Last year we worked with 18 brilliant disabled creatives on our Young Artist Development Programme (YADP). Their work is featured in a new zine called “Department for Wonder and Play”, more about this here. In addition to the digital and physical publication, we’re going to spotlight each artist on the blog so you can get a deeper insight into their work and process. Over to Solidarity Coordinator Katie to introduce artist Cara Compass.

This post is all about Cara who created a brilliant written piece called ‘How to be Silly’. We’re including extracts from it in this post, and the full version’s available in the zine.

I chatted to Cara about their work and learnt that their creative journey started when they were just eight years old, writing stories on the family computer. Cara talked about why they’ve continued to develop their creative practice since then:

“I like how shareable it is. I like the idea of crafting an experience and then handing it to someone else with the aim of them having their own experience with the material.”

We often share artwork with people when it’s finished, but Cara also found it really important to involve their friends while creating ‘How to be Silly’. As part of the piece, Cara interviewed their friend Cerys Bradley, who talked about their relationship to silliness, Cerys says:

“Lockdown coincides with getting my autism diagnosis, so it was a very transitional time for me. Silliness is definitely something I grew into during that period. Probably because of the scariness of the situation, probably because I got to spend so much more time with my wife, but also almost certainly because of losing/unlearning some of the self-consciousness that comes with masking.”

While Cerys used silliness during a time that felt transitional and scary, Cara found it difficult to lean into being silly and playful as a disabled person because it made them feel self-conscious. Making ‘How to be Silly’ helped Cara to realise that they’re more playful than they originally thought – they described the process as “really cathartic”, and they hope they can continue experimenting with ways to be playful and silly.

We hope so too! At Touretteshero, we think play is incredibly important – so I was glad to hear that Cara learnt new things about their relationship to play. Thank you, Cara, for your brilliant contribution to the zine. I’ll leave you with the final words of ‘How to be Silly’:

“I was stunned that when I simply Googled ‘How to be silly’, there were many, many results of other people wanting to be silly and not feeling able to. If this has spoken to you, I really recommend taking a deep dive into it. I think writing this has helped me. I’m going to try to sing and dance and do silly voices. Just with my partner and my best friends for now. But maybe one day you’ll see me doing karaoke or being a clown onstage or doing silly dances with my mates. And maybe one day I’ll see you doing that too.”

Thank you so much to Cara for this great insight into your work. Look out for more Artist Spotlights coming soon.