“Inclusivity happens when there’s a real exchange of ideas. Inclusivity energises you.”

Intoart is a London-based art and design studio, working inclusively with people with learning disabilities practicing as artists and designers. At the Jakarta Fashion Week 2020, British Council collaborated with Intoart to present an inclusive fashion show showcasing visually powerful illustrations by Intoart’s artists Yoshiko Phillips, Andrew Williams and Ntiense Eno Amooquaye applied on John Smedley knitwear. We recently caught up with Sam Jones, Co-founder of Intoart to talk about inclusive practices in arts.  


What does inclusivity in arts look like?
It’s not about one group or another group being put in a box. It’s when there’s a real exchange of ideas and a shift in culture as well, because at the moment there’s an exclusion, especially for people with learning disabilities in arts and the creative culture and industry in the UK. So, inclusion is when those artists and designers that are marginalised, aren’t anymore. When you see it, it energises you. It feels that you’re actually living on the planet rather than your own little bubble.

Intoart turns 20 years old next year, tell us how it all started.
Our co-founder Ella Ritchie took a year out of art college and worked in a range of community programmes with people with learning disabilities. Together, we just continued working on projects, we saw extraordinary drawings from people with learning disabilities and we just didn’t want to stop. We were at this point in our life when we were leaving college and questioning how’s this art education going to be applied in the real world? In a way we were kind of in a similar position with the people we were getting to know. We needed a home, to build our practice and that’s what Intoart became. We build a home and culture together. Intoart has always been a collective, we would never have been successful if the artists hadn’t worked incredibly hard because we can’t advocate without the artists. It has always been about collective approach and collective action.

Can you talk a little bit more about running Intoart as an arts collective?
The studio is open to anybody with a learning disability. We don’t look at portfolios, we try to make the studio available so that people could come and decide for themselves if they're interested in spending time in the studio. Primarily, drawing is the start of visual conversations. People would come and spend a day drawing, we'd look at things that interest them. If that person wants to continue, then we try to make a place for that person. On the flipside, we do have a bit of waiting list because it’s a place for life, so we have to think about resources and make sure that people get a studio experience that is high quality. Some of the artists in the studio – Mawuena Kattah, Yoshiko Phillips, Andrew Williams and Ntiense Eno Amooquaye – have been with Intoart for between five and sixteen years. Those artists have had time to develop really large bodies of work and be ambitious about their design practice and exhibitions.

What we try to achieve is that the artists and designers make decisions about directing their own programmes at the point where they have that body of work. We're also conscious that the organisation has to provide primary art education that we all take for granted as well. So there's a kind of a trajectory within the studio and we try to provide from people coming in right at the beginning with no art making experience to the point where as people make more and more work, then they need different things from us. We kind of step back, they direct their practice. We then take on the role of artist liaison or mentor to introduce them to people and design professionals and have the conversations that need to take place so that they can be artists and designers in their own right and kind of escape the gravity of the Intoart studio somehow.

Intoart has always been a collective, we would never have been successful if the artists hadn’t worked incredibly hard because we can’t advocate without the artists. It has always been about collective approach and collective action.

From someone who's been working in inclusive arts practice, can you share with us how can we avoid stereotyping artists with disability?
We experienced that a lot during studio visits. The anxiety about stereotyping or feeling like they might say the wrong thing sometimes leads to people not engaging. I think we need to take the risk and feel a bit uncomfortable and it's definitely worthwhile. You're not going to hurt anybody as long as you're considerate and helpful and just think about how you would like to be spoken to. Often people haven't spent time with people with a learning disability because there's a kind of partition in education and sometimes in families, children with a learning disability might be socially excluded. So, the only way to attack the problem really is to find a way of getting over that anxiety and just start engaging.

In terms of being respectful to artists with disability, it’s about ensuring an equal approach. It’s about being sensitive and asking the artists how they want to be introduced in an exhibition or fashion show. Some artists might decide that they want to show their work rather than talk, some artists do want to talk about aspects of their biography, some don’t want to give too much away. So, just make sure that those questions are asked in the process as a good curatorial practice. Consent is a really key thing. It’s something that we all take for granted. People with learning disabilities may not have access to education in terms of primarily developing a way of communicating because they’ve been let down by the education system, but with the right level of support, people can develop ways of communicating. That's a really fundamental human right. I think that communication is something to bear in mind when you're approaching a collaboration with anybody.

What’s your advice for disability arts collectives who are just starting the journey?
The primary thing is to have a really clear vision and that you're really passionate about making that vision happen. At the beginning, probably you’re going to do a lot of work for free but you need to have a plan about how you sustain your practice. You need to factor that in your organisational budget. Think about after five years how sustainable your organisation is and how it's going to be possible to achieve your vision. You need to survive and find people who can help you. The main thing is to continue feeling like you're moving forward with ambition and being careful with your time and your resources so that you don't kind of feel like you're stagnating. As you're moving forward, people will recognise the progression and people will value that because you valued it and you've nurtured it and people do value integrity.

A lot of people shared their excitement about British Council x Intoart x John Smeadly x Cotton Ink collaboration on the inclusive catwalk, Jakarta Fashion Week. What’s your thoughts on that?
The fashion show was amazing and I’m still processing it. They’re special because you can’t imagine exactly how it’s going to happen, how the light will work, how the music will work. When it all comes together, you finally realise the impact and I think it was incredible. I really like the fact that the designers were given time within the presentation and people were able to see the relationship of drawing to knitwear. I really love the fact that their illustration was so visible, it travels to Jakarta and was almost in competition with the knitwear on the catwalk.

I think the effect as a whole was the richness of art and design practice and the potential of fashion to speak really loudly about identity. Fashion is a double-edged sword that has the potential to change people's perceptions in a really big way. Intoart is almost 20 years old in 2020 so we’re probably a little bit impatient about visibility. Being part of something that is so immediately visible is energising for the artists and designers in the studio.  We’re delighted to share the stage with the British Council and Cotton Ink at the Jakarta Fashion Week as it’s an important platform to showcase and challenge a wider representation of designers.
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