Towards New Worlds is a large-scale exhibition sharing fifteen artists’ experiences of seeing, hearing, feeling and sensing the contemporary world. The exhibition explores a rich variety of human perceptions and sensory experiences through works of art, which make connections between the artists’ internal worlds and their external environments. The artworks consider issues in the contemporary world, including justice, ecological consciousness, connectivity and care.
Each of the artists involved is disabled, D/deaf and/or neurodivergent. The artists interpret their own perspectives, offering new insights for those encountering their work while recognising that we can never fully inhabit someone else’s experience.
The exhibition offers a rich sensory environment, with moments of quiet reflection and spaces for interaction and relaxation. Through varied production processes, including drawing, photography, installation, video and interactive sensory pieces, the artists call attention to many ways of experiencing and navigating the world.
Colin Hambrook’s intricate, fantastical drawings are laden with memory, weaving together personal and imagined narratives. RA Walden draws attention to the dual fragilities of the human body and our ecosystems, specifically to limited involvement with the natural world because of disability. Christopher Samuel uses his personal records to confront the lack of disability representation in social and medical archives.
The exhibition features Richard Butchins, Leah Clements, Joanne Coates, Malgorzata Dawidek, Colin Hambrook, Jenni-Juulia Wallinheimo-Heimonen, Seo Hye Lee, Molly Martin, Louise McLachlan, Aaron McPeake, Sam Metz, Jade de Montserrat, Carrie Ravenscroft, Christopher Samuel and RA Walden.
Towards New Worlds is curated with curator, artist and cultural activist Aidan Moesby. Moesby has collaborated with MIMA to share his deep research and extensive experience championing disability, care and access.
Aidan Moesby worked as Associate Curator with MIMA in 2019-20 as part of the Future Curators programme, a national network supporting the development of disabled, D/deaf and neurodivergent curators. MIMA is a founding member of Future Curators and has a longstanding commitment to supporting and nurturing disabled, D/deaf and neurodivergent artists and curators.
The exhibition is accompanied by a public programme of research and engagement events. A series of events and digital outcomes will be platformed in association with Disability Arts Online.
‘Our mutual entwinement must be careful, spacious and supple, with no single knot tied too tight. In this macrame of loving design, we might find the wisdom, purpose and strength we need, to weave new worlds.’ Radical Intimacy, Sophie K. Rosa