‘The term ‘crip’ works for people who can self-identify. But what happens to activism when people can’t advocate for themselves? Conversations need to happen in another way.’
Kate Adams (Project Art Works) in conversation with Carlota Mir, 7/11/22.
‘But while something is clearly rotten in the state of Denmark, it’s far from an exception in Western politics. What’s happening in this former bastion of liberalism is the normalising of white hostility to immigration. Denmark is building on Australian and Israeli tactics to form a new strategy: to disappear the refugee from society.’
Nicholas Mirzoeff, ‘Social Death in Denmark’, The Nation, 20 January 2019
‘Our communities have historically been invisible as a result of deliberate policies’.
Tim Corrigan, ‘Navigating Systems of Care and Control’, preparation zoom conversation, 23/11/21.
‘For both organisations, art is a tool - a means of access to public life. Art is at the service of people, and objects/traces/artefacts, if they happen, are at the service of process. We both work with making people, systems and choices visible in public through expanded artistic practice - which gives people a sense of agency. In our communities, it is necessary to learn how to navigate the public sphere, which has been denied. Our practice aims to restore a sense of agency and grant access to the public sphere’.
Carlota Mir, ‘Notes on Navigating Systems of Care and Control’ (n.p.)
‘Our work as activists in the health and social care system is linked to rights and representation – people who have complex support needs remain invisible in culture if they lack the necessary support they need to safely live, travel or exist in the world’.
Martin Swan (Project Art Works), essay notes to A. K. P.
‘[Audiences] have this thing on the wall that looks like a work of art, and it may well be a work of art - it depends how you feel about it. But it is this recognizable object, and then there is a greater, much more sensitive and deeper insight into the origination of that object on the wall. And sometimes [a neurodivergent artist’s presence] can both inspire audiences, or it can actually disturb them interestingly, because it plays with ideas of value - fundamental cultural and human value. It's one of the reasons why… [Carl shouting in the background] I think that's what Carl wants to say on that issue! - It is one of the reasons why it's so important to have people in public exhibition spaces. [...] This also causes, very often, complex responses in people, because there's still an idea that if someone doesn't use language to communicate, then they don't have agency. And i think that's true: it's not just a sort of Western concept, I think it's true all over the world that if people don't use the learnt modes of social interaction and communication, then they are threatening to a civic understanding of what it is to be human, and to be able to contribute’.
Kate Adams (Project Art Works), ‘‘Navigating Systems of Care and Control: A Conversation between Trampoline House and Project Art Works’.
‘The presence (or rather, absence) of our community in the public sphere is something we have. But also, the premise that people need to change in order to enter society. In this sense, what Trampoline House does is break down the logics of these systems of institutionalisation, because we believe that the way ‘social inclusion’ is currently designed is very problematic. There is no ‘one size fits all’, everyone is different, and there is no such thing as a ‘homogenous group’ of refugees’.
Morten Goll (Trampoline House), Where is the Art? Research Group. Zoom conversation. 23/11/21.
My name is Muhannad, I’m from Syria, I’ve been living in Denmark for almost three years now and I've been involved in Trampoline House since… fairly close to the time I arrived. I spent just a couple of months in Denmark before I was told about this place and I’ve been a part of the community since 2019. I’m a filmmaker [...] and I've been invited to be a part of the documentary group for documenta.[…]I’m also responsible for a comedy workshop that we call ‘political incorrectness’, and it stands on the ground of trying to analyse and critique all the circumstances and all the conditions that we go through as refugees and as immigrants in the West, but in a in a comical way where there are no filters. This concept is based on a segment of Arabic literature where, when we write comedy, we say ‘we want to tell the story without makeup’. That's where political incorrectness comes from: it’s about telling everything without filters and just being brutally honest and sarcastic about it.
Muhannad Al-Ulaby (Trampoline House), ‘Navigating Systems of Care and Control: A Conversation between Trampoline House and Project Art Works’.