Sue Austin

Last updated

Sue Austin
Sue Austin at TedX Monterrey (crop).jpg
Sue Austin via video at TEDx Monterey, 2013
Born
Susan Felicity Austin

(1965-09-07) 7 September 1965 (age 58)
Birmingham, England
NationalityBritish
Education Plymouth University, Swansea University
Known forContemporary Art
Notable work"Creating the Spectacle!" (2012), "Freewheeling, Present and Absent" (2009), "360 Degrees – A New Angle on Access" (2015)
Movement Disability art

Susan Felicity Austin (born 7 September 1965) is a British disabled artist working in multimedia, performance and installation. [1] Austin is best known for her work "Creating the Spectacle!" in which she uses a specially modified wheelchair to move underwater, using scuba diving equipment; it was performed as part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad. [2] Austin's underwater wheelchair has been seen by more than 150 million people worldwide. [3] Austin lives in Devon, south west England. [4]

Contents

Early life and education

Austin studied BSc Hons. Psychology at the University College of Swansea, University of Wales, completing her degree in 1987. [5] She later studied for a BA in Fine Art at the University of Plymouth, before going on to complete a Fine Art MA from the same institution in 2014. [5] [6]

In 1996, she began using a wheelchair after an extended illness limited her mobility. [7] She trained as a disabled diver in 2005, and has certifications from the Professional Association of Diving Instructors. [5] [7]

Artistic career

Austin has said her artistic practice considers "the effects of a 'medical' model of disability when compared with writings on the Social Model". [6] The photographer Norman Lomax, who captured images of Austin in Sharm el-Sheikh in the Red Sea, told The Independent : "As a photographer, the best stories are of ordinary people doing extraordinary things – that's what I saw here." [8] He added: "It looked like an extraordinary underwater ballet. It also broke down a deeply engrained perception that I had of disability that I think a lot of us share." [8] Channel 4 News' Culture Editor, Matthew Cain said of Austin's "Creating the Spectacle!": "Despite its title, this piece of work isn't just about creating a spectacle, it's also about changing perceptions and challenging us to think of the NHS wheelchair not as a symbol of limitation but as a tool for release and freedom." [9] Cain called her work "graceful, balletic, and utterly beautiful." [10]

In 2013 Austin told the BBC's South Today: "I started wanting to make work around my wheelchair, but what I found was that everyone always interpreted it as if I was trying to say something negative about limitation fear. But for me it's always been about freedom, it's transformed my life." [11] Austin has a patent covering her underwater wheelchair which was granted on 21 August 2013. [12]

Exhibitions

Exhibitions of Austin's work have been featured at Faith House at Holton Lee, University of Plymouth, Empire Gallery, London, Tate Modern, London and through on the BBC Big Screens and site-specific work in Plymouth City Centre. [4] Her "Creating the Spectacle" 360 Degrees immersive video is viewed inside a tented structure so that viewers can be immersed in and surrounded by the images. [10]

Talks and presentations

In December 2012 Austin was filmed for TED's TEDxWomen conference delivering a talk entitled 'Deep sea diving ... in a wheelchair', which as of March 2016 has had more than 1.8 million views. [13] Also in 2012, Austin was commissioned by the 2012 Olympics to create a multimedia presentation as part of the Cultural Olympiad. [14] In December 2013 she was invited to speak at NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, on the Houston Safety & Mission Assurance Technical Speaker Forum. [15] Austin was invited in her role as a speaker on the importance of diversity. [15] The talk was not open to the public but was broadcast online by NASA. [15] Austin delivered a talk on her underwater wheelchair work for the annual TedMed conference 2013. [16]

List of major works

Related Research Articles

Tanya Streeter is a British-Caymanian-American world champion freediver, inducted into the Women Divers Hall of Fame in March 2000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tom Daley</span> British Olympic diver

Thomas Robert Daley is a British diver and television personality. Specialising in multiple events, he is an Olympic gold medallist in the men's synchronised 10-metre platform event at the 2020 Olympics and double world champion in the FINA 10-metre platform event, winning in 2009 at the age of fifteen, and again in 2017. He is an Olympic bronze medallist in the 2012 platform event, the 2016 synchronised event, and the 2020 platform event, making him the first British diver to win four Olympic medals. Daley also competes in team events, winning the inaugural mixed team World title in 2015. He is a one-time Olympic champion, 3-time World Champion, a 2-time junior World Champion, a 5-time European champion and 4-time Commonwealth champion.

