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I’m Me: Exploring Identity, Representation and Voice with Learning Disabled and Autistic Artists investigates how learning disabled and autistic artists create, communicate, and understand identity through theatre, dance, visual art, performance, drawing, comics, and collaborative creative practice. Developed through the inclusive research project I’m Me, which worked with more than 100 learning disabled artists and seven arts organisations across the UK, the book foregrounds learning disabled and autistic artists not as subjects of research, but as knowledge holders whose creative practices offer vital ways of understanding identity, representation, voice, care, access, and social inequality.
Structured through a polyvocal mix of short essays, interviews, easy-read summaries, creative work, performance documentation, doodle books, and visual material, the book challenges conventional academic forms and approaches to research. Rather than separating scholarship from artistic practice, I’m Me positions creative expression itself as a mode of inquiry and knowledge production, demonstrating how learning disabled and autistic artists use artistic practice to explore experiences of ableism, stigma, joy, collaboration, independence, and epistemic injustice.
Through discussions of inclusive research, creative practice, representation, identity, and voice, the book examines how learning disabled and autistic artists negotiate questions of agency, authorship, access, care, collaboration, and visibility within cultural and institutional structures that have historically marginalised disabled people’s knowledge and creativity. At the same time, the study asks broader questions about what research, performance, and artistic development might become when centred around learning disabled and autistic people’s experiences, modes of communication, and creative methodologies.
Combining rigorous critical reflection with accessible, multi-modal, and artist-centred forms of presentation, I’m Me offers a major contribution to disability arts, performance studies, inclusive research, creative methodologies, and critical disability studies. The book will be essential reading for scholars, artists, students, educators, community practitioners, and readers interested in accessibility, artistic collaboration, and new approaches to research and creative practice.
Matthew Reason is Professor of Theatre and Director of the Institute for Social Justice at York St John University, UK. His work focuses on the intersection of arts, creative methods, lived experience and social change. He was the principal investigator on I’m Me (2023-25), a creative inclusive research project working with learning disability arts organisations across the UK
Kelsie Acton was the post-doctoral researcher for I'm Me. She's published on inclusive research with Reason and Foulds in The British Journal of Learning Disabilities, on the erasure of American dancers with IDD with Erlikh in RACAR, and on plain language in Crip Authorship. She is currently a post-doctoral researcher with the Centre for Performance, Technology, and Equity at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama researching the accessibility of light and sound in performance for people with sensory sensitivities.
Daniel Foulds is a writer and researcher with a learning disability based in Bradford, UK. He has been with Mind the Gap since 2013 firstly as a student, then an artist and finally as an associate artist. He has worked on multiple research led projects including Daughters of Fortune with Royal Holloway University in London, Hidden History, ENGAGE and I'm Me with York St John University as a research assistant.
Alison Colborne has been an Artist at Mind the Gap since 2010. She has appeared in many of the company’s recent productions including Contained, Mia, ZARA and, most recently, playing the role of Iris in a little space. As well as an artist for the company, Alison is also a part time administrator at Mind the Gap. She was involved in I'm Me as a research assistant.
Introduction
Doing I’m Me (essay)
Critical concepts (plain language and easy read summaries)
The story of I’m Me (essay)
Acknowledgements (list of people involved in I’m Me)
Part 1: Inclusive research
1. Inclusive research and epistemic justice (essay)
2. On being a learning disabled researcher (first person essay)
3. Inclusive research ethics (essay, illustrations and video script)
4. Upsetness, everyday ableism and researching difficult topics (essay)
5. Facilitating tricky conversations (practitioner interview)
Part 2: Creative practice
6. Art, creativity and knowing (essay)
7. Facilitating inclusive workshops (practitioner interview and comic)
8. Towards co-facilitation and leadership: The role of lead artists (essay)
9. Non-verbal facilitation with Open Theatre (practitioner interview)
10. Music and I’m Me with Under the Stars (practitioner interview and song lyrics)
11. Dance, aesthetics and learning disability (essay)
12. Give Me Space, ConfiCo (performance discussion and documentation)
13. HELD, Mind the Gap (performance discussion and documentation)
Part 3: Identity
14. The personal and social learning disability identity (essay)
15. Exploring identity with Confidance (practitioner interview)
16. Small Worlds, About Face (art work discussion and documentation)
17. Recognition of shared experience (essay)
18. Safe as Houses, Open Theatre (performance discussion and documentation)
19. Family and independence (essay and comic)
20. Artist identity (essay)
21. Joy (essay and illustrations)
Part 4: Representation
22. Representation in art and media (essay)
23. Exploring representation with Hijinx (practitioner interview)
24. Silent Glimpses, Loud Truths, Hijinx (performance discussion and documentation)
25. Being disabled in public (essay and comic)
26. Assumptions (short text and illustrations)
27. Presenting yourself (short text)
28. Sisterz, Under the Stars (performance discussion and documentation)
Part 5: Voice
29. Voice and agency: Speaking for, speaking with, speaking out (essay)
30. Exploring voice with Lung-ha (performance discussion and documentation)
31. Emotion, voice and respectability politics (essay and comic)
32. People as barriers; People as allies (short text and illustrations)
33. Audiences: Who needs to hear your voice? (essay)
34. Oh, Dear Society, Open Theatre (performance discussion and documentation)
Conclusion
We’re Us (essay)
References
Biographies
Index