Acting up
Musician, actor and performance artist Mat Fraser recently turned his attention to the portrayal of disabled people in museums. Simon Stephens meets him
“I was a speed punk-metal heavy rock-style drummer for many years” is not the type of sentence you usually associate with someone connected with museums, but Mat Fraser has had an unusually varied career.
Delegates at this month’s Museums Association annual conference will get the chance to find out more about the musician, actor and disability rights activist when he gives a keynote performance in Cardiff on 10 October.
Fraser, who was born with phocomelia of both arms as a result of his mother being prescribed thalidomide during her pregnancy, will be there to showcase Cabinet of Curiosities: How Disability Was Kept in a Box.
This collaborative project, which was instigated by the Research Centre for Museums and Galleries (RCMG) at the University of Leicester, featured a number of sold-out performances by Fraser at museums earlier this year.
The aim of Cabinet of Curiosities was to create an artistic work that would explore the representation of disability in museums. It grew from more than a decade of work at the RCMG that aimed to give disabled people a higher profile in museums by encouraging new approaches to the representation of disability history, arts and culture.
Fraser’s varied career and the force of his personality made him perfect for the project. He started off playing drums in several bands and toured extensively in Europe. It was after returning to London in the late 1980s and joining a reggae band called The Grateful Dub that he started to become interested in disability rights.
“I realised that this was really the voice I had and that what I wanted to do was use that voice for a bit of social change through the medium of entertainment,” Fraser says.
He later took up acting and joined Graeae, a disabled-led theatre company. This resulted in work in television as an actor and presenter. He was also hosting cabaret nights in London and, while appearing in a play in New York, became interested in the city’s burlesque scene.
“It blew me away,” Fraser says. “I knocked on their collective door and asked to join, becoming their freaky British cousin. I ended up hosting loads of events.”
It was around this time that Fraser first had contact with Jocelyn Dodd and Richard Sandell from the University of Leicester, who asked him to do some disability consultancy. Following this, they got in touch and asked if he would be interested in developing a show about the representation of disability in museums.
“What was important was that he can take an audience with him,” says Dodd, who adds that Fraser is well respected within the disabled and arts communities.
“His work is gritty but not confrontational, although it is challenging. He is also good at working in partnership and we wanted someone who would be at the centre of the process and engaging people.”
The commission gave Fraser the chance to delve into the stored collections at three London museums – the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons, the Science Museum and the museum at the Royal College of Physicians.
“I had a brilliant time, and I learned loads,” Fraser says. “I quickly saw the central drive of my talk and my show.”
One of his main aims was to redress the imbalance in how museums have traditionally represented disability. He was surprised at how old-fashioned they are, with many struggling to escape the influence of the Victorian era when they were founded.
Medical museums were identified by the RCMG as having a particular problem, despite holding significant collections relating to physical and mental differences.
“They don’t see disabled people as fully human, they see them as a problem that needs fixing by the wonders of medical science,” says Fraser, although he is more positive about the people who work in the museums.
“The curatorial staff are happy to have the past given a good spanking and help redress the imbalance.
“We’re bored of hearing what Victorian dad thought about everything. We want to hear what black and gay people think, what women and disabled people think.”
Fraser says his research turned up some unsettling images, such as photographs of physically disabled people in great distress in mental institutions. More positively, there was the image from Whitby Museum of Robert ‘Stumper’ Dryden, a 19th-century disabled fisherman.
“It shows him as a fully rounded person who had his impairment included, but he wasn’t defined by it, even though his name was Stumper Dryden,” Fraser says.
But overall, Fraser feels the poor representation of disabled people in museums reflects their portrayal in wider society.
“Disabled people’s voices have been absent from official versions of history,” he says. “In every possible outlet of history, our voices are absent or, at best, we’re spoken about by others and always inaccurately.”
He is, however, optimistic about the future and how museums can better represent disabled people. The way forward is obvious in one sense – more -disabled people need to become involved in studying, interpreting and displaying museum collections.
“One of the conclusions I make in the show is that, historically, exhibitions to do with disability have overwhelmingly been done by non-disabled researchers and curators who are not going to see everything.
“I would urge disabled people to engage with their local museum and talk about their local history through that museum coupled with their experience. This would mean that disabled people can feel they own history and themselves, and therefore -society, in the same way the white middle-class able-bodied male, the person whose image the world was made in, gets their point across.”
Fraser says things are improving in the entertainment business, although more slowly than he expected when he first became involved in disability activism more than 20 years ago. He points to disabled actors who are getting TV roles such as Liz Carr in Silent Witness, and Coronation Street’s Cherylee Houston. “Visibility is followed by accurate portrayal,” he says.
“We are at a transition point in the entertainment industry so I expect, in 10 to 15 years, for things to be a lot better. I hope this extends into museums.”
Fraser recently landed a part in American Horror Story, a US TV series that has more than three million viewers and has won several awards. He has been filming in New Orleans for the past few months and the fourth series premieres soon.
So what can delegates at the MA conference expect to see when Fraser appears in Cardiff? He says he originally thought the performance would be a kind of comedy cabaret, but quickly realised it wasn’t inherently funny. He describes it as more of a funky lecture.
“It struck me how important it was to get the message across, and how unimportant my ego was,” Fraser says. “I mean, I hope it’s great, but it’s not the Mat Show.
