reflections in respite

taking a break, doing just fine

Hi pals,

resting up collective here. It’s been a while since we last checked in, so this post is a little update to let you know what we’ve been doing. 

It’s also a reminder to ourselves that when we feel like we’re not ‘doing enough’, reflecting and resting remains an integral part of our praxis. After a busy period of delivering workshops and planning new projects, we’re on a small hiatus until next year. Practising what we preach, and all that.

Once back, we hope to run some more online workshops on centring rest within creative practice, start an informal reading group online, and start another round of our mail-based care chain, Postcards from Flaresville.

Until then, we’re kicking back in bed to unwind with some crip creations. From time to time, we’ll send you short reviews from our reading pile of things we’ve enjoyed that focus on disability, crip time, and the body, called resting up collective reads. 

A white bed floats in a blue cloudy sky. The resting up collective pillow logo hovers under two pillows. Beneath it, the word READS is in pale red, and beneath that, a see-through illustration of a green book.

Keep your eyes peeled for our first micro review, coming soon and, if there’s a crip text/artwork/film you’d recommend, comment below or message us on Instagram! 

The Year (So Far) In Brief

This year, we’ve run a mix of online and in-person workshops with Eastside Projects, Glasgow Zine Library, and Nottingham Contemporary, including a session inspired by Abbas Zahedi’s Holding a Heart in Artifice. 

We also spoke to LeftLion, a local arts magazine in Nottingham, about the collective. Later this autumn, we’ll be chatting with artist Gaia Redgrave on her upcoming podcast Rewilding the Artist: Breaking New Ground.

The first iteration of Postcards from Flaresville continues to snail-mail among 30 people across four countries. This slow form of care and connection reminds us that, despite the isolating nature of disability/chronic illness flares, we’re not as alone as think. 

A colourful watercolour postcard depicting green leaves, plants, and flowers in bloom. A bird flies amongst them. The grass is purple, there are brown hills, and the sun is burning yellow.

A geometric postcard with different layers of red, orange, yellow, blue, pink, and brown triangles. Two decaying autumn leaves are pasted on top.

Things We’ve Been Inspired By

• Carolyn Lazard’s Long Take, the artist’s first UK solo exhibition, which four of us saw together at Nottingham Contemporary. Their ‘newly conceived installation responds to the legacy of dance for the camera, considered through the lens of accessibility as a creative tool.’ It was as awesome as you’d imagine. 

  You can read Jen’s review here, which was listed in V.71 of Crip News – a US-based disability news source that just reached its 100th issue! Congrats, Kevin 🙂

• Crip Authorship: Disability as Method, edited by Mara Mills and Rebecca Sanchez. The text is expansive in its crip approaches to writing, research, and publishing.
  It has chapters by some of our favourite authors and activists and is available to read online.

• Sorry for any inconvenience caused. Warmest, Jamila (2023) by Jamila Prowse. In this performance piece, the artist shares her real-life emails cancelling or postponing work.
  
  It’s a moving watch, performed from Prowse’s sick bed, that echoes experiences many of us have felt guilt or shame around. 

• Sick Artists Club. To honour the late Margate-based artist and disability activist Lizzy Rose, this project invited artists with chronic illness or disability to contribute to an online exhibition.

  
  During her time in hospital, Lizzy was frustrated about being unable to do creative work due to illness. In response, she created Hospital Watercolour Club. Sick Artists Club is a testament to finding community while creating alongside others.    

There’s a lot more we could include, but we’ll sign off with this small snapshot for now.

In solidarity from our sick beds to yours,

resting up collective xx

Char, Charlie, Dolly, Ellie, Jane, Jen, Lucia, Olivia, Po, Pema, Sop