Magical Women
We create empowered & relaxed spaces removing the risk found in Neurotypical situations.
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Rage

Rage is a collection of art and words made during times of overwhelm, sensory overload, rage or stress.

These words hardly get published or printed elsewhere - or at least, they’re never commissioned. We want to change that but we also want to change the way we address it. We want to curate words in the same way art is curated. We curate the words as if they are stand alone pieces and do not edit the texts.

We invite visitors to experience and regard each piece as not only a text to be read, but a text to be considered, observed, seen and heard. An identity that requires attention even if you do not necessarily agree, be open to the possibility of listening to and sharing space with their truth.

Artists don’t want to be an inspiration, a hero or champion. They want to have access to the arts without “their access” being a major part of the journey.

Magical Women’s focus is on curating art and words so they might be shared with wider and more diverse audiences.

rage writing as curated words // Elinor Rowlands

Words of rage by ND writers and artists are hardly published or printed, so what if they were curated?*

*As part of her ND traits, Elinor bounces between her first name, last name, she, her, they and we.

Elinor Rowlands writes about what made her set out to create relaxed spaces and how she developed a model so that she and other ND artists could write without censorship and be paid for the art they contribute to this project.

Words contain spaces and meaning. They need to be attended to in the same way a painting does.

They have been curated here as a means to be seen, be read, and be heard.

The words of ND writers continue to be failed, oppressed and ignored by societal and systemic structures and attitudes that pay lip service to key concepts such as “inclusion”, “creativity”, “diversity”, “access needs”, “change-makers”, “influencers”.

But they are so often in fact reduced to buzzwords.

This can “flip transformative practice into serving the interest of the powerful and maintaining the status quo.

If participatory approaches to practices are to justify a position on social justice, environmental sustainability and collective well-being then participation has to be understood as a transformative not ameliorative (“change things for the better”) concept” (Ledwith & Springett, 2010).

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Artists don’t want to be an inspiration, a hero or champion. They want to have access to the arts without “their access” being a major part of this journey, instead, at Magical Women our focus is on curating art and words so they might be shared with wider and more diverse audiences.

Magical Women has been based on a model developed by Elinor which is a process that she describes as removing the risk found in neurotypical situations.

This risk is the “feeling of being rushed” which creates a sense of urgency. Rowlands (2020) describes that “whilst urgency destroys, ease creates.” It was Paulo Friere’s pedagogy in the 1970’s that identified how participation was a key transformative concept in community development (Ledwith & Springett, 2010, p.15).

This is important because Magical Women offers payment to ND artists for their contributions. It is not enough to simply platform artists but payment for their work is essential if the narrative of investing in “the excluded” is ever going to change.

Certain arts organisations might be considerably invested in by Patrons and other larger funding bodies and individuals but these same organisations do not pay artists nor market the artists so that their art is sold or bought in the very exhibitions they are exhibited in. It is not enough for Disabled and ND artists to be exhibited, they also need the opportunity to sustain a practice in the arts.

If this is ever going to happen then they need a project like Magical Women where they can explore, experiment and consider their art practice. Through doing this, then artists can invest in themselves and in turn will be able to share their art with wider and more diverse audiences.

They need more of this and less of being given “special” names as a sense of recognition or “incentive” to carry out work for the organisation for free. They should not be faces of the organisation - as this just emphasises slave labour narrative.

When organisations do this, they work to the charity model. This feeds into the narrative that the disabled or neurodivergent person is a charity case and the organisation is being bold by providing spaces for them to share their art. This organisation will continue to receive a lot of money - and usually it is at the expense of the very people they are claiming to help.

Empowerment is closely tied to the process of becoming critical. Understanding the nature of power and how it permeates our lives is the definition of critical consciousness. In other words, critical theory provides a passionate and motivating force that empowers people to act. (Ledwith & Springett, 2010, p.171-172)

This is exactly what happened for Magical Women and why they acted to create this relaxed space.

“We are not champions, we are not inspiring, we are artists who lack access and lack understanding and lack investment.

We are ND and / Disabled and/or Survivor artists who want to share our art with more diverse and wider audiences in accessible and relaxed spaces.

We would love your support to do that, and we would love for you to join us as we also transform your opportunities and in turn, as a collective, we grow.”

- Elinor Rowlands, curator.

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