I’m Me: Identity, Representation and Voice

I’m Me is two-year creative research project that will work with learning disabled and autistic artists to explore questions of identity, representation and voice.

Learning disabled and autistic people are amongst the most marginalised and voice-less within our society. They are often seen as vulnerable and needing protection or care, while rarely having a voice, even with issues that directly relate to disability.

I’m Me will work with learning disabled and autistic artists’ lived experiences, placing them at the centre of the research process exploring:

  • Identity – how do we perceive ourselves
  • Representation – how do others perceive us
  • Voice – how do we make our presence in the world known

The project will adapt an approach based on the Creative Doodle Book, a resource that uses open and playful tasks to encourage reflective self-expression. Through this approach the perceptions, insights and creative understandings of the peer researchers will be at the heart of both the process and the outcomes.

I’m Me is generously funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and is led by Professor Matthew Reason from the Institute for Social Justice at York St John University. The project will be conducted in collaboration with Mind the Gap and in partnership with a network of six disability arts companies: About Face, Confidance, Hijinx, Lung Ha, Open Theatre, and Under the Stars  

The project will run from May 2023 to June 2025, culminating in a Festival that will incorporate performances, exhibitions, and videos, showcasing the artistic talents and perspectives of the learning disabled and autistic artists involved in the project.

Outputs

Explore the resources and media created by the I’m Me project.

We feel it is important to share what we learn from I’m Me in a lot of different ways.

This means we can communicate in different ways to different audiences in a manner that is accessible, inclusive and make a difference. I’m Me will result in everything from academic essays to performances to comics to podcasts, photography and illustrations.

Later in the project we will create a Festival of creative work and a book publication. At present we are focusing on documenting and reflecting on our research processes.

Jump to a section of this page to explore our outputs:

Articles

In this paper, we reflect on the involvement of people with learning disabilities and autism in I’m Me and its status as an inclusive research project.

Reason, M., Acton, K., & Foulds, D. (2024). Working it out together: Lessons and insights into inclusive research in an arts context. British Journal of Learning Disabilities, 1–11. Open Access: https://doi.org/10.1111/bld.12609.

Podcasts

Throughout the project we have recorded short podcast conversations with different participants exploring key or recurring concerns.

Use the drop-down to explore our podcast episodes.

Comics

A central part of the first stage of I’m Me was conducting workshops with learning disabled artists at Mind the Gap exploring the themes of identity, representation and voice. These workshops informed the content of the Creative Doodle Books. In order to make the content of some of these workshops visible to people who weren’t there, we commissioned Leeds-based artist Aimee Shepherd to attend some of the sessions and produce short comic-style representations. Use the drop-down to explore the different comics.

Videos

Hear They’re Everywhere, Under the Stars

This video features the Sparkle Sistaz talking about how it feels to be invisible / visible.

Knowing Disability Through Dance, Confidance

This film features the Confico dance artists exploring their lived experience of learning disability through choreography.

Partners

About Face

About Face Theatre Co started in 1995, we use masks and all forms of puppetry to perform our work which we tour locally and across the country. We are constantly striving to make theatre that is new and changes perceptions of Learning Disabled actors

Confidance

Confidance are a dance company with integrity, creativity and inclusion at its heart. Through three core pathways – education, community and professional training – Confidance are developing high quality dance opportunities for people with learning disabilities in Kent.

Hijinx

Hijinx are a professional producing company working to pioneer, produce and promote opportunities for artists with learning disabilities and/or autism. The heart of our work is always our learning disabled and/or autistic identifying artists, who constantly challenge perceptions of what theatre and film can be and how they should be made. Performances that change the way that we perceive the world are the performances that remain with us forever. This is what we aspire to make. 

Lung Ha Theatre Company

Lung Ha Theatre Company is Scotland’s leading theatre company, founded in 1984, for actors and theatre makers with learning disabilities. Our productions can be seen locally, nationally and internationally.

Open Theatre

Open Theatre’s vision is to make the West Midlands a centre of innovative practice and excellence for young people with learning disabilities (YPWLD). Our core purpose is to develop and promote the creativity and artistry of YPWLD. We enable YPWLD to access and integrate into culture and society and make meaningful contributions to the life of the region and beyond, becoming artists, leaders and practitioners of the future. 

Under the Stars

Under the Stars is a creative arts organisation for people with learning disabilities and/or autism. Through our weekly workshops in drama, music, and dance, we help to develop people’s skills and confidence to create original theatre, music, and film. We work with local venues and arts organisations to give people opportunities to perform plays, DJ at our regular nightclubs or other events and play gigs in places where people with a disability are often underrepresented.

“And whilst this is a safe place, it’s not just a jolly day out. We’re digging quite deep.”

Jess, About Face Artistic Director

“The role of the lead artist embedded within the project has been integral to the quality and depth of the work. This project will undoubtedly empower our dancers to engage as artists with a sense of power and self assuredness as a result.”

Jo, Confidance Artistic Director

“Why is it important? It’s because I think… I just feel like what’s important about it is that no one really talks about disability. So I feel like the more we talk about it, the more we won’t be closed anymore.”

Victoria, Hijinx Lead Artist

“It’s nice to see the amount of honesty but also the amount of empathy as well. Between everybody and how they connect. It’s amazing.”