Monty Halls is a British TV broadcaster and marine biologist best known for his BBC Great Escape series Monty Halls' Great Escape, Monty Halls' Great Hebridean Escape and Monty Halls' Great Irish Escape, during which he lived and worked in remote parts of the UK and Ireland with his dog Reuben. Halls' other TV programmes include WWII's Great Escapes, Great Barrier Reef and Lost Worlds with Leo Houlding for Discovery Channel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tatyana McFadden</span> American Paralympic athlete (born 1989)

Tatyana McFadden is an American Paralympic athlete of Russian descent competing in the category T54. McFadden has won twenty Paralympic medals in multiple Summer Paralympic Games.

The depiction of disability in the media plays a major role in molding the public perception of disability. Perceptions portrayed in the media directly influence the way people with disabilities are treated in current society. "[Media platforms] have been cited as a key site for the reinforcement of negative images and ideas in regard to people with disabilities."

The physically integrated dance movement is part of the disability culture movement, which recognizes and celebrates the first-person experience of disability, not as a medical model construct but as a social phenomenon, through artistic, literary, and other creative means.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Liesl Tesch</span> Australian athlete and politician

Liesl Dorothy Tesch AM is an Australian wheelchair basketball player, sailor, and politician. She is a Labor Party member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly, representing Gosford since the 2017 Gosford state by-election.

The 2012 Cultural Olympiad was a programme of cultural events across the United Kingdom that accompanied the 2012 Summer Olympics and 2012 Summer Paralympics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sophie Morgan</span> English television presenter

Sophie Morgan is a British television presenter and disability advocate who is paraplegic. She became a presenter after appearing on reality television. In 2021, she was a lead presenter for Channel 4's TV coverage of the Summer Paralympics in Tokyo. She has been voted one of the most influential disabled people in the UK, and has been working on television for almost twenty years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jill Heinerth</span> Canadian diver, writer and underwater filmmaker

Jill Heinerth is a Canadian cave diver, underwater explorer, writer, photographer and film-maker. She has made TV series for PBS, National Geographic Channel and the BBC, consulted on movies for directors including James Cameron, written several books and produced documentaries including We Are Water and Ben's Vortex, about the disappearance of Ben McDaniel.

Nikki Fox is an English broadcaster, presenter and documentary maker. She is a Sony Award-winning journalist who presents for television and network radio. Fox appeared on various TV and Radio shows including Watchdog, The One Show, How to Look Good Naked, and Rip-Off Britain. She is one of the first female disabled TV presenters in the world and has been voted one of the most influential disabled people in the UK.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ghana at the 2016 Summer Paralympics</span> Sporting event delegation

Ghana competed at the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 7 to 18 September 2016.

Rachel Gadsden is a UK-based visual artist and performance artist who is exhibited internationally and who works across the mainstream and disability art sectors. Gadsden has led a range of national and international participative programmes exploring themes of fragility and resilience. She has had a lung condition all her life and is injected by a syringe driver at one-minute intervals with the medication she needs to keep her alive.

Anthony James Heaton OBE is a British sculptor, disability rights activist and arts administrator, who was appointed an OBE in 2013 for services to the arts and the disability arts movement. He was CEO of the arts charity Shape until March 2017. In 2012, he won the competition to produce an installation celebrating Channel 4's involvement in the London 2012 Paralympic Games. This produced his 'Monument for the Unintended Performer'.

