Fungus Press Residency: ‘Route Masters’

Michelle Baharier Michelle Baharier is an acclaimed, award-wining graduate of The Slade School of Fine Art. A multidisciplinary visual artist, her artistic practice is strongly influenced by her lived experience of disability, resulting in paintings and participatory art/performative events inclusive to all. Her oeuvre includes colourful and expressive paintings, portraits, collages, poetry, photography, phone-drawings, storytelling-performance, and digital/video. She aims to break down barriers, concrete and spiritual, with a view to advance equal rights. Baharier’s awards include funding from Arts Council England, Responsa Foundation, and Equality Works. She is an artist member of Bethlem Artists Collective, The Bookery Gallerie, The Sharp Gallery, Invisible Women, South London Women artists, Outside-in, and is a blogger for Disability Arts online. Her published poetry is available in The Poetry Library. Baharier founded the charity CoolTan Arts, run by and for disabled people. During her tenure from 1993 – 2016, she won twenty-seven prestigious awards, demonstrating her commitment to changing barriers and discrimination. Currently she has been commissioned by the London Transport Museum and Turf Projects. Her work is held in a number of public institutions and collections. Michelle Baharier takes over the Fungus Press boards with a series of new artworks conveying the experience of differently-abled people’s ability to use public transport. Anita Wadsworth Anita Wadsworth is an artist who uses text, textiles and everyday objects in one to one events and public interventions that aim to connect and comfort. Gentle instructions are often used as “scores” for the audience to re frame everyday actions. Her work has been shared in different settings including libraries, art galleries, shopping centres, theatres and pubs. She was awarded Arts Council Funding in 2021 to explore how neurodiversity can be made visible, explored and regulated through art. As a facilitator, she has delivered workshops in the community and for organisations such as The Southbank Centre, the V&A, DanceWest, Stratford Circus Arts Centre, Apples and Snakes and the National Autistic Society. She also co-created SLiDE Dance in Croydon as a platform for dance and creatively for all.

Audio descriptions of the residency can be listened to above.