D4D: Electric Bodies - 'Making Links' poetry and interview content

D4D (Disability and Community: Dis/engagement, Dis/enfranchisement, Dis/parity and Dissent) was a four year AHRC Connected Communities project investigating issues around disability and community.

Electric Bodies was one of the eight project strands. It explored the relationship between the disabled artist and the disability arts community through a series of extensive life history interviews edited into transcription poetry cycles.

'Making Links' is a cycle of transcription poems written by Allan Sutherland. They are based on interviews conducted by Sutherland with the sculptor and arts administrator Tony Heaton.

The poems cover Heaton's early life, the motorcycle accident which caused his spinal injury, his artistic development, and his work creating resources for disabled visual artists. Heaton recounts the years working for RADAR and NACAB which led to his positions as Director of Holton Less and CEO of Shape. He describes the creation of the Adam Reynolds Bursary and the Shape Open. His artistic works are discussed, including 'Springback', 'Split', 'Great Britain from a Wheelchair', and 'Monument to the Unintended Performer', his installation for the BIG 4 sculpture outside Channel Four's offices in 2012.

The poems (PDF)

Recording of Allan Sutherland reading the poems (MP3)

Transcripts of the interviews (PDF)

Audio of the interviews (3 x MP3)