One Day Symposium – PACING & SPACING: Crip Process, Form and Reception in Art and Writing

One Day Symposium 

PACING & SPACING: Crip Process, Form and Reception in Art and Writing 

Date: 12 June 2026 

Time: 10-5 pm   

Location: QUAD, Sir John Hurt Cinema 

This one-day symposium will examine some of the ways in which divergent writing processes and forms have expanded the visual arts in recent years, proposing that fevered, personal, opaque literatures are emerging out of crip/D/deaf/disabled/mad/neurodivergent/sick practices. Writing practice at the intersection of crip time is gathered here, revealing that the experimental emerges out of necessity.

PACING In literature, pace or pacing is the speed at which a story is told—not necessarily the speed at which the story takes place; an example of psychomotor agitation where a person walks around a room because of stress, anxiety, concentration, etc.; (activity management) to manage symptoms of disability and illness; Verb present participle and gerund of pace; Noun pacing (plural pacings); The act of moving in paces, or their arrangement or timing.

SPACING a formal quality in writing, the placement of words on a page, visual spacing of dynamic elements in a work; a form of worlding, the creation of space; distance for safety, space to rest, time alone, or to congregate, commune; Verb present participle and gerund of space; Noun (countable and uncountable, plural spacings) The action of the verb space; A way in which objects or people are separated by spaces; The space between two objects or people; (science fiction) The activity of working or living in outer space; the occupation of a spacer. Adjective That inserts space between two objects.

Speaker List

Bella Milroy is an artist and curator who lives in Chesterfield, Derbyshire. They work responsively through mediums of sculpture, drawing, photography, text, writing, gardening and curating. They make work about making work (and being disabled) and not being able to make work (and being disabled). This process-based practice is fundamental to them as a disabled artist. They are continually motivated by concepts of public and private spaces and where the sick and/or disabled body exists within them, themes which emerge throughout much of their work.

Daisy Lafarge is a writer based in Glasgow. She is the author of the novel Paul (Granta 2021), which won a Betty Trask Award and was a  New York Times Editors’ Choice, and the poetry collection, ‘Life Without Air ‘(Granta 2020), which was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize and awarded Scottish Poetry Book of the Year. ‘Lovebug’, a book on the poetics of infection, was published in 2023. Her second novel is forthcoming in 2027.

Joseph Rizzo Naudi is a blind writer and facilitator based in London, United Kingdom. Joseph’s practice involves working closely with artists, writers and curators to make exhibitions and artworks more engaging through the creative use of blindness. He is a Techne-funded postgraduate researcher at Royal Holloway, where he is exploring artwork description, fiction technique and blindness as a generative approach. His writing has been supported by Arts Council England and the London Writers Centre.

Khairani Barokka is a writer, artist, arts consultant, translator and editor from Jakarta. Okka’s work centers disability justice as anticolonial praxis, environmental justice, and access as translation. Her commissions include the ICA, Wellcome Collection, Jakarta Biennale, Southbank Centre, and Serpentine Galleries. She has also been featured widely in national and international media, including on BBC Radio 2’s The Arts Show, BBC’s The Cultural Frontline, ABC Australia, The Hindu, The Times of India, and all major Indonesian newspapers and media.

Roy Claire Potter’s multidisciplinary practice spans experimental writing, vocal performance, drawing, sound art and installation.  Building stories from fragmented, intense images depicting moving bodies, domestic scenes or architectural settings.  An interest in communication constraints, subtext and narrative sequencing shapes this work, which often explores complex group dynamics or the aftermath of violent events, sometimes with a willful humour. Their works of live performance, published text, recorded audio and installations of drawing and sculpture have been presented internationally, and they frequently collaborate with musicians and sound artists for radio and festival contexts.

With additional contributions from Hannah Stanley, Lou Mensah/SHADE, Dr Jessica Potter, Lyle Waddell, Eleanor Goulding and Becky Beasley

BSL Interpretation will also be available for this event.

Refreshments will be provided during the breaks as part of your entrance ticket. Tickets for this event are being sold on a ‘pay what you feel’ basis with a minimum cost of £0 and a maximum cost of £12.

The event will also be live streamed. If you wish to book a livestream attendance ticket, please follow this link or see below. Customers who have purchased a live stream ticket will be sent the access link prior to the event.

Event Schedule

10:00 – 10:45: Delegate arrival. I Am Sitting in a Room by Alvin Lucier plays on vinyl, positioned on a stool on stage as a continuous sound piece.

10:50: Symposium begins.

10:50 – 12:00: Session 1 – Introduction, featuring presentations by Bella Milroy and Khairani Barokka.

12:00 – 12:30: Morning break. Interlude presentations by SHADE and Lou Mensah.

12:30 – 13:30: Session 2 – Presentations by Hannah Stanley and Roy Claire Potter.

13:30 – 14:30: Lunch break. Interlude presentation by Lyle Waddell.

14:30 – 15:30: Session 3 – Presentations by Daisy Lafarge and Joseph Rizzo Naudi.

15:30 – 16:00: Afternoon break. Interlude presentations by Eleanor Goulding and Becky Beasley.

16:00 – 17:00: Session 4 – Reflective panel and Q&A, chaired by Heather Peak.

17:00: Symposium ends.

Funded by Goldsmiths College, London, as part of Becky Beasley’s research grant: ‘Towards reducing ableist burdens and bridging silos by expanding understanding of crip time into the language and culture of the visual arts (and beyond)’. Professor Becky Beasley is the Lead Researcher on this project, working alongside Astrid Everall (Research Assistant) and Lyle Waddell (Research Consultant).

For full information on Beasleys exhibition and related events click here