Welcome to Documenting Failure!

A podcast from Selina Thompson Limited about exploring experiments in doing things differently, thinking about access, marginalisation and what we can learn through failure from disabled artists in the UK and beyond.

Today's guest is Bobby Baker, in conversation with Toni-Dee and Selina Thompson. This is a beautifully contemplative chat about the intergenerational scope of disabled making, the hurdles and achievements of the sector from 1995 to now, and the beauty of building the support you need.

“I would just say I really love the fact that I'm older and I'm making work”

For our fifth episode we are talking with Bobby Baker and Selina Thompson about aging, being older, learning over the years, problems encountered over time and evolving with creating work in a disabled body.

Our host is Toni-Dee Paul - @txnidee , https://www.instagram.com/txnidee/ and this week’s guests are:

1. Bobby Baker - @bobbyartistbaker, https://www.instagram.com/bobbyartistbaker/
2. Selina Thompson - @selinatltd , https://www.instagram.com/selinatltd/

Content warnings for this episode include some references to grief, psychiatric interventions, and fragile mental health.

For full content warnings, a transcript of the episode, links to resources and things referenced please visit: https://selinathompsonltd.co.uk/work/documenting-failure

Don’t forget to subscribe for more wonderful content talking to disabled artists in the UK about failure, documenting our failures and failing joyfully.

Selina Thompson Ltd is a national portfolio organisation supported by Arts Council England, using public funding from National Lottery.

Timestamps / chapter breakdown:

00:00:02- Intro begins.
00:00:31- Start of podcast- Toni Dee asks for intros, descriptions of who they are and what they look like.
00:01:58- 00:05:24- Guests introduce themselves.
00:06:06 - Transition Music
00:06:14- 00:13:54- Guests discuss Selina and Bobby Baker’s relationship through their art, work and mentorship.
00:13:54- 00:33:55- Toni Dee asks Bobby to talk about starting her own company. Bobby and Selina talk about the starting of their companies, the importance of having Bobby’s company to look up to and their inspirations for themselves.
00:33:55- Transition Music
00:34:01- Toni Dee asks if there was ever a bit of insight or a moment in any of those processes between starting your company, and now where you've been able to go, ‘ah, we did, we've done that once already, that is a failing that I've done already, we're going to do it differently this time’. The guests discuss their learnings from failures, what happens if they don’t learn from these things, the toll this takes on physical health and ways to communicate in teams to assess and evaluate what we are capable of committing to.
00:47:29- Transition Restaurant Chatter
00:48:06-[Transition music]
00:48:08- 00:55:17- Toni- Dee asks about pacing and as someone who has started a company a long time ago, like, how long you felt it, it took for you to feel like the company was operating in the way that you needed it to. Bobby talks about the risk that comes with work and pacing. Selina talks about best pacing for STLtd. Bobby and Selina discuss parts of organisation planning they enjoy.
00:55:17- [Transition Restaurant Chatter]
00:55:40- Toni-Dee asks the guests about the future. Is there anything in the future that you can think of, or something that you're excited by that your learnings around failure and success are making you feel differently about what's to come. Selina and Bobby answer with what they are excited about for their work, personally and for their organisations.
00:59:40- 00:59:54- Guest discussion end. Toni-Dee closes off by thanking the guests for their time. Toni-Dee thanks all participants and the team who helped make the podcast.

A podcast from Selina Thompson Limited about exploring experiments in doing things differently, thinking about access, marginalisation and what we can learn through failure from disabled artists in the UK and beyond.

“With all of my heart, believe that the changes that we're trying to cultivate together are possible, plausible, and damn near happen. I have that level of unwavering conviction.”

Episode 3’s guests in conversation are Amahra Spence and Christopher Samuel. This is a conversation beautifully holding heavy things with a lightness, and we hope you can feel the care between our guests extended to you too. In this podcast we touch on grief, personal identity, and working / starting careers as black, disabled-led organisations and artists.

Our host is Toni- Dee Paul - @txnidee , https://www.instagram.com/txnidee/ and this week’s guests are:

1.Amarha Spence- https://www.instagram.com/amahra_as- HoodFutures Studio

2.Christopher Samuel -https://www.instagram.com/christophersamuel_/ - @christophersamuel_

For full content warnings, a transcript of the episode, links to resources and things referenced please visit: https://selinathompsonltd.co.uk/work/documenting-failure

Don’t forget to subscribe for more wonderful content talking to disabled artists about failure, documenting our failures and failing joyfully.

Selina Thompson Ltd is a national portfolio organisation supported by Arts Council England, using public funding from National Lottery.

