Hello I’m Sarah Watson. I’m the chair of Trustees for Carousel

I’m also a visual artist.

I recently did the visuals and photographs for a multi media show called Creatures of the Revolution that was at London’s South Bank. It will soon go on tour.

Carousel is• an award-winning arts

organisation

• that puts learning disabled people in control of their art

• and challenges what great art is and who can create it.

Being the chair of trustees for Carousel involves

• Chairing our meetings

• Signing accounts and funding applications

• Working on the annual report

• Going to Arts Council meetings

• Doing presentations, for example at the House of Lords

Let me tell you about a couple of things I am also involved in at Carousel

• I’m a committee member for Oska Bright

• Oska Bright is a three day international learning disability film and digital festival. It happens every two years and then goes on tour round the UK and to other countries.

I am involved in planning the festival

Selecting the films

Compering and being a spokesperson

Here is a very short trailer we used for the last festival

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CDwYySlv-k

I’m also one of the original founders of Creative MindsWe started Creative Minds because we had all experienced having people patronise our work – saying things like “It’s such good therapy for you” when we were showing our films in cinemas or exhibiting our work in galleries or performing at a theatre

We were confused about why our work was seen by arts venues, galleries and cinemas as:• Education work• Outreach work• Community work• And not presented as “professional” work

• Together we formed the first Creative Minds Steering Committee

• We organised a conference at the Dome in Brighton to bring together learning disabled artists and performers with people from the wider arts world to talk about this

• Since then there have been other Creative Minds conferences in Bristol and Ipswich

• And we are planning one in Birmingham and helping a team to organise one in Stockholm

• We also deliver training and do presentations like today

• But our next conference will be here in Manchester at HOME on June 15th 2017

• You can come to the conference or join the discussion on our web site

• www.creativemindsproject.org.uk

Thank you for listening and I think you will have an opportunity to ask questions later.