Zoe Partington is an artist in her own right and created light sculptures featuring slogans which have relevance to disability activism and issues disabled people experience. The work conveys stories, messages and insights into disabled people’s struggles in a world in where society still excludes us from the mainstream. Disabled people still exist ‘on the edges’ and have to fight for equity. These neon signs convey a snapshot of disability history in a simple format with a powerful message.
Look out for these signs, which will be appearing in venues across the city region, including:
Credit: Disabled People’s movement, Barbara Lisicki, Johnny Crescendo and Tony Heaton
Access: This exhibition can be viewed in person at the venues taking part and will be available to view online (with ALT Text descriptions and supporting audio information). Further access and venue info will be linked here soon.
Booking info: This exhibition will be free to access. Pop to each of the venues listed during opening hours to experience them all or visit our online gallery which will be available during the festival.
About Painting in Light
Zoe’s work is rooted in the transformative time of the British disability movement in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when tens of thousands of disabled people and allies campaigned for civil rights. The neon slogans are direct references to the campaign, and their vivid illumination reflects both the shock and joy of a people breaking out of charitable victimhood and passivity. Bright and defiant, they are a reminder of the importance of remembering the slogans and phrases that have cohered disabled people.
Zoe is a Disabled Artists who has spent 30 years campaigning for disability rights after meeting Barbara Lisicki and working alongside her from the late 90’s. This exhibition is a joint dialogue between 2 disabled artists and professionals who have a lifetime of experience of living in a non-disabled world. Zoe has a chronic condition and is partially blind. She has a wicked sense of humour and is quite diverse in her approach to disabilty arts. She mentors and trains cultural organisations and mentors disabled artists.
This exhibition celebrates the achievements and diversity of disability arts while acknowledging the hard-won battles that have started changes in the inclusive arts sector of today.
Disability Arts creates work that counteracts misunderstandings, misconceptions, stereotypes and negative narratives surrounding the lives of disabled people. Its strength is that it is created by disabled and Deaf people, artists and creatives.
“Disabled people have forged a group identity. We share a common history of oppression and a common bond of resilience. We generate art, music, literature, and other expressions of our lives and our culture, infused from our experience of disability. Most importantly, we are proud of ourselves as people with disabilities. We claim our disabilities with pride as part of our identity. We are who we are: we are people with disabilities.”
-Steve Brown.
About Zoe Partington
Curating a life less ordinary,using creative & contemporary techniques to challenge the distressed edge of life. Zoe shares a passion for equality, particularly in the creative industries and understands the importance of establishing a clear framework, with a twist of creativity. A very experienced leader and consultant in her specialist field of cultural inclusion and accessible approaches.
A contemporary visual artist who uses her experience of being partially blind and living with a chronic condition for over 50 years to create a unique perspective, with a historical and contemporary research led practice in her art. She develops installations, and viscerally powerfulaudio visual and tactile representations of Disabled people’s journeys and experiences through life, landscapes and built environments.Zoe has won several awards and scholarships. She showed ‘Domestic Landscapes’ 2022 in Madrid and across the UK funded by ONCE in Spain and Arts Council England. ‘Decoding Difference’ was shown at the London Festival of Design Biennial in June 2023 at Somerset House with international artists supported by Kings College. Recently she has been awarded the Henry Moore research fellowship 2023.
An International conceptual artist specialising in Disability Art practice through 3-D dimensional and installation artworks. She is experienced at working with Curators and gallery teams.
‘Painting with Light’is a series of neon lights using disability rights slogans and Zoe’s own insights to her own language around dispelling stereotypes. @tightcontrol was a reaction to a meeting in an NHS setting between Zoe and medical professionals who were frustrating her with their oppressive us of medical terms. In relation, the term @tightcontrol is used to reiterate the complexity of Zoe’s glucose levels and how disabled people are controlled by others. It is twofold in its irony and jest with how disabled people are controlled by others.
@tightcontrol | zoe.partington@gmail.com | zoepartington.co.uk
About DDFI40:
DaDaFest International returns 8th-31st March 2025 to celebrate DaDa's 40th Anniversary and this time we are coming with ‘RAGE: A Quiet Riot’.
DDFI40 will showcase work by disabled artists that captures all shapes and sides of rage. From the internal quiet frustrations and righteous rage, to overt injustice and activism, DDFI40 will explore disability rights, disability arts, access, ableism and ‘Rage’ in an explosion of creativity.