• MOVING MOUNTAINS

• (2015)

Video • Performance • Installation • Disability

Moving Mountains is a three-channel, 20-minute looped video work of performance to camera, exploring issues of disability and power. The work makes explicit a public response, both from and on behalf of disabled people, to experiences of prejudice or assault - big or small, subtle or overt - that take place pretty much daily. But this project is not about starting from a place of being victims, and in the words of one participant, “fuck your sympathy”.

The work starts with a question: whose responsibility is it to deal with instances of oppression faced by disabled people? Or rather, people who are disabled by a world that ‘others’ their physical or mental realities?

Moving Mountains was made by Pacitti Company in collaboration with special guest stars - Angela Dawn Wright, Giovanna Maria Casetta, Rowan James, Tonny, and with Caroline Smith providing integrated British Sign Language.

The performers in this project all present here as artists first and foremost, and as ‘disabled artists’ if and when that moniker suits them. During the process of making this work together, Robert asked each of them to identify a time when they had experienced prejudice or assault. He also asked them not to share those experiences with him, but to utilise them as a vital charge to draw energy from across the rest of the creation period. From there, everyone built personal manifestos, then body maps, and distilled those, along with a huge amount of shared conversation, into the images presented within the installation.

• The framework created for this project was to facilitate some semblance of meaningful coalition between everyone involved. This meant a rolling series of complex politics and urgent concerns were live throughout, in order to reach some collective understanding - and a shared desire to change the world.