Unlimited is a commissioning programme that celebrates the work of deaf and disabled artists, originally conceived for by Arts Council England for the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad. Since its inception, the programme represents a multi-million pound investment which to date has commissioned more than 70 pieces of work across theatre, dance, visual art, music, literature, film, poetry and performance art. Several Unlimited-commissioned pieces have gone on to have a global reach, such as Sue Austin's Creating the Spectacle, which has reportedly been seen by more than 150 million people worldwide. Others have won critical and industry acclaim within their field, such as Touretteshero's Backstage in Biscuit Land, which earned the company the 2014 Total Theatre Award for Best Emerging Company. Unlimited is currently delivered in partnership between Shape Arts and Artsadmin with senior producer Jo Verrent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alice Sheppard</span>

Alice Sheppard is a disabled choreographer and dancer from Britain. Sheppard started her career first as a professor, teaching English and Comparative Literature. After attending a conference on disability studies, she saw Homer Avila performed and was inspired. She became a member of the AXIS Dance Company and toured with them. She also founded her own dance company, Kinetic Light, which is an artistic coalition created in collaboration with other disabled dancers Laurel Lawson, Jerron Herman and Michael Maag, who also does lighting and is a video artist. A lot of Alice's work revolves intersectionality.

Nawaal Akram is a comedian, model, athlete and disability rights campaigner. She was diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy at the age of six, and was forcefully removed from education against her wishes at the age of 10 by the school; she became a wheelchair user at the age of 12. She has since founded Muscular Dystrophy Qatar to raise awareness of the condition, and was named one of BBC's 100 Women programme in 2017.

Madhavi Latha is a para-athletics sportswoman who champions the cause of sports for persons with disabilities. She won three gold medals at the National Paralympic Swimming Championships and is also the founder of the Wheelchair Basketball Federation of India (WBI), India's national wheelchair basketball body. In 2011, she founded the Paralympic Swimming Association of Tamil Nadu, a non-governmental organization (NGO) which focuses primarily on inclusion in sports and the promotion of sports for people with disabilities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barbara Lisicki</span> British disability rights activist, comedian, and equality trainer

Barbara Lisicki is a British disability rights activist, comedian, and equality trainer. She is a founder of the Disabled People's Direct Action Network (DAN), an organization that engaged in nonviolent civil disobedience to raise awareness and to advocate for the rights of disabled people. She is a featured subject of the 2022 BBC docudrama Then Barbara Met Alan, and appeared in The Disabled Century on BBC2 in 1999.

References

  1. ↑ "About Sue Austin". We Are Freewheeling. Archived from the original on 24 July 2018. Retrieved 3 December 2015.
  2. ↑ Kleinman, Zoe (27 August 2012). "Underwater wheelchair put to test ahead of Paralympics". BBC News. Retrieved 3 December 2015.
  3. ↑ Sharratt, Chris. "Digital R&D Fund #5: An underwater wheelchair with ambitions to fly". a-n News. Retrieved 8 December 2015.
  4. 1 2 "Biographical information: Sue Austin | Push Me". www.pushmeplease.co.uk. Retrieved 3 March 2016.
  5. 1 2 3 "More about Sue". We Are Freewheeling. Retrieved 3 December 2015.
  6. 1 2 Austin, Sue (Spring 2008). "Reflections on an Open Exhibition". Holton Lee News (26): 8.
  7. 1 2 Austin, Sue (21 June 2013). "Wheelchair ballet underwater: it's more like flying than diving". The Guardian. Retrieved 8 December 2015.
  8. 1 2 Jacques, Adam (20 July 2012). "Portfolio: Norman Lomax" . The Independent. Archived from the original on 25 May 2022. Retrieved 8 December 2015.
  9. ↑ "C4 News: Wheelchair artist underwater". Channel 4. August 2012 – via Youtube.
  10. 1 2 "Sue Austin". Disability Arts International. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
  11. ↑ BBC South Today (April 2013). "South Today interview Sue Austin". News report. BBC – via Youtube.
  12. ↑ "GB2494309 – Wheelchair system". Intellectual Property Office. UK Government. Retrieved 3 March 2016.
  13. ↑ Austin, Sue (8 January 2013). "Deep sea diving ... in a wheelchair". www.ted.com. Retrieved 3 March 2016.
  14. ↑ "A Specially Adapted Underwater Wheelchair Brings Artist Sue Austin Beneath the Earth's Surface". Colossal. 16 November 2018. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
  15. 1 2 3 "Johnson Space Center wants to know more about underwater wheelchair". Houston Chronicle. 3 December 2013. Retrieved 3 March 2016.
  16. ↑ "When is a wheelchair an ultra-light submarine?". TEDMED. Retrieved 3 March 2016.
  17. ↑ "Projects". We Are Freewheeling. Freewheeling. Retrieved 3 March 2016.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.