About us

What we are doing

We are working with disabled people living in a wide range of different circumstances to find out about peoples aspirations, priorities, and anything that stands in the way of achieving them. People work with public artist Andrew Bolton to turn their messages into public art which is then installed in a prominent site local to the participants. The research is co-ordinated by Rebecca Yeo of UKDPC.

We are working in:

In Frome we focussed on working with people with learning difficulties. In Norwich we worked with ex-servicemen, parents, and Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) groups. In Bristol we worked with asylum seekers and refugees. In London we worked with a group of disabled tenants of the Gateway Housing Association.

We then hold an official opening event for each piece of artwork to which we invite anyone that participants would like to understand their messages, including local people, service providers, politicians, friends and family.

Why we are doing it

The artwork is intended to be attractive, catching the attention of passers-by, and to act as a form of billboard promoting participants' main messages. We aim for the research to make a difference, not to be purely for the sake of knowledge.

Who we are working with

This project is run by UK Disabled Peoples Council (UKDPC) with funding from the Big Lottery. The work is supervised by Bill Albert and Mark Harrison working in partnership with the University of East Anglia to ensure consistent high quality research.

Many thanks to the stakeholder group for their ideas, advice and comments. The group includes David Dick, John Evans, Rhetta Moran, Maggie O'Neill, Michael Turner and Catherine Underwood.