Jason and the Adventure of 254

inclusivepractices

Unit 2: Inclusive Practices – Disability

Written by

Giuseppe Renga

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Jason and the Adventure of 254

Just a few months ago, I walked from my humble abode in South London to the unknown. I embraced trajectories new to my routine cycle journey, mainly guided by London’s chaotic urban architecture but also by the avoidance of crowds and noisy encounters.  To quote Chris Jenks: “ In the derive, the explorer of the city follows whatever cue, or indeed clue, that the street offers as an enticement to fascination”.   

For the relief of my feet, I ended my journey at the Wellcome Collection, a marvellous gallery where art and medicine are idiosyncratically merged by exhibiting works of artists affected by physical and/or mental illnesses and by exploring the past, present and future of health.  

I thoroughly submerged myself in one of the exhibitions called  ‘Jason and the Adventure of 254’  conceived by the Yorkshire-based disabled artist Jason Wilsher-Mills. Surrounded by colourful and gigantic sculptures, dioramas, and paintings I was catapulted back into my childhood made of comics, toys and arcade games (Fig.1). The presence of the virus carried by toy soldiers disseminated around represented the illness of the artist who has been affected since the age of eleven chronic fatigue syndrome resulting in hospitalisation and left him paralyzed from the neck down for 5 years. During his time in the hospital, Jason learnt to paint with his mouth supported by his mum who became his hero, muse and the main figure of many artifices.  

Fig. 1– Renga, G. 2025. Jason and the Adventure of 254

Inspired by Jason’s mum, I started cogitating about what I could do better to support students affected by disabilities, but at the same time how to create an environment that would naturally support and include all sorts of students without being aware of their disabilities whenever I teach them how to use creative software or by simply comprising their needs in the design of a poster or signage.   

With the beginning of my new PgCert unit called ‘Inclusive Practice,’ I started familiarising myself with terms like ‘intersectionality’ and ‘positionality’.  

Kimberlé Crenshaw’s article introduces the concept of intersectionality to analyse how race, gender, and other identity markers interact to shape the lived experiences of women of colour — particularly Black women — in ways that are qualitatively different from the experiences of white women or Black men, resulting in Black women being erased or deprioritized in both struggles.  

According to Dr. Tara Million (2024) an Assistant Professor in the Department of Indigenous Studies at the University of Lethbridge ‘positionality’ is about reflecting on yourself, who you are and how it influences the approach to certain topics.   

In the classroom, I started considering my positionality and in particular how students’ positionalities could impact the teaching sessions and how crucial is to give voice and empower all the participants within a safe space.  To quote the Nigerian-born British television presenter and Paralympian athlete Ade Adapitan (2020) ”If we give people the opportunity to shine, the sky is the limit and as an educator to some extent the height of these limits will depend on how I will be able to interact and intersects my visions with those of my students.   

References 

Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Colour. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), pp.1241–1299. doi:https://doi.org/10.2307/1229039. 

Jenks, C. (2017). Visual Culture. Routledge. 

Ulethbridge (2024). Positionality with Tara Million. [online] YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkVghbzpNlo&list=PLQeVzgrfSrvE_SCl3yqvIGDLoDRq6VeRZ&index=4 [Accessed 29 Apr. 2025]. 

Wellcome Collection. (2024). Jason and the Adventure of 254. [online] Available at: https://wellcomecollection.org/exhibitions/jason-and-the-adventure-of-254. 

Www.youtube.com. (n.d.). Ade Adepitan gives amazing explanation of systemic racism. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAsxndpgagU [Accessed 10 May 2024]

Comments

6 responses to “Unit 2: Inclusive Practices – Disability”

  1. Emilia Netto Avatar
    Emilia Netto

    I really liked the use of references from the course reading list in combination with photographs and observations from your visit to the exhibition ‘Jason and the Adventure of 254’. I can see the angle at which you are approaching the topic of Inclusive practice and found it a very enjoyable blog post to read. Do you think it is possible to go a bit deeper into how you “do better to support students affected by disabilities” in your practice? Also have you considered discussing your own positionality in the context of your teaching?

