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Artist and wordsmith, whose work engages with issues of access, from acknowledged physical needs to perceived symbolic exclusions. After being selected as one of DAO's New Voices in 2011, Gini's online presence has become an integral part of her arts practice

Arriving at Narita airport, Tokyo
2 April 2011

Blog

Nine-fifteen, we are early, and I sit waiting as folk walk off the plane. My wheelchair arrives and then I too make my way out onto Japanese territory. Lots of bowing, helpful people assist my passage through the airport terminal. I am met, greeted and handed over. SP and I take an unfamiliar train journey back to his flat in Tokyo. For him, after the earthquake and tsunami, so much has changed, for me it is all new and exciting. The journey into Tokyo holds my attention, stands of tall pines...

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Setting out for Tokyo
1 April 2011

Blog

I'm packed and ready to go. I've read up on radiation levels, checked out the frequency and strength of the earthquakes and received supplies of dark, exotic chocolate from concerned friends. I'm worrying that my plans will be unworkable and find that keeping an open mind gives access to all kinds of anxieties, but having to be this flexible is also exciting. There are days when all the planning and pacing necessary to make my life function weigh impossibly heavily on me. I still hope to visit...

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Tokyo preparations
25 March 2011

Blog

The media feeding frenzy has moved on and I have attempted “business as usual”. Monday, the first to assume normal structure, failed miserably. With meetings and events paced for theoretical minimal impact on the nature and levels of pain I normally managed to absorb, it looked like a good place to start. However, I failed to complete the day and experienced a strange detached misery. Some time after 15.00 my colleagues had had enough! I was given a beautiful slice of chocolate...

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Tokyo one week on
18 March 2011

Blog

I recall when you laid inside me; when your heartbeat changed me forever. And I watch the child weeping; the father searching; pictures of a missing wife. In the small details are the points of access that compel me to engage painfully with hurt beyond imagining from somewhere the earth does not move and my house is still where it should be. Incredibly this continues. The earth still shakes, the threat is still there of both quake and tsunami, but it is all overshadowed by the nuclear disaster....

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Tokyo: day two
12 March 2011

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Earthquakes, tsunami and the unseen threat of radiation; we may not be in the aftermath yet, but jargon is slipping into my conversation. “Brown-outs” are a big concern. Japan relies heavily on nuclear power and being without electricity is already a problem. Power to communicate; power to produce, store and prepare food and water; power to rescue, to repair and rebuild; power is key to survival and recovery. I reflect on my earlier use of “meltdown” to describe...

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Spike Island (focusing on the task in hand)
11 March 2011

Blog

image of a cloth and wood marionette standing on a ledge, against a blue sky

I exist in the unquiet. I breath to the soundtrack of a panicked heart. My thoughts churn and leap without focus. Nausea creates its own quake as my horizon slides; the floor slips to a diagonal and worry drains me of energy. My desire for reassurance dominates with lingering persistence and futility. My journey to Spike Island is different. I feel vulnerable, exposed, as if I have forgotten something vital and I arrive with a feeling of being elsewhere. Familiar faces, coffee and mini...

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BREAKING
11 March 2011

Blog

Breaking. The word has become familiar to me. I see it every day; I don’t always notice it, but have a subconscious awareness that it is there. It has acquired an association the brownish-orange colour and the marching line of alphabetic ants that accompany it somewhere between the menu-bar and the headline article on the BBC News website that is my homepage. Breaking; the significance of the word has never attacked me before. Breaking News: it is good to know what’s going on in the...

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Recapping. (the journey so far)
8 March 2011

Blog

image of a cloth and wood marionette standing on a ledge, against a blue sky

I began this journey with a great deal of trepidation. Physically getting to Spike Island being the first obstacle to overcome and parking my car within reach of whatever assistance I would be offered to extract my wheelchair from said car, adding high levels of stress to the process. While the first meeting was indeed difficult, most access issues were soon ironed out and subsequent meetings have been positive, energising occasions. Working with Colin has been enlightening, informative and...

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Contradiction: morning and afternoon workshops for DAO New Voices project
4 March 2011

Blog

image of a cloth, string and wood marionette hanging down from a tree, against a green background

On the cusp of contradiction, as in the eye of the storm, there is profound silence. Not the hallowed silence of privacy, more the tortured silence of war. The war of passion restrained by will power. The agony that overflows the rock-face in Smoke that Thunders. Leaving your ears empty of all the words I cannot say. My subconscious has anticipated the afternoon workshop. The morning was a journey with Marie-Anne McQuay; a guided tour of written words and websites; generous snippets of...

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Making contacts for Tokyo
3 March 2011

Blog

image of a cloth, string and wood marionette hanging down from a tree, against a green background

I'm an artist planning to visit Tokyo in April, in my wheelchair. I use images and words to explore, through my Disabled Gaze, relationships, social positioning and the psychological impact of the unseen exclusion (for example when steps or platforms are used as a metaphor) I also work with other disabled artists and am currently preparing Phase 2 of Testing the Edges (Phase 1 being an action research project funded by Arts Council England, exploring and documenting what disparate groups of...

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Energizing (Preparing for second meeting at Spike Island)
2 March 2011

Blog

image of a series of cloth, string and wood marionette hanging against a green background

“Meltdown” and recovery images may possibly be a fruitful avenue to explore. I can imagine beginning by collecting images and maybe setting the whole thing within the context of my journey to Tokyo and back. There will be a parallel evolution as the internal and external changes and influences affect who I am and who I perceive myself to be. This could also be the right time to explore working with moving images and to do more thinking about changing/relative states of being. I...

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On Reflection (After First meeting at Spike Island)
24 February 2011

Blog

image of a cloth and wood marionette hanging against a green background

Already there is the possibility of change. My artist is considering ways in which my disability can have a much bigger influence on my work. I’ve just had a “meltdown” – something remarkably similar to a computer crash. And as usual, on rebooting, I feel as if someone has installed some unfamiliar software while I was switched off. Sometimes I wonder if I still have any access the old software; sometimes I recall something I did in the event horizon of the meltdown,...

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First reactions (Cogito ergo sum – I think therefore I am)
10 February 2011

Blog

image of a cloth and wood marionette hanging against a green background

Sum Ergo sum New Ergo, I begin. More; there is more. There is more and I grow. Need. I consume and I need; always more. New growing, hungry, waiting. Needing new; always new Consuming, devouring, exposing, concealing. Old new, growing, storing adjusting. Seeking the New Voices. Saving, storing voices, more voices: new thinking. Growing, knowing. Wider, wider. Saved a squillion exabytes awaiting my capacity to think. Cogito? I store, I save, I reveal, I compare. Sum; surely sum. I think I am....

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