US & THEM
“One hundred years ago, that would have been us…”
Looking is complicated. Looking is political. Looking can be uncomfortable. Yet that is exactly what the Freewheelers Theatre and Media Company invite you to do through our provocative new project, Us & Them.
Funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, Freewheelers have collaborated with Surrey History Centre, Professor Alana Harris of King’s College London, and photographic artist Emma Brown to create a collection of nearly 100 tintype portraits. Modern day Freewheelers portraits are displayed alongside historical asylum patients to ask: what has changed in the understanding and support of people with mental health challenges and physical and learning disabilities over the last 150 years? What has stayed the same? What has been brought to light? What remains obscured?
Us & Them collides the past and present in an immersive, co-produced heritage and photography exhibition that explores these questions through image-making, and acts of looking.
One hundred and fifty years ago, photography was still in its infancy, yet it played a central role in the diagnosis and categorisation of people who would now be described as having learning disabilities or mental illness. Those same photography techniques used to capture the earliest photographs of people with disabilities have been brought into the modern day for fifty Freewheelers artists. Through the practice of making the image, our Freewheelers have been able to gain fascinating insights into the experience of those from the past.
With the expert assistance of Julian Pooley, archivist and manager of the Surrey History Centre who first rescued the original patient portraits, each Freewheeler selected a “friend” in the archives at Surrey History Centre whose portrait will be displayed alongside their own. The centre is home to one of the largest and oldest collections of diagnostic photographs and medical treatment records relating to people with learning disabilities. Many of these records document patients of the Epsom Cluster of asylums, residents of institutions local to the Freewheelers.
Although historical medical terminology such as “idiot”, “hysteric”, and “imbecile” has been replaced by “learning disabled”, and institutionalisation has given way to person-centred care, Us & Them asks us to consider the short expanse of time that separates the use of terms like ‘imbecile’ from ‘person with learning disabilities’. By composing their own portraits, today’s Freewheelers give voice and visibility to their silent “friends in the archive”, bringing into focus the humanity often erased by the diagnostic gaze.
There is a person behind the picture, and it takes Us to find Them.
Us & Them is a collaboratively produced project engaging partners beyond the Freewheelers Theatre Company.
We would like to thank:
Emma Brown, Wet Plate Collodion Photographer,
Professor Alana Harris, Historical Consultant,
Julian Pooley, Archivist and Manager of Surrey History Centre,
Stefan Pollak, Documentary Filmmaker,
Laura Khan Mitchison, Oral Historian, Film Producer, and Exhibition Consultant,
Dr Elena Marchevska, Evaluator
Gary S. Thomas, Media Tutor,
Dr Josh Sadler, Curator
SPORTS ENGLAND
Freewheelers Theatre & Media Company wins National Lottery funding
Freewheelers is celebrating after being awarded £9,703 of National Lottery funding from Sport England to support “Freewheelers Gets Moving”
The grant will allow Freewheelers to design a bespoke 15-minute fitness programme for our members which will be integrated into 11 weekly creative workshops at the beginning of each session.
These will run for forty weeks, across our standard 42-week workshop delivery and be based on the IRIS programme developed by Stopgap Dance Company.
For over thirty years Freewheelers has been a force for change and artistic excellence in the world of Disability Arts. With locations across Surrey, we make theatre, dance, film, music and visual art that challenges perceptions and defies expectations. Freewheelers is a home from home for many of our members (some of whom have been with us for almost three decades!
A day with the Freewheelers is a chance to meet friends, chat, laugh, have fun and be yourself! #WEAREFREEWHEELERS
“We are extremely excited have secured this investment which means we can introduce “Freewheelers Gets Moving” across all our workshops, making fitness accessible to everyone. "Thank you to everyone who plays the National Lottery, we wouldn’t be able to do this without you."
Notes to Editors
For more details about the project please contact:
info@freewheelerstheatre.co.uk
National Lottery players raise £30m every week for good causes, funding arts, heritage, sports, voluntary and charity projects around the UK.
For more information on good causes in your area go to:
About Sport England
Sport England is a public body and invests up to £300 million National Lottery and government money each year in projects and programmes that help people get active and play sport.
It wants everyone in England, regardless of age, background, or level of ability, to feel able to engage in sport and physical activity. That’s why a lot of its work is specifically focused on helping people who do no, or very little, physical activity and groups who are typically less active - like women, disabled people and people on lower incomes.
HRH ROYAL VISIT
We were excited to welcome His Royal Highness, The Duke Of Edinburgh to Freewheelers on Wednesday 6th March 2024.
As part of The Duke of Edinburgh’s big birthday week celebrations, His Royal Highness joined The Lord Lieutenant, Michael More-Molyneux, and representatives from the Orpheus Centre, Bloomin Arts and DAiSY (Disability Arts in Surrey) at our new home, The Light House Parish Church Hall.
During the visit The Duke and guests were invited to view a display of tintype photographic portrait prints recently created with photographer Emma Brown as part of a project called Us & Them. Eight Freewheeler artists who, with support from Surrey History Centre’s Julian Pooley and Dr Alana Harris from UCL, researched nineteenth-century wet-plate collodion photographs and glass-plate negatives that were originally generated in Surrey’s psychiatric (and learning disability) institutions. By re-staging and provocatively ‘pairing’ portrait images of Freewheeler company members with the original Victorian photographs, these heritage objects are re-purposed for stigma-dispelling and restorative justice purposes and celebrate our experiences and agency in making and sharing art.
The Duke was invited to take part in a puppet making session by company member Nick Russell based on a Surrey Hills Arts community celebration hosted by the National Trust. Next it was across the road to the beautiful 1,000-year-old parish church, to join a music workshop, which in based on the use of modern iPad technology enabling Freewheeler wheelchair users to create and compose their own music and soundscapes. Following on from the music workshop, The Duke was invited forward to the front of the church by Abi Williams, a member of the Freewheeler dance company to join the Wonderdusk murmuration dance.
All our guests followed by a rousing rendition of happy birthday to The Duke, ahead of his 60th birthday on Sunday 10th of March.
We would like to thank His Royal Highness, The Duke Of Edinburgh for taking the time to join us, sharing his birthday celebrations.