    Reply
  2. Giuseppe Renga Avatar
    Giuseppe Renga

    Hello Emilia, many thanks for your comment…In my teaching sessions I have always been affected by my italianity epitomised by the Renaissance and European art movements (e.g. Bauhaus). In virtue of this, I have noticed how I needed to expand my knowledge and delve into cultures, faiths and nationalities of students who come from all around the World.

    During the delivery of my course I made an introduction Welcome slide in all the languages and others related to the ‘inspiring’ context for the presentation with artworks of the Indian female artist Arpita Singh and Mexican disable artist Frirda Khalo who at the age of six contracted polio which eventually made her right leg grow shorter and thinner than the left. The illness forced her to be isolated from her peers for months, and she was bullied.

    I brough in my teaching context this examples to motive and spur our student and to tell them that they are capable fo achieving the impossible if the only wanted.

    Moreover, since I have been teaching i have recording my lectures adding captions and uploading them on the students’ Moodle page to help those one who had difficulties in accomplishing some tasks or to rewatch them in case they couldn’t attend the class.

    I have also followed the UAL graphic guidance (https://www.arts.ac.uk/students/creating-accessible-digital-content) by creating graphic contents with clear and minimal fonts (e.g. Helvetica, Gill Sans, Futura) to write text on pale backgrounds.

    Reply
  3. Emilia Netto Avatar
    Emilia Netto

    Hi Giuseppe, what a wonderful response. I do enjoy your writing style, it is so enjoyable to read. These are great examples of creating an inclusive space.

    Have you considered adding a couple of these examples to your blog post? Just a couple of lines, mentioning the welcome slide, recorded lectures with caption, UAL guidance etc.

    There’s also the link below, have a look as it may be useful to reference.

    https://www.arts.ac.uk/about-ual/teaching-and-learning-exchange/digital-learning/ai-and-education/staff-guide-to-the-use-of-machine-translation-tools

    Reply
    1. Giuseppe Renga Avatar
      Giuseppe Renga

      Hello Emilia, many thanks for your feedback. I haven’t thought about it yet but it is a great advice to follow to be honest. Frankly, I have been using Google Translate at Universoity but also in my everyday life whenever I have had some difficulties to communicate with a student or a normal person outside the University whose first spoken language is not English.

      Reply
  4. Mikolai Berg Avatar
    Mikolai Berg

    An original introduction to the topic, Giuseppe. I especially appreciated your use of Chris Jenks’ ‘explorer of the city’ lens, it sparked immediate associations with the French concept of the flâneur, that reflective city stroller and emblem of modern experience in the writings of Baudelaire and Benjamin. Slightly off topic, I’m aware, but a lovely tangent to follow up if you’re interested.
    Your post thoughtfully unpacks key ideas around intersectionality and positionality through the lens of Jason Wilsher-Mills’ work. I found your focus on childhood memory as a point of identification particularly resonant as it offers an effective way into understanding the layered experiences of disabled artists. It also made me reflect on our own teaching of art practice: what an engaging approach it would be to guide students toward creating connections through shared or remembered experiences, building both empathy and visibility.
    You’ve also prompted me to reconsider how I structure exhibition visits in my own teaching. They’re usually centred around medium or technique, but your post has encouraged me to think about framing them through the lens of artist positionality too, adding another layer of relevance and resonance for the students.

    Reply
    1. Giuseppe Renga Avatar
      Giuseppe Renga

      Dear Mikolai, a thousand thanks for commenitng again on one of my posts.
      As an educator and a quasi-teacher I must intersect my positionality as an extrovert, colourful and chaotic human being with that of my students and let them collaborate, intertwine and entangle their own positionalities. I couldn’t be and become a teacher without being and exposing who I really am. To quote Paulo Freire (1996, p. 82): “Teachers need curiosity..the exercise of curiosity makes it more critically curious, more methodologically rigorous in regard to its object. The most spontaneous curiosity intensifies and becomes rigorous, the more epistomological it becomes”.

      Reply

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