Nothing About Us Without Us
Artists at Venture Arts have come together to create a banner that reflects the resilience, talent and history of the disabled peoples movement.
This banner was designed by a group of learning disabled textile artists from Venture Arts. We started by looking at traditional banners, artists and textile pieces for inspiration. As we wanted the banner to have a huge impact, we felt it was important to ask other learning disabled people to help in the creation. We sent out over 500 red patches to various art studios for learning disabled people, schools, colleges and day centres across England, Scotland and Wales. We asked that each patch was created by one person and they were to draw and stitch onto it something that represented them. These patches were then sent back to Venture Arts where we joined them all together.
The group have been working with the People’s History Museum for a while and enjoyed visiting the museum. They had learnt about the different colours used throughout the museum and the meanings of each one. They decided they wanted to use red and gold as red represents courage and revolution, and gold represents ambition.
The text that centres the banner is a slogan from the Disabled People’s Movement that still rings true today; that nothing about disabled people should be decided without us. We should have choice and control over our own lives.
