Resilience

Isabela Vasques

“It is cultural and historical, and if it is cultural and historical, it can be changed. And if it can be changed, it’s not unethical to put the possibility of change on the table.” (Horton and Freire, 1990)

Resilience celebrates a tailored holistic approach to work with marginalised groups sustained by inclusive arts practitioners and questions the constraints of a political and economic system that undervalues this way of working.

The installation reflects experiences emerging from my art-based research at Downs View Life Skills College, where I used printmaking processes to investigate collective and individual identities, exploring how art practices can support the process of self-development among adults with learning difficulties, increase their agency and embrace their uniqueness.

The artwork is interactive and plays with the idea that flexibility and rigidity are entangled in self-development processes. It presents two spaces:

Inside the semi-circle, a sculpture of lattices, a 3D-printed engineering structure, lays on a table of an exam chair and projects a shadow on the wall. Besides the shadow, a printed poster, ‘The Monster Academy,’ imposes a dominant figure, an ironic image of a shadow from a professional printing press—When the sculpture’s shadow dances, a dialogue occurs with the still image.

On the back, stickers are displayed, celebrating and questioning the importance of the practice of inclusive arts.