Timestamps / chapter breakdown:

Short breakdown of chapters / areas of discussion

00:03- Opening dialogue from Amahra to set the tone of the podcast
00:41- Toni Dee welcomes everyone to the podcast and introduces guests.

01:48-17:51- Toni Dee asks first question about each guests practice, where it stems from and what they are doing now. The guests each answer with their story.

18:25- 26:05- Toni Dee asks Amahra about her relationship to failure and reframing failure while thinking about endings and closing. Amahra answers with the things she has had to create over the years, how they ended naturally and this is not necessarily failure.

26:11-30:03- Toni Dee asks Christopher about how artistry, leadership and failure are working in his current work. Christopher talks about what failure means to him.

30:22-35:17- Talk about how disabled people are often left out of society and so have had to build their own paths.

35:33- 41:16- Toni Dee asks what has surprised the guest, what has been joyful pivots for them. The guests talk about realising themselves, looking internally, not running away from themselves and showing up as your whole self.
41:22-43.09- Toni Dee asks what are you looking forward to? The guests talk about each guests talk about each others work and being able to be in the moment with each other.

43.09- Toni Dee closes off the conversation and thanks the guests for joining the podcast.
43:30- Outro thanks to the team.

A podcast from Selina Thompson Limited about exploring experiments in doing things differently, thinking about access, marginalisation and what we can learn through failure from disabled artists in the UK and beyond.

“So when we constantly remind each other, ‘hey, we deserve to be here’, that's power right there.”

Episode 4’s guests in conversation are Chiara Bersani and Maria Palacios. This episode is exploring experiments in doing things differently, thinking about access, marginalisation and what we can learn through failure from disabled artists in the UK and beyond.

Our host is Toni- Dee Paul - @txnidee , https://www.instagram.com/txnidee/ and this week’s guests are:

1. Chiara Bersani - https://www.instagram.com/chiara_bersan/ - @chiara_bersani

2. Maria Palacios - https://www.instagram.com/laredsocialdemaria/ - @laredsocialdemaria

For full content warnings, a transcript of the episode, links to resources and things referenced please visit: https://selinathompsonltd.co.uk/work/documenting-failure

Don’t forget to subscribe for more wonderful content talking to disabled artists in the UK about failure, documenting our failures and failing joyfully.

Selina Thompson Ltd is a national portfolio organisation supported by Arts Council England, using public funding from National Lottery.

Timestamps / chapter breakdown:

Short breakdown of chapters / areas of discussion:

00:04- 03:37- Introduction to podcast and guests.
03:42- 12:40- Toni Dee asks first question of how you got to the work that you've got to, like when you think about the practice that you have now, the job, the artistic endeavour that you have now, what was the journey to get there.Chiara and Marie talk about their journeys in their practice.
12:48- 44:34- Toni- Dee asks about accessibility in their countries. The guests answer talking about access, access being non-negotiable, complexity of the body, COVID, and the diversity of disabled people and disabled bodies.
44:41- 52:32- The guests and Toni-Dee talk about their most joyful failures.
53:48- -1:01:32- The guests and Toni-Dee talk about what they have learned from another artist or thinker that has transformed their thinking around success or failure.
1:01:32 - Toni-Dee closes off the conversation thanking the guests for joining the podcast.
01:02:12- Outro thanks to the team.

A podcast from Selina Thompson Limited about exploring experiments in doing things differently, thinking about access, marginalisation and what we can learn through failure from disabled artists in the UK and beyond.

“Failing Brilliantly”

Episode 2’s guests in conversation are Jess Thom, James the Vacuum Cleaner, and Selina Thompson. This is a dialogue centred on three artists trying to navigate running artist-led, disabled-led organisations. It's balancing some really hard and honest and funny traits.
Our host is Toni- Dee Paul - @txnidee , https://www.instagram.com/txnidee/ and this week’s guests are:

1. Jess Thom - @disabilityarts - https://www.instagram.com/disabilityarts/
2. James Leadbetter (The Vacuum Cleaner) - @vacuumcleanerart - https://www.instagram.com/vacuumcleanerart/
3. Selina Thompson - @selinatltd - https://www.instagram.com/selinatltd/

This episode contains bad language. For full content warnings, a transcript of the episode, links to resources and things referenced please visit: https://selinathompsonltd.co.uk/work/documenting-failure

Don’t forget to subscribe for more wonderful content talking to disabled artists in the UK about failure, documenting our failures and failing joyfully.

