A Different Way of Engaging – tells the life story of disabled artist Katherine Araniello

‘A Different Way of Engaging’  is a cycle of transcription poems based on a series of interviews with the late Katherine Araniello, a performance and video artist who was one of the most exciting figures to emerge from Disability Arts.  She worked under her own name, as SickBitchCrips and, with Aaron Williamson, as the Disabled Avant-Garde.

Katherine Araniello

The poems cover Araniello’s childhood and experience of segregated education, her move to independent living and her acquisition of a formal artistic education. (Araniello was always strongly critical of what she saw as the ‘community arts’ focus of Disability Arts.  She wanted to make work that had a rigorous intellectual grounding.)

Araniello refused to discuss the ‘meaning’ of her work with anybody; she felt it should stand for itself.  But she describes her working methods, her partnership with Aaron Williamson and the thinking behind some key works.

These poems were completed shortly before Katherine’s death in February 2019. You can download a PDF copy of the cycle of transcription poems by clicking on Katherine Araniello: A Different Way of Engaging

More information about my work in transcription poetry can be found in the conference paper ‘Transcription poetry as a vehicle for documenting the lives of disabled people’. You can download a PDF copy by clicking on DSC Paper 2010 D2

Previous examples of my transcription poetry work can be found on Disability Arts Online

• ‘Paddy: A Life’ http://disabilityartsonline.org.uk/paddy-masefield
• ‘The Explorer’ http://www.disabilityartsonline.org.uk/The-Explorer
• ‘Neglected Voices’ http://www.disabilityartsonline.org.uk/Allan-Sutherland-Neglected-Voices

Other outcomes of this piece of work include archive materials such as sound recordings and interview transcripts.  We also plan readings.  With its distinctive voice and clear narrative line, transcription poetry lends itself well to live reading.