Pushing Sue Austin

It feels a lifetime ago since our first Push Me shoot  with Sue Austin  in Portland, Dorset – on a chilly sunny April day when we first took a closer look at her Unlimited commission, Creating the Spectacle!

At that time, we discovered that the exclamation mark was not just a flourish or a typo but a purposeful play on taking risks and embarassing yourself in public.

Making a spectacle of oneself is something that we all fear, be that falling over in public or goofing in some way.

Not Sue Austin, who delights in playing with pre-conceived notions of what is appropriate or safe for her to do in her art practice.  When we think of wheelchairs and water, there a sense of improbability and risk?  For us, maybe? For Sue, no.

Up Close

As we work towards our first push into The Space, we’re getting up close and personal with the first 4 of our 12 artists as we put the final touches to their 90 second films and hone into the hot topics that spring up around the work that they are making.

Without doubt all of our artists are taking an inordinate amount of risks as they push towards September and the final set of performances and exhibitions as part of  Unlimited and Festival 2012 on the South Bank which promises to ‘celebrate disability, arts, culture and sport on an unprecedented scale’ Arts Council England.

As Jo and I blog in and around the release of the Push Me films, we’ll be focusing on what each and every artist is trying to convey through the art work and audiences reaction to it.