Project Art Works

Project Art Works has been developing ground-breaking visual arts projects for individuals with profound neurological impairments since 1997. It is an artist-led charitable company, based in Hastings, East Sussex. Many of the young people and adults with whom we work have multiple impairments and require support in all areas of their lives. They are typically excluded from participation in high quality arts activities and are rarely involved in making decisions about their lives. We develop projects that support them in communicating and expressing their opinions and ideas through art, and that dismantle some of the highest barriers to rights and equalities faced by people with complex needs. Our pioneering approach to art, to disability and to working in partnership with organisations and individuals involved in the lives of people with complex needs is unrivalled in the UK.

Our fundamental premise is that good art can, through its process and/or its final form, reflect and articulate ideas that transcend difference and reach people. The common, uniting thread that runs through all of our projects is our commitment to achieving the highest artistic, conceptual and aesthetic standards, with individuals experiencing severe neurological and physical impairments. Through them, we aim to disrupt and reconfigure preconceptions about profound disabilities amongst visual artists, organisations, strategists, participants and audiences.

We use visual art because it embraces many different approaches and methods that can be employed to support individuals with high support needs on a journey of rehabilitation, learning and communicating. The most severely learning disabled individuals are often non-verbal and unable to cognitively assimilate or communicate how they experience the world. They can, however, communicate through their decisions about colour, marks on paper and where they focus their gaze. Our work is skilled and intensive and our artists, who have specialist knowledge of materials, techniques and processes, work intuitively to engage with each individual, irrespective of their impairments. We combine traditional visual art techniques with new media. Film is a vital part of our artistic practice and is also useful for documenting and evaluating our work and for and for showing activities and responses that can be hard to describe in words.

Project Art Works co-founder and Director, Kate Adams, is a NESTA award-winning artist, and the mother of a 26-year-old man with severe intellectual disability, epilepsy and autism. Since 1997, with the team at Project Art Works, she has initiated responsive, collaborative projects with artists, disabled children and adults, social care agencies, schools and other partners. Her role requires a high degree of knowledge and sensitivity to the ethical issues arising from the involvement of vulnerable people in participatory and collaborative projects.

Our artistic vision is expressed over three programming strands: Art & Social Policy; Art & Collaboration and Research, Learning and Dissemination. Project Art Works has been developing ground-breaking visual arts projects for individuals with profound neurological impairments since 1997. It is an artist-led charitable company, based in Hastings, East Sussex . Many of the young people and adults with whom we work have multiple impairments and require support in all areas of their lives. They are typically excluded from participation in high quality arts activities and are rarely involved in making decisions about their lives. We develop projects that support them in communicating and expressing their opinions and ideas through art, and that dismantle some of the highest barriers to rights and equalities faced by people with complex needs. Our pioneering approach to art, to disability and to working in partnership with organisations and individuals involved in th lives of people with complex needs is unrivalled in the UK.