I’m Me: Learning Disability, Creative Research and Epistemic Justice

Experiences of being ignored, spoken for, misunderstood and under-estimated are frequent occurrences for people with learning disabilities and autism. This lecture will share insights from “I’m Me”, which used inclusive and creative methods to centre people with learning disabilities as artists who have things to say that the world needs to hear. I’m Me worked with more than one hundred learning disabled and autistic artists and seven arts organisations from across the United Kingdom. Together we investigated how learning disabled and autistic artists create, communicate, and understand identity through theatre, dance, visual art, drawing and collaborative creative practice.

This lecture will focus on arts-based methods as epistemic enablers that foreground learning disabled and autistic artists as knowledge holders whose creative practice offers vital ways of understanding identity, representation, voice, care, access and social inequality. As one artist said: ‘My experience. I’m wanting to share that in a creative way. That feels powerful.’

Matthew Reason is Professor of Theatre and Director of the Institute for Social Justice at York St John University (UK). His research focuses on politically and socially engaged arts practice, audience research and co-productive and participatory research methodologies.

He has just completed the Arts and Humanities Research Council funded project I’m Me, which explored themes of identity, representation and voice with learning disabled and autistic artists. He is currently leading Imagining our Futures, also funded by the AHRC, which aims to develop inclusive and accessible approaches to futures thinking. For further information visit www.matthewreason.com