‘Our disabilities aren’t the most interesting things about us – we’re just like everyone else’

Kristina Veasey was 21 years old when the Department of Work and Pensions gave her some simple advice: sign up for benefits.

This was the mid-1990s, Kristina, now 52, tells Metro, when disability protections and wheelchair access were next to non-existent.

She has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS), a group of inherited disorders that affect the tissues that hold us together, such as the skin and muscles.

‘I continued to create art for my own sanity and pleasure and got involved in wheelchair sports,’ Kristina, then a recent university graduate, recalls.

Within a few years, Kristina represented ParalympicsGB in wheelchair basketball at both the Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004 Games.

But Kristina’s EDS took a toll, as did her other conditions, including POTS, which makes the heart rate soar after even the mildest activities.

Struggling to work, her friends had an idea. Why not make art her new career?

‘When the World Turns’ is an immersive, sensory art exhibition at Liberty Festival (Picture: ROSWITHA CHESHER)

Now Kristina is headlining Liberty Festival, a disability arts and culture programme at the Battersea Arts Centre in south west London, running until Sunday.

With Brazilian artist Alejandro Ahmed, she’ll perform Capturing the Forest, an installation for people who can’t access nature – herself included.

‘I don’t think people really understand what it’s like to live with constant pain and a dysfunctional nervous system,’ Kristina says. ‘It’s a constant battle juggling multiple symptoms of a failing body and it’s exhausting.

‘Simple things like washing my hair or responding to emails can leave me nauseous, dizzy or with severe neck pain.’

More than 16.1 million people in the UK have a disability, amounting to roughly one quarter of working-age adults and 45% of pensioners.

Yet three out of four disabled people have experienced ableism in the last five years, a survey by the charity Scope found. Some people accuse them of faking their conditions or make judgments about what they’re capable of.

Vicki Hawkins knows what it’s like to be judged. She is a neurodiverse dancer and choreographer at the BLINK Theatre Company, a charity in Nine Elms.

With her troupe, she’ll be performing in the semi-improvised Elvis Died of Burgers today. It’s a performance, Vicki stresses, that has nothing to do with the fact that she is disabled.

‘One of the hardest things that we find is that as a collective, we don’t find our disabilities the most interesting things about us; they’re just a component of our personalities, like having brown hair or liking football,’ she tells Metro.

‘We have been told by venues when we’ve been pitching our shows that they would have booked us, but there’s already another company “like us” booked in for that year.’

‘What they mean is that another person, or another company, who happens to have someone who is disabled in their cast.’

BLINK Dance are performing ‘Elvis Died of Burgers’ (Picture: Liberty Disability Festival)

Disabled performers and theatre-goers have long feared being forgotten by venues, with not all having wheelchair access, changing rooms, audio description, online streams or ‘relaxed’ performances where audiences can make noise.

Aggie Dolan, inclusion manager at the Battersea Arts Centre, tells Metro that there are many reasons for this.

‘Throughout most of history, disability has been seen as something “wrong” with the individual; the disabled person needs to change to fit in with society,’ she says.

‘Therefore, our processes, buildings, companies, and institutions have all been built without disabled people in mind. Arts spaces are no different.’

Ellie Griffiths, who isn’t disabled, is the artistic director of Oily Cart, which creates ‘sensory theatre’ for youngsters with disabilities.

One reason Oily Cart focuses on art for disabled babies and children is so they’re more inclined to embrace theatre as they grow older.

‘Capturing the Forest’ is for people who struggle to access nature (Picture: Liberty Disability Festival

‘If you feel shut out of theatre because you feel you’re not clever enough, or because you don’t understand the language it’s performed in, you’re not gonna wanna spend your hard-earned money and go back,’ Ellie says, ahead of Oily Cart’s show today.

‘But we’re working towards a future where every show is made with consideration of people who have the most barriers to access first in the creative process.

‘Then, we can start to move together towards a theatre that is more responsive and flexible, and ultimately works for many more people.’

Jamie Hale would be inclined to say the same, given it’s one of the reasons Liberty Festival exists.

They’re the artistic director of CRIPTIC ARTS, which programmes work by deaf and disabled people and is producing Liberty.

‘Audiences shouldn’t feel afraid to attend work by disabled people or feel it won’t speak to them, because this work is out there, and it’s exceptional,’ they say.

Jamie Hale told Metro that art by disabled people isn’t just for disabled people (Picture: Liberty Disability Festival)

‘Have the courage to go and remember that disabled people are just people making art. There’s exceptional stuff out there that isn’t going to be seen unless audiences come and see it.’

One reason non-disabled people should book tickets, Jamie adds, is that it shows they ‘care’ about disabled people at a time when benefit cuts are putting them at risk.

The government still intends to slash certain welfare payments, including ones relied upon by disabled people. Instead of the cuts coming into force this year, they have been pushed to next year for future applicants.

Without these cheques, campaigners told Metro that 150,000 people, mainly sick and disabled people, would be pushed into poverty in 2026.

The government faced backlash for its plans to tear up some people’s welfare cheques (Picture: SOPA Images/LightRocket?)

But some of these cuts are already happening. Access to Work – a grant to help support disabled people in the workplace, which Kristina relies on – was recently slashed.

‘I feel like I’ve been thrown back to the 90s when I left uni and there was no access and the DWP said all I could do was sign on sick,’ Kristina says.

Still, she remains optimistic. The future of disability art in the UK is a bright one, she says, though challenges will remain unless allies speak out.

‘Maybe I’ll make a new artwork about it,’ Kristina adds, ‘but unless I get my Access to Work fully reinstated, I doubt you’ll ever get to see it.’

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