Everyone is welcome at the Together! 2019 Disability History Month Festival, taking place until 13 December. The Festival is located in the main Paralympic Host Borough of Newham, which in 2012 had the lowest cultural engagement rate in the UK, and is produced by Together! 2012 CIC, a social enterprise set up by locally based Disabled artists to create a lasting cultural Legacy. All events are FREE and no booking is required, but if you would like to reserve seats then please email info@together2012.org.uk All events are ‘relaxed’, have step-free access, amplification and induction loops; most events have British Sign Language interpretation.
Together! 2019 Open Exhibition
2-30 November 2019 (not Sundays)
This annual event brings together work by amateur, community, emerging and mid-career Disabled artists with a local connection. Everyone is entitled to submit one piece of work with guaranteed acceptance so long as it is family friendly, creating a vibrant show where it is impossible to guess the status of the artist. Rotunda Gallery, Beckton Globe, 1 Kingsford Way, London E6 5JQ.
On Illness
Meet the Artist – Friday 29 November 6-8pm. Exhibition view – 19 November – 2 December 2019 (restricted opening hours)
This installation by conceptual artist Alison Marchant interrogates Virginia Woolf’s A Writer’s Diary and reclaims Woolf as a Disabled artist. Marchant spent three years in residency at the Together! Art Club, deleting all content from A Writer’s Diary that did not relate to illness or writing to create an entirely new book. The installation includes the original and new publications, together with larger-than-life prints of the redacted pages. St Bart’s Community Centre, 292b Barking Road, East Ham E6 3BA.
‘Amazonia’ Paracarnival Parade
1 December 2019: 2pm
This summer’s Together! with Paracarnival project in East London won the Best Theme Interpretation award at Hackney Carnival 2019, after winning the Judge’s Choice award in 2018. In 2020 they will be sharing their practice with Carnival organisers nationally as part of a £186,000 project funded by Arts Council England, The Open Road.
Silvertown Way, Canning Town, London E16 1ED.
Pop-up Poetry Club
4 December 2019: 10.30am-12noon
Writer and spoken word artist Penny Pepper shares the secrets of her success via a live feed and leads a special edition of the Pop-Up Poetry Club. The Clubs programme is the Together! Festival’s year-round open-access creative workshop programme for Disabled people, funded by the Lottery Community Fund.
Vicarage Lane Community Centre, Govier Close, E15 4HW.
Artists on Film
5-6 December, 10.30am-4pm
This two-day open-access workshop for filmmakers on creating artists’ films draws on the surrealist humour of the late Katherine Araniello.
St Bart’s Community Centre, 292b Barking Road, East Ham E6 3BA.
Disability Film Festival
6-8 December 2019, 6-8pm on 6 December, 12-8pm on Saturday and Sunday
Together! 2019 Disability Film Festival bringing together films of all genres by Disabled filmmakers and/or featuring a central Disabled character. The Festival has pioneered the ‘D System’, based on the ‘F System’, to highlight the contribution of Disabled actors and filmmakers. The Festival includes Sick Crip Bitch, a celebration of the work of Katherine Araniello on the opening night. Full programme details are at this link.
Old Town Hall, 29 The Broadway, Stratford, London E15 4BQ.
Our Lives, Our History
10 December 2019, 11am-2pm
With Newham Disabled Reps Forum and a hot lunch. Disability History Month highlights the histories of people who historically have been invisible. Each year the Reps Forum invites speakers to share their personal histories, bringing the theme to life.
Vicarage Lane Community Centre, Govier Close, E15 4HW.
Writer and spoken word artist Penny Pepper
13 December 2019, 7-9pm
Penny stops off from her Naked Punk tour to join the traditional end-of-festival party. Plus Open Mic MCd by me, Ju Gosling aka ju90.
St Bart’s Community Centre, 292b Barking Road, East Ham E6 3BA.
Written by Together! Festival’s Artistic Director Dr Ju Gosling