Luke, Open Theatre Lead Artist

“We did this like punk style song, which was very heavy. We talked about things people assumed about us as people, like what did people think about you when they first see you.”

Sinead, Under the Stars Lead Artist

“It’s been a time when people have been talking about things that maybe they don’t talk about otherwise actually. Or haven’t spoken about for a long time. So yeah, that has been very exciting.”

Ryan, Lung-ha Project Lead

Research Team

Matthew Reason

I’m Me Principal Investigator

Matthew is Professor of Theatre and Director of the Institute for Social Justice at York St John University. His work uses creative and participatory methods to explore applied and socially engaged theatre across a number of contexts.

Kelsie Acton

I’m Me Post-Doc Research Fellow

Kelsie a neurodivergent access consultant and researcher. Her PhD research into the accessibility of timing in disability dance rehearsal was funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. She was the plain language translator for Alice Wong’s Year of a Tiger and MsSweeney’s The Audio Issue. She is a member of the Critical Design Lab, a multi-national, multi-institutional collective focused on access, disability and design.

Jade French

I’m Me Co-Investigator

Jade French is a practice-led researcher at the University of Leeds who explores inclusive art and museum studies. Between 2021-23 she lead the AHRC research project ‘Irregular’ Art Schools which aimed to innovate professional development opportunities for learning disabled artists

Vicky Ackroyd

Totally Inclusive People

Vicky currently holds the ‘Trainer Award’ for 2016/17 from the National Learning Disability and Autism Awards. She has worked in a variety of education settings for over 15 years, and has developed a number of training offers to support organisations in best practice, and students at the beginning of their professional lives. Vicky has co-written journal articles with academics from the University of Leeds, and her innovative teaching approaches have been evaluated by researchers at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Daniel Foulds

I’m Me Research Assistant

Daniel is a writer and researcher with a learning disability based in Bradford. He joined Mind the Gap in 2013 and is now an Associate Artist with the company. He has worked in multiple research led projects including Daughters of Fortune, Hidden History, ENGAGE and more recently his own experience led project In Neither Camp which looks at Identity and belonging as someone with a Learning Disabilty.

A headshot of Zara Mallinson. Zara is a white woman with dark ginger hair and blue eyes. She is smiling and is wearing a grey jumper with a blue star on the front. She is pictured against a dark background.

Zara Mallinson

I’m Me Research Assistant (Phase 1)

Zara is an Artist from Mind the Gap. She joined the company when she was 16, and over the last 20 years she has toured all over the country as an actor and musician with shows like ZARA, CONTAINED and Anna. Zara is a natural facilitator and recently she has worked as a co-facilitator on MTG’s Get Into Performing Arts course in Calderdale, and the One Day Theatre course.

A headshot of Alison Colborne. She is a white woman with shoulder length wavy mousey brown hair. She is wearing dark rimmed rectangle glasses and a flowery top. She is pictured against a dark background.

Alison Colborne

I’m Me Research Assistant (Phase 2)

Alison is an artist, performer and musician and has toured extensively with Mind the Gap since 2010, including Contained, Mia, ZARA, A Little Space, Leave the Light on For Me and most recently, Birdie. She’s recently contributed to Leeds 2023’s Access Advisory Group and regularly speaks at conferences and events.

Jess Boyes

Leadership and Change Producer

Jess is Artists & Partnerships Producer at Mind the Gap. She works closely with the company’s learning disabled & autistic artists to co- design leadership development opportunities and develop ideas for independent work, and works with partners to make the arts sector more accessible for artists.

Bee Skivington

Associate Artist

Bee is a theatre practitioner and facilitator specialising in inclusive practice and creative engagement. Since 2010, she’s worked across Mind the Gap’s theatre programmes and works closely with the company’s team of artists through the Leadership and Change strand of work.

Brian Hartley

Designer

Brian is a Glasgow based artist and designer with a multi-disciplinary practice incorporating visual art, design, and working in participatory settings. He is looking forward to working on Im Me, to be able to continue the creative practice begun through the Creative Doodle Book Project with Matthew Reason and Mind the Gap.

Ethics and Inclusive Research

Our approach to ethics and inclusivity for the I’m Me project.

Developing inclusive and accessible ethics processes that enable meaningful consent and participation has been an important part of I’m Me.

Inclusive research involves people with learning disabilities in research about their lives. For I’m Me this included helping develop research questions, conducting interviews, analysing data and most importantly of all creating artistic outputs for the I’m Me Festival.

Research ethics are supposed to make sure that people know what they are agreeing to when they take part in research and to avoid hurting people. However, they can often be complicated, and inaccessible. Sometimes they can exclude people, especially people with learning disabilities and autism from taking part in research. For I’m Me we worked collaboratively with learning disabled and autistic artists to develop accessible and inclusive ethics processes.

The ethics processes were focused around the idea that people have rights in research, including:

  1. You have the right to have your say
  2. You have the right to support
  3. You have the right to feel safe and say no
  4. You have the right to privacy
  5. You have the right for it to feel worthwhile

These rights in research were communicated in multiple ways, including video, illustrations and interactive scenarios.

Download our support pack or watch our video for more information:

I’m Me: Your Rights in Research

Mind the Gap Research Assistants Daniel Foulds and Zara Mallinson explain Research Ethics and participants rights in research.

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