You’ve been surrounded by the same four walls for some time now. Outside, the structures of society are shaking. We have all had to adapt. We have had to evolve new and innovative ways of sharing, communicating, and experiencing connection in an unfamiliar and altered reality.

It has become evident, too, that our new reality straddles both the physical and digital spaces in which we spend our time. For disabled people, so often marginalised by the structures and attitudes of the physical world, these online spaces can offer degrees of equality and freedom that are elsewhere prohibited. 

We have seized this opportunity to chronicle the worlds dreamed up through this time of discontent; the augmented realities of marginalised creatives. In these rooms of tender tribute, four artists have built unfolding shrines; to people, places, and ideas that have revealed their importance against a backdrop of disruption.

The imagination of the marginalised has always tended toward the ‘radical,’ steered by the palpable need to create something new where the old is unfit for purpose. Where outdated systems have failed, might these radical redesigns proffer alternative futures? 

As you experience these landscapes, allow these augmented realities to seep into your own as the walls around you expand.

About the artworks

Jason and his Argonauts (Jason Wilsher-Mills, 2020)

Reflecting aspects of his personality, memory, illness, and disability, Jason’s gallery and the artworks it houses provide an opportunity to experience his practice in a magical environment. A reaction to the global pandemic that has engulfed the world, Jason and his Argonauts compels us to remember the pure joy of creativity. 

Jason and his Argonauts is an ongoing project designed to place Jason’s collaborators at the heart of his creations. Working so closely and so often with other disabled artists through workshops and events, Jason is committed to honouring their contributions through amusing, colourful, and eccentric references and depictions. You can experience the wider world of this project through the Jason Residential app, which Jason developed alongside Hot Knife of the course of his year as the Adam Reynolds Awardee.

Myrtle Avenue (Willem Helf, 2021)

Myrtle Avenue is the main vein through the neighbourhoods of Bushwick and Ridgewood in New York City. Or at least that’s how it feels to Willem. The perennial din of the M train whirrs, the carriages rushing along the trestle overhead as people below shuffle and push, going where they need to go. At night it is - in equal parts - packed and desolate, sometimes both at once. Otherworldly, maybe. Or, perhaps, extra-worldly. 

Writer Willem Helf transports us to New York City, to a street rich with personal resonance. The expectant and electric dark of an urban night is interrupted by Willem’s animated thoughts. “Time hasn’t existed here for a while,” he muses. And as the vibrations of the city linger, you know this to be true.

Despair, Hope and Healing: Three movements for climate justice (Rebekah Ubuntu, 2019)

Despair, Hope and Healing: Three Movements for Climate Justice is a tribute to global BIPOC communities (Black/Indigenous/People of Colour), who contribute the least but are affected the most by climate collapse, and an amplification of voices from these communities fighting against environmental racism and climate injustice.

Sound artist Rebekah Ubuntu juxtaposes audio samples, field recordings and vocal activism in a composition dedicated to the unique, fragile and imperilled equilibrium of our planet's ecosystem. Conceived in 2017 during a commissioned performance at Tate Britain, this work has continued iterating through subsequent commissions from the Barbican Centre, Wellcome Collection and Tate Modern. The visuals for this work were created in collaboration with Rebekah’s longtime creative partner Jaime Peschiera.

"All people from all walks of life should have the right to breathe clean air." Despair opens with these words from Black American climate activist Cheryl Johnson, who, alongside her mother, has been fighting against environmental pollution since 1985.

In Hope, an Artificially Intelligent being prays to the ancestors for their timeless wisdom and guidance in the face of looming hopelessness.

In Healing, 16-year-old water protector Autumn Peltier addresses world leaders at the 2018 UN General Assembly on the issue of clean water. Autumn is Anishinaabe-kwe and a member of the Wikwemikong First Nation.

Mansions of Mist 1 (Uma Breakdown, 2021)

Mansions of Mist 1 weaves together fragments of various stories about systems and feelings in a broken future, told through pictures and words. It is made from great care and love and looping fear and there is no one way in which its parts can be mashed together.