Ellie Page is a highly experienced accessibility consultant, visual arts producer, editor and youth & mental health worker. She currently works at Outside In, as the North West Programme Manager and is also Head of Marketing and Comms for DAiSY: Disability Arts in Surrey. Alongside two fellow disabled womxn artists, she is a Founding Co-Director of TRIAD³, a virtual artist’s studio. She has run an award-winning art ‘lack-of-movement’ in Manchester, under the moniker Still Ill OK since 2018 and coordinated the UK Disability Arts Alliance, #WeShallNotBeRemoved, during the pandemic. She works closely with the Hearing Voices Network, and is a working postgraduate in the field of social and alternative approaches to “psychosis”. She has exhibited artwork in several exhibitions, and has designed and delivered numerous workshops and training programmes for neurodivergent adults. She currently provides access consultation and mentoring to third sector organisations, and advocacy services to disabled adults working in the cultural/entertainment sectors. She co-hosts Lively Minds: The Mental Health Podcast and looks forward to continuing her studies at PhD level.
The Pride Parade Goes on Without Me
Outside In presents an exhibition of artworks and poetry exploring the intersect of LGBTQIA+ and disabled activist identities in Manchester.
The exhibition will open at the People’s History Museum until Monday 8 April 2024
As well as artwork and poetry by North West Outside In artists, the exhibition is guest curated by Julian Gray and features newly commissioned artwork by Lead Artist, Dara SF Addams.
Manchester’s Gay Village has a strong and important history as one of the most vital LGBTQIA+ spaces in the UK, yet even in its modern form it contains few accessible venues. Disabled LGBTQIA+ people are often isolated and forgotten, and this extends to Pride events as well.
Protest and activism often require a physical presence; they can sometimes include a risk of arrest which carries with it greater difficulties for those with intersectional identities, including disability, neuro-divergence and mental health. These barriers to access can impact one’s sense of identity as an LGBTQIA+ person, particularly as an LGBTQIA+ activist.