Documenting Failure - Episode 2 - Key References
Key references:
Arts Council England- They are the national development agency for creativity and culture. We help people in every corner of the country to experience and benefit from creativity.
National Lottery- The National Lottery is the state-franchised national lottery established in 1994 in the United Kingdom.National Lottery players raise more than £30 million a week for good causes across the UK.
Selina Thompson Ltd- Internationally-acclaimed, Brummie, Black & disabled-led performance company.
Jess Thom- Writer, artist and part time superhero Jess Thom co-founded Touretteshero in 2010 as a creative response to her experience of living with Tourettes Syndrome.
Touretteshero is a disabled-led CIC whose mission is to create a more inclusive and socially just society.
James the Vacuum Cleaner-the vacuum cleaner is the name of a UK based artist and activist who makes candid, provocative and playful work.
His work combines madpride and disability justice organising, direct action and deep ecology, but always with a lightness and silliness. Over the last 12 years he has focused on design of mad spaces, organising and crip aesthetics. Often working with large groups including young people, health professionals and different communities, his art and activism aims to challenge and change how mental health is understood, treated and experienced.
With roots in activism and radical art, the vacuum cleaner has created one-man interventions and large-scale actions as well as performance, installation and film. His work has been shown in galleries, theatres, hospitals and schools and has appeared on streets, within social movements and in public spaces internationally.
Selina Thompson- Selina Thompson is a performance artist based in the United Kingdom. Her work is focused on the way that identity shapes our lives and intersects with politics.
Censorship- the action of preventing part or the whole of a book, film, work of art, document, or other kind of communication from being seen or made available to the public, because it is considered to be offensive or harmful, or because it contains information that someone wishes to keep secret, often for political reasons.
Tourette's/Tourette syndrome- Tourette syndrome is a condition that causes you to make sudden, repetitive sounds or movements (tics). There is no cure, but treatment can help manage the tics.
Tourette's Hero- As a disabled-led, multidisciplinary organisation, we believe in the transformative power of creativity—it shapes everything we do. Our work spans six areas: creative, solidarity, research, commercial, digital, and media.
Tic- Tics are fast, repetitive muscle movements that result in sudden and difficult to control body jolts or sounds.
PA- Personal Assistant
National Portfolio Organisation- The National Portfolio is our regular funding programme for arts organisations, museums and libraries across England.
Paul Hamlyn Foundation -An organisation that works collaboratively with organisations and individuals who are working to build a just society. Their funds focus on the arts, education and learning, migration and young people.
Breakthrough Fund- The Theatre Breakthrough Fund (North) is a fund to support Black, Asian and ethnically diverse theatre makers in the North to make ambitious new work.
Mental Health Act- In most cases when people are treated in hospital or another mental health facility, they have agreed or volunteered to be there. They may be referred to as a voluntary patient. But there are cases when a person can be detained, also known as sectioned, under the Mental Health Act (1983) in a hospital or other setting.
The Mental Health Act (1983) is the main piece of legislation that covers the assessment, treatment and rights of people with a mental health condition.
Trans Young People- Transgender youth are children or adolescents who do not identify with the gender associated with the sex they were assigned at birth.
Accessible- Able to be used by everyone, including people who have a disability.
Arts Council Project Grant- National Lottery Project Grants is an open access programme for arts, libraries and museums projects. The fund supports thousands of individual practitioners, community and cultural organisations.
Summerhall- Summerhall Arts Centre is a performance venue in Edinburgh, Scotland A Scottish arts charity dedicated to offering artist opportunities and programming outstanding exhibitions and events year-round.
Elevate funding- This programme aims to improve the resilience of arts organisations, museums and libraries that make a significant contribution to the Creative Case for Diversity, to encourage an increase of diverse led organisations within the National Portfolio.
Matthew Poutney- Jessica Thom and Matthew Pountney co-founded Touretteshero in 2010 as a creative response to Jess's experience of living with Tourette's syndrome.
Pandemic- A pandemic is the worldwide spread of a new disease.
Ableism- Ableism is a word for unfairly favouring non-disabled people. Ableism is discrimination and social prejudice against physically or mentally disabled people.
Epilepsy- Epilepsy is a condition that affects your brain and causes seizures (sometimes called fits).
Risk- the possibility of something bad happening
Chronic Illness- A chronic condition, also known as chronic disease or chronic illness, is a health condition or disease that is persistent or otherwise long-lasting in its effects.
