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Audio Description

Created from two health ministry ‘Vessa’ wheelchairs, perhaps this work is more closely tied to Heaton’s disabled identity, and that of the millions of disabled people in Great Britain. He describes its creation as ‘intuitive’ and the work took just two days to complete.

About Tony Heaton

Arguably the Godfather of the UK Disability Arts Movement, Tony Heaton OBE can claim to have made several of the landmark iconic pieces that helped define the DAM.  He has exhibited nationally and internationally, with his major commission Gold Lamé winning the commission to be the first sculpture sited on the Liverpool Plinth in 2018.  His Monument to the Unintended Performer was installed on the Big 4 outside Channel 4 TV in celebration of the 2012 London Paralympics, and his neon works have been displayed on London’s Southbank and the Lumiere Festival in Durham. His works in DAM IN VENICE include Gold Lame and Great Britain From A Wheelchair.

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Image credit, Andy Barker.

Image descriptions:

Banner image and image 2. Photograph of work installed in a gallery space, hung on a grey brick wall. The work consists of various parts of two wheelchairs combined into the shape of Great Britain. The disassembled chairs hang lengthways down the wall, towering above visitors to the exhibition. The wheelchair parts are aged and rusty or scuffed at times. In the foreground, big structures with red wooden panelling creep in from the left of frame.

1. Photograph of work installed in a gallery space, hung on a grey brick wall. The work consists of various parts of wheelchairs combined into the shape of Great Britain. The wheels are thin and textured, whilst remaining useless without their rubber tyres that are now missing.