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.

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.

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.