Thread by @Cioconnor

It's been 23 hours since I posted an Instagram story about my trip to
@Tate
. A load of people shared it there, tagging the protagonists, asking for answers. Have heard nowt, and it's about expire. So I'm going to have to dust off my Twitter to #askSOE - and I ask you to, too.

I’m still sort of embarrassed to use the word ‘ableist,’ it feels like a snowflakey neologism that doesn’t belong in my mouth. Despite being a person whose life is fucked up, in big ways and small, every single day because of inaccessibility and shitty attitudes

I don't think I deserve to complain. And generally I don’t - it’s tiring. It takes a lot of energy to dismantle institutional ableism and sick people need that energy to eat, speak, exist.

So perhaps this is because it’s my first day out in London after a holiday in New York where, for the first time in a long time as a person in a wheelchair, I felt welcome. Not ‘allowed,’ or ‘provided for,’ but actually welcomed. It was like coming up for air.

So today, I’m going to complain.

I’ve just come out of The Tate Modern, to see Olafur Eliasson’s exhibition, ‘In Real Life’. It’s a series of mostly interactive installations that play with light, mirrors, mist, fire, water. A couple of pieces were too high for me to play with, but whatever - that’s unavoidable.

At the end, there's a whole room dedicated to a mirrored tunnel: you’re meant to walk through it. It had two steps up to it. In the grand scheme of supremely inaccessible London, it barely registered.

But Alice is new to the crip-life, so she asked the attendant if there was a ramp available (foldaway ramps are cheap and easily available online - it wasn’t a crazy question).

He was immediately cross and weirdly defensive: ‘No,’ he said, as if talking to a naughty & particularly stupid toddler, ‘It’s the curator’s choice. There could be a ramp, but the curator chose this. It’s not up to me.’ And then: ‘You can go around the side.’ Etc etc

It ended with Alice backing away with her hands up saying, ‘I was only asking.’ As I listened, I read some of the excerpts on another installation - a huge wall of pinned writings - a yellow card said, ‘I AM CONSCIOUS OF THE WORLD BY MEANS OF MY BODY’.

A highlighted section, from an article by the artist: "Early on, I started working with the dematerialization of art. I was hoping to see whether dematerialization would offer more agency to the person looking at or engaging in art." #AskSOE

Another:"this idea:‘Do I actually acknowledge that,with sensing the world, comes a degree of responsibility?Do I in the way I see the world also co-produce it or produce it or share the narrative or perhaps even have the role of authorship?'That I think is incredibly interesting"

I think it’s incredibly interesting too. And if we accept that, then what does that mean for an intentionally rampless artwork? What is that ‘author’s’ deliberate choice? What narrative does that contribute to? What world does that produce, or ~co-produce~? #AskSOE

As I say, I’ve dealt with much worse, daily. And when I took up an entire row of the comment cards board to tell them what I thought, a few people rolled their eyes and shook their heads and said,‘for god’s sake’. Alice was practically apoplectic, but it didn’t surprise me at all

I hear it all the time: when I ‘get to’ board the plane first, when I pay less to go to the theatre, when I (sometimes, sometimes) get called to the top of a queue. I know the ~narrative~. It’s shut up and be grateful for what you get. It’s go around the side

The artist mused on the introduction of perspective in art history, it “introduced a whole new system and they, in a sense, lose their previous way of seeing. They became blind, you could say.” #AskSOE

You could say. Earlier, as I waited at the top of the stairs outside Ealing Broadway station with my wheelchair, waiting for Alice to get help for me, I counted 10 big able-bodied dudes in gym gear bounding up and down the steps. They literally didn’t see me. They didn’t see me.

The man who stopped and helped me, who carried my wheelchair down the stairs, was deaf. He saw me. The introduction of perspective changes what you see. And I see disabled people everywhere. I know about the thousands that I don’t see, because they can’t get out of their homes.

I would like to invite the curator and the attendant and the people who shook their heads to see us too.

I paid money today for an art exhibition which talked the talk about interactivity, bodies, responsibility, agency.

Another Olafur musing: "in a museum, we all move as if we don’t have a body - or at least we don’t refer to bodily movement as a co-producing element when we’re looking at art...

...And we also, maybe, underestimate the fact that the museum is, to a large extent, a controlling institution that prevents us from even considering, let alone reconsidering, movement."

And you know what? Fuck that. Fuck your over-intellectualising and big talk that obscures the fact that you only produce, curate, exhibit art for certain bodies. Fuck you for assuming that everyone who likes art and museums gets to ‘move as if they don’t have a body’.

I never get to lose myself in a picture, or wander in a reverie - I am always, ALWAYS aware of my body, how it’s blocking people, how it’s taking up space, how it’s inconvenient and cumbersome.

Most of what I say at in museums or galleries is this: ooh, sorry! Sorry. Excuse me, sorry! Thanks, sorry, could I just-? I’m behind you! Careful! Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I’m constantly apologising for existing in those spaces, saying sorry for my body.

AND I’M DONE. CONSIDER THIS POST ACCOUNTABILITY: I’M NOT SAYING SORRY ANYMORE. I’M ASKING FOR BETTER.

‘You can go around it’

Fuck you, buddy. That’s the story of my life, and of every disabled person’s life. Going around things. Looking from the outside. Watching other people enjoy life, art, transport, whatever, the way that it’s ‘supposed’ to be enjoyed

- and getting told we’re lucky to be able to watch, to go around the outside.

I’m fucking sick of it. I don’t want to go around the outside

I want a fucking ramp. I want elevators. I want wide doorways. I want accessible toilets that aren’t storage cupboards. I want to get on a train, and go to a place all by myself. I don’t want to ask permission. I don’t want to be grateful for every reasonable adjustment.

I don’t want to feel guilty for making people feel bad for not having the very basic stuff of accessibility. I don’t want to go around the outside.

And while I’m at it, I want closed captioning, and induction loops, and temperature control. I want proper labelling and transcripts and provisions for service dogs. I want internet accessibility. I want relaxed performances.

I want abled peopled to stop being defensive and pissy when we ask for the bare minimum. I want them to stop rolling their eyes. I want my friends (and my enemies x) to listen and learn and be allies.

Accessibility is not ugly, or cluttered, or distracting. Accessibility belongs in art, and everywhere. Fuck. You. Buddy.

Use the hashtag #AskSOE to ask @Tate whether it's true that not having a ramp was a choice. Be an ally. Ask them if they're going to do better.

I'm only able to have these problems because 1) I can afford a wheelchair, 2) i have people who will take me places when I'm able. 

I know this is a huge privilege. the above is the least of disabled people's problems in the UK today.