Selina Thompson Ltd is a national portfolio organisation supported by Arts Council England, using public funding from National Lottery.

Timestamps / chapter breakdown:
Short breakdown of chapters / areas of discussion
00:00:00- Intro and setting intention for the episode
00:06:21- Toni Dee asks ‘can you talk a little bit about your experiences starting those
organisations, a little bit about what your organisation does for its communities, and also
what it gives you as a disabled artist?’ All the guests talk about their companies and how
they were set up.
00:19:26- Toni Dee asks ‘what disabled knowledge have you centred that means that
something that other organisations are doing, you're choosing to do different, to deviate
from?’ Guests talk about survival, ableism, epilepsy, mitigating barriers and being a disabled
artist.
00:29:58- Toni Dee asks ‘if the guests can talk about risk and how people make good risky
decisions.’ Guests talk about risk, trust, risk assessing, censorship and creative energy in
running an organisation.
00:48:28- Toni Dee asks ‘what has been something that you have done that has maybe not
looked the way you thought it was going to look? And it was the right thing for you, your
organisation, for the way that that thing needed to be delivered.’ Guests talk about their
failures.
00:55:03- Toni Dee talks about her learning from being Selina’s Support Worker.
01:04:13- Toni Dee asks ‘what gets to bring you joy about what you do?’. There is mention of
living in the war in the Ukraine.
01:09:14- Toni Dee thanks the guests for joining the podcast.
01:09:56- Outro thanks to the team.

Welcome to Documenting Failure!

A podcast from Selina Thompson Limited about exploring experiments in doing things differently, thinking about access, marginalisation and what we can learn through failure from disabled artists in the UK and beyond.

“Have you seen legs? Can’t relate!....Hurry up! You’re the one, non-disableds, slowing us down. I’m Usain Bolt in this chair.”
For our first episode we are talking with Matilda Feyisayo Ibini about disability, care packages, creating work in a disabled body that doesn’t serve capitalism and thinking creatively about disability and failure..

“If capitalism is the poison, then care is the antidote.”

Our host is Toni- Dee Paul - @txnidee , https://www.instagram.com/txnidee/ and this week’s guests are:
1. Matilda Feyisayo Ibini - @astrominx , https://www.instagram.com/astrominx/
2. Selina Thompson - @selinatltd , https://www.instagram.com/selinatltd/

For full content warnings, a transcript of the episode, links to resources and things referenced please visit: https://selinathompsonltd.co.uk/work/documenting-failure

Don’t forget to subscribe for more wonderful content talking to disabled artists in the UK about failure, documenting our failures and failing joyfully.

Selina Thompson Ltd is a national portfolio organisation supported by Arts Council England, using public funding from National Lottery.

Timestamps / chapter breakdown:

00:00:00- 00:01:55 - Intro to this podcast, who are the guests and what it is about.
00:01:55- 00:04:03 - intros, descriptions of who they are and what they look like
00:04:03- 00:23:49 - About their jobs, what they do and the kind of art they make. What is a care package? How do you build an organisation with care? Access to Work, Support for Work, how much work goes into surviving, unpaid care work and lack of sustainable
systems. Who is valued enough to receive that care in a work context. What happens to freelancers? The concept of how unimaginative ‘Care’ is in the UK, Access Riders in theatre and disability at odds with productivity/capitalism.
00:23:49- 00:35:11 - Imagination that is needed as disabled people, ‘Disabled Oracles’, surviving under capitalism, the evolution of disability, it is always changing and how can we learn from each other?
00:35:11- 00:54:26 - Fear of failure, curious about failure and how guests came to their craft/job.
00:54:26- 00:58:44 - Imagination and fantasy as apart of practice, creativity in all aspects of life and inspiration from Afrofuturism.
00:58:44- 01:04:39 - Problem solving, being creative with failure, talking about rejection and learning from failure as a beginning not an end.
1:04:18 - Guest discussion end.
01:04:42 - Toni Dee thanks all participants and the team who helped make the podcast.

Documenting Failure: a podcast developed and produced by Selina Thompson Limited

Documenting Failure’ takes its name from a quote from Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha's book Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice, that clearly outlines that a success rooted in Disability Justice often looks like mainstream failure. It invites artists from across the UK and beyond to reframe such failures on their own terms, and in so doing move towards new models of success, access and sustainability.

Don’t forget to subscribe for more wonderful content talking to disabled artists in the UK about failure, documenting our failures and failing joyfully.

Selina Thompson Ltd is a national portfolio organisation supported by Arts Council England, using public funding from National Lottery.

The first two episodes will be available from April 22nd.