Twister- Twister is a game of physical skill produced by Milton Bradley Company and Winning Moves Games USA. It is played on a large plastic mat that is spread on the floor or ground. The mat has four rows of six large colored circles on it with a different color in each row: red, yellow, green and blue. A spinner tells players where they have to place their hand or foot.
Monopoly- Monopoly is a multiplayer economics-themed board game. In the game, players roll two standard dice (or one extra special red die depending on the game) to move their token clockwise around the game board, buying and trading properties and railroads and developing them with houses and hotels. Players collect rent from their opponents and aim to drive them into bankruptcy.
Risk Register- A risk register is a document used as a risk management tool and to fulfill regulatory compliance,
The R Word- The R-Word is a purposeful look into the long-reaching history and lasting implications of the word retard(ed) and current attitudes and perceptions about people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Through the personal narrative of four sibling stories and the first-person accounts of self-advocates, we get an intimate and nuanced perspective of the challenges and triumphs of people living with an intellectual disability. The R-Word is an unflinching, heartwarming, humorous, and hopeful journey through our shared human experience.
Bureaucracy- Bureaucracy is the administrative system governing any large institution, whether publicly owned or privately owned.
Access to Work- Access to Work is a publicly funded employment support programme that aims to help more disabled people start or stay in work.
Palestine- Palestine, officially the State of Palestine,] is a country in West Asia. It encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, collectively known as the Palestinian territories, or occupied Palestinian territory.
Gaza- a city in the Gaza Strip, Palestine, and the capital of the Gaza Governorate.
Risk Assessing- Assessing risk is just one part of the overall process used to control risks in your workplace.
Alice Wong- Alice Wong (March 27, 1974 – November 14, 2025) was an American disability rights activist and writer based in San Francisco, California. Dedicated to amplifying the voices and experiences of the disabled community, her career focused on challenging systemic ableism through storytelling, advocacy, and community organizing.
Disabled Oracles- A "disabled oracle" refers primarily to a metaphorical concept used by activists, notably Alice Wong, to describe disabled people as prescient, insightful figures who foresee the future of society, particularly regarding crises, technology, and health.
COVID- Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Department for Work and Pensions-The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is responsible for welfare, pensions and child maintenance policy. As the UK’s biggest public service department it administers the State Pension and a range of working age, disability and ill health benefits to around 20 million claimants and customers.
Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice- Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha is a queer disabled femme writer, organiser, performance artist and educator of Burgher/Tamil Sri Lankan and Irish/Roma ascent. This the fifth book of six, a collection of personal and political essays that examines disability justice and interdependence from a queer POC (person of colour) perspective.
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha- (born April 21, 1975) is a Canadian-American poet, writer, educator, and social activist. Their writing and performance art focuses on documenting the stories of queer and trans people of color, abuse survivors, mixed-race people and diasporic South Asians and Sri Lankans. A central concern of their work is the interconnection of systems of colonialism, abuse and violence. They are also a writer and organizer within the disability justice movement.
Piepzna-Samarasinha is queer, non-binary, and disabled.
Matilda Feyisayo Ibini- Matilda Feyiṣayọ Ibini is a Nigerian-British playwright and screenwriter.
Twine- A new touring production from Selina Thompson Ltd, Twine is about adoption, families and the state.
Salt: A journey to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean: the one-woman theatre show about grief, ancestry, and colonialism.
Rebel Play: Rebel Play is an intergenerational, disabled-led, practice-based research project which will collect and share the positive play experiences of disabled children and adults.
Balmy Ukraine- Balmy Army is a movement for youth-led mental health started by artist the vacuum cleaner for the 2023 edition of Manchester International Festival.
British Council- the UK's international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities.
Carer- A carer is a person of any age who provides unpaid care and support to a family member, friend or neighbour who is disabled, has an illness or long-term condition, or who needs extra help as they grow older.
Capitalism- Capitalism is an economic system where productive goods are owned by individuals or companies and used to earn a profit, while workers earn only wages.
Government- an organisation that officially manages and controls a country or region, creating laws, collecting taxes, providing public services, etc.
Subsidise- to pay part of the cost of something: eg Taxpayers shouldn't subsidise a golf course.
Culture Central- A collective voice for arts & culture in the West Midlands.
Radical Listening Week- Radical Listening Week brings together cultural workers, freelancers, organisations, and communities across the West Midlands to explore what equity looks like in practice.
Solidarity- Solidarity or solidarism is an awareness of shared interests, objectives, standards, and sympathies creating a psychological sense of unity of groups or classes.