sharing their lived experiences in the four-month showcasing.
Works of a deaf artist to a straitjacket and T-shirts used for disability activism were among the exhibits on display until December 16.
Mr Guy, who led the project, said of one artist, Newton Bragge, who is believed to have been autistic: “Although he’s really talented and self-taught it kind of never progressed into kind of (a) full-fledged artist.
“It’s a bit sad but it’s also nice to know that there is something that remembers him and his drawings are really, really lovely and they wouldn’t have been seen if it wasn’t for the exhibition and the focus on disabilities.”
Mr Guy said the 184 sketches the museum has are on the back of letters and invoices found in an envelope.
Like many other artefacts found in the museum’s storage, Mr Bragge’s works were found by searching “derogatory” terms for people with disabilities used throughout history.
Of a carstair, a wheelchair designed in 1900, one member, Kev, wrote in the exhibition: “I chose the carstair because although this wheelchair is a symbol of lack of mobility, freedom and of restriction, wheelchairs today are instead a symbol of independence.
“For me as a wheelchair user, a wheelchair is a passport to freedom.
“Yet wheelchair users can get out of the house and get out and about, but there are still far too many places that are inaccessible. It restricts my ability to engage with society as a whole and to do the things I want to do.”
While it was first feared there would not be enough objects for an exhibition, there turned out to have been many people with disabilities in Hastings – historically coming to the east Sussex town for sea air.
The 2021 census also found Hastings has the highest proportion of residents who identify as disabled and limited a lot in the south east region.
According to Curating For Change, 4% of staff in UK museums identify as being hard of hearing, disabled and neurodivergent.
That is compared to 19% of the working-age population with an impairment.
Mr Guy, who is now assistant curator at Hastings museum, believes the scheme has opened doors for his career, in which he has lacked self-confidence.
The 25-year-old said: “I think that you self-doubt yourself and you go ‘I won’t be very good’ or ‘this is tech heavy’ and ‘there can’t be a place for me in this structure’.
“I think that’s what Curating For Change did very well, as you can work as quick as you can work.
“You get a sense that you always have to get better to do the work, but sometimes work can actually adapt to who you are and actually get quite a lot out of it as well.”
He said workplaces can be inclusive of people with disabilities through flexibility and understanding, but there needs to be more work from the Government and an institutional change at the top.
He said: “The workplace doesn’t work for everyone. It notoriously doesn’t.
“That’s why Curating For Change wants to change it because it’s not open. There’s still hardly anybody with disabilities in museums, let alone in other industries, because they just don’t want to take risk. It’s capitalism and it’s money.
“Hopefully, with the people who are part of this project, they go on to change the course of what the museum is and they advocate. I think that’s reassuring, but, generally, it’s going to take a larger change.”