Join us for this writing workshop led by Char Heather of The Remote Body, in response to Sop's new film, ‘We Year’.
Through creative writing prompts, we will respond to ideas of the permeable or porous nature of inside and outside, relating to physical space, bodies and time. You will be invited to experiment with different forms of writing, using prompts from and relating to Sop's new film We Year, to generate ideas and writing.
The workshop will be in three parts. The first will introduce the workshop with some warm-up exercises, the second will discuss inside/outside in physical spaces and bodies, followed by a writing exercise, and the third will focus on time, particularly crip time, with more writing!
It is recommended that you watch the film before the workshop; however, you can take part in the workshop without having watched We Year yet.
This event is part of the larger We Year Programme, a series of interdisciplinary events and workshops inspired by and responding to the themes of the film We Year by Sop, held by various crip and disabled friends and allies, including RestFest, The Remote Body, as well as Resting Up Collective x Ort Gallery via the Crip Resistance II programme.
Access
This event will include two comfort breaks, autogenerated captions, and live BSL interpretation upon request. You are welcome to take part with cameras on or off, and to communicate through chat, voice or not at all, depending on what is best for you at the time. This programme will be running on Crip Time. As a result, we endeavour to reschedule events should any of our contributors not feel well / experience a change in capacity in the lead up to and / or on the day of the event itself.
Tickets
In order to ensure this programme is accessible to all, we have implemented a three-tiered ticketing system: Pay As You Feel, Standard tickets priced at £5.00 (plus Eventbrite fee), as well as Solidarity Tickets priced at £10 (plus Eventbrite fee). Please note: workshop fee includes film.
If you would like to attend this event but cannot afford to purchase a paid ticket, please get in touch with us directly at info@ortgallery.co.uk
About the facilitator
Char Heather is a writer/researcher interested in narrative cripping, and the founder of 'the remote body'. Their work on crip writing has been published in FUTCH, GROM, and Lassitude, and is forthcoming in ASAP/Journal. They recently edited Out of Sorts: the remote body Anthology of Narrative Cripping, which you can find at www.theremotebody.bigcartel.com.
Other links: theremotebody.com ; instagram.com/theremotebody ; instagram.com/charheatherr ; theremotebody.substack.com
About the film
‘We Year’ portrays a narrowed and claustrophobic view of a hot summer indoors whilst experiencing an ME/CFS relapse. Houseplants die from a lack of care, insomnia thrives, there are battles with medication and stinky t-shirts, and the domineering presence of a wearable overarches all. A 16mm direct animation translation of this wearable’s ‘energy bars’ acts as a running measure of ‘crip-time’; Hi8 footage from the artist's archive of the outdoors sits next to digital footage of their immediate inside-the-house world; and a narrative - at times claustrophobic, ritualistic, or joyfully expansive - meet to describe the knotty, non-linear, chronically ill experience, with the curtailments that they must endure. Meant as a (love) letter to other people with energy limiting conditions, the artist ends with a message of solidarity: that we do not walk this path alone, even if we often are alone.
We Year was commissioned by Shape Arts as part of the 2024 Adam Reynolds Award programme. Shape Arts is a disability-led organisation working to remove barriers to creative excellence for disabled artists and audiences, supported by Arts Council England.
About the filmmaker
Sop (they/them/theirs) is a torn and crooked leaf, a root embedded in the dirt, a shoot reaching to the sky. An artist working in crip time with words, sound and moving image.
They work primarily with nature which they use as a portal to interrogate their own experience of existing in a chronically ill body, and how other disabled and chronically ill bodies interact with and relate to nature and the natural world. Their work tends to centre modes of sociality, beginning with personal narrative, then expanding through dialogue with their crip community to include other bodies’ concerns.
They are currently working towards a book about grief, gender, chronic illness and ghosts, and a moving image work about crip sex and volcanos.
They have shown work at Wellcome Collection, British Museum, ICA, Cubitt, LUX, and Whitechapel Gallery; and their work is included in publications ‘Documents of Contemporary Art: Walking’. Ed. Tom Jeffreys; ‘Botanical Architecture: Plants, Buildings and Us’, by Paul Dobraszczyk and ‘Bodies of Sound’. Eds. Irene Revell and Sarah Shin.
They are anti-clock, pro-informal-networks-of-care; anti-normality/standardisation; pro-interpersonal-dedication.
About the programme
Crip Resistance II: Holding Space, Building Community, is an online programme of events exploring disabled, sick, mad, and crip modes of resistance and remote community care produced by Resting Up Collective in collaboration with Ort Gallery.
This year, the programme's focus on community building is demonstrated by bringing together a wider network of crip collectives and artists. organisations,
The programme’s print publication, documenting and expanding on its themes, will also launch this year.
20% of the event and publication proceeds will support Disabled People Against Cuts.