Strength in weakness

The DaDaAwards evening last night staged by the North West Disability Arts Forum was great fun and polemical with verbal slaps adminstered to a City Council that has only just appointed one disability inclusion officer, when it should have at least three. Not easy to be the council chief executive sitting there, black tied and a bit red faced.
Adam Reynolds who died earlier this year was honoured with a lifetime achievement award. Born with muscular dystrophy and not expected to live beyond his teens he defied all predictions to produce sculpture and public installations that survive him and are seen daily by many, not as the work of a disabled artist, but as art.

There is something very poignant in the creation of substantial sculptures born out of a life that was fragile. Adam said “I am clear that my greatest strengths stem from the fact of being born with muscular dystrophy, apparently my greatest weakness”