“The subject matter is really important, rich and wonderful, and me and my need for tap dancing shouldn’t get in the way. I still sing a punk song, a rap and a musical theatre song at the end, so I’ve managed to get enough of my ego into it, but I’m driving a message through. It’s important. I live for social justice – it’s what I do.”
The Museums Association annual conference takes place in Cardiff on 9-10 October
His career has included stints as a musician, actor and performance artist. Between 1980 and 1995, he was a drummer with several bands, including Fear of Sex, The Reasonable Strollers, Joyride, The Grateful Dub and Living in Texas.
He is a patron of Graeae, a disabled-led theatre company with which he has performed and toured.
Fraser played the drums in a performance of Ian Dury’s Spasticus Autisticus at the 2012 Paralympics opening ceremony, and with Coldplay during the closing ceremony.
Most recently, he has been filming for the fourth series of the US television show American Horror Story, which premieres this month.
Cabinet of Curiosities: How Disability Was Kept in a Box is a collaborative project involving artist Mat Fraser, the Research Centre for Museums and Galleries (RCMG) at the University of Leicester, the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons, the Science Museum, the Royal College of Physicians and disability arts organisation Shape.
The project grew from more than a decade of work at the RCMG aimed at stimulating and shaping new approaches to the representation of disabled people and disability history, arts and culture.
Fraser was commissioned to create an artistic work that engaged with museum collections and experts in medical history, museums and disability.
He explored each collection, sifting through a wide range of material, to reveal the part that medical advances and the development of the medical profession have historically played in shaping public perceptions of disability.
The resulting performances, which used film and music hall pastiche as well as poetry and song, took place at the Royal College of Physicians, the University of Leicester, the Science Museum and London’s Hunterian Museum.
Fraser has been working with Amgueddfa Cymru (National Museum Wales) on the performance he is developing for the Museums Association conference in Cardiff on 10 October.
Delegates at this month’s Museums Association annual conference will get the chance to find out more about the musician, actor and disability rights activist when he gives a keynote performance in Cardiff on 10 October.
Fraser, who was born with phocomelia of both arms as a result of his mother being prescribed thalidomide during her pregnancy, will be there to showcase Cabinet of Curiosities: How Disability Was Kept in a Box.
This collaborative project, which was instigated by the Research Centre for Museums and Galleries (RCMG) at the University of Leicester, featured a number of sold-out performances by Fraser at museums earlier this year.
The aim of Cabinet of Curiosities was to create an artistic work that would explore the representation of disability in museums. It grew from more than a decade of work at the RCMG that aimed to give disabled people a higher profile in museums by encouraging new approaches to the representation of disability history, arts and culture.
Fraser’s varied career and the force of his personality made him perfect for the project. He started off playing drums in several bands and toured extensively in Europe. It was after returning to London in the late 1980s and joining a reggae band called The Grateful Dub that he started to become interested in disability rights.
“I realised that this was really the voice I had and that what I wanted to do was use that voice for a bit of social change through the medium of entertainment,” Fraser says.
He later took up acting and joined Graeae, a disabled-led theatre company. This resulted in work in television as an actor and presenter. He was also hosting cabaret nights in London and, while appearing in a play in New York, became interested in the city’s burlesque scene.
“It blew me away,” Fraser says. “I knocked on their collective door and asked to join, becoming their freaky British cousin. I ended up hosting loads of events.”
It was around this time that Fraser first had contact with Jocelyn Dodd and Richard Sandell from the University of Leicester, who asked him to do some disability consultancy. Following this, they got in touch and asked if he would be interested in developing a show about the representation of disability in museums.
“What was important was that he can take an audience with him,” says Dodd, who adds that Fraser is well respected within the disabled and arts communities.
“His work is gritty but not confrontational, although it is challenging. He is also good at working in partnership and we wanted someone who would be at the centre of the process and engaging people.”
The commission gave Fraser the chance to delve into the stored collections at three London museums – the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons, the Science Museum and the museum at the Royal College of Physicians.
“I had a brilliant time, and I learned loads,” Fraser says. “I quickly saw the central drive of my talk and my show.”
One of his main aims was to redress the imbalance in how museums have traditionally represented disability. He was surprised at how old-fashioned they are, with many struggling to escape the influence of the Victorian era when they were founded.
Medical museums were identified by the RCMG as having a particular problem, despite holding significant collections relating to physical and mental differences.
“They don’t see disabled people as fully human, they see them as a problem that needs fixing by the wonders of medical science,” says Fraser, although he is more positive about the people who work in the museums.
“The curatorial staff are happy to have the past given a good spanking and help redress the imbalance.
“We’re bored of hearing what Victorian dad thought about everything. We want to hear what black and gay people think, what women and disabled people think.”
Fraser says his research turned up some unsettling images, such as photographs of physically disabled people in great distress in mental institutions. More positively, there was the image from Whitby Museum of Robert ‘Stumper’ Dryden, a 19th-century disabled fisherman.
“It shows him as a fully rounded person who had his impairment included, but he wasn’t defined by it, even though his name was Stumper Dryden,” Fraser says.
But overall, Fraser feels the poor representation of disabled people in museums reflects their portrayal in wider society.
“Disabled people’s voices have been absent from official versions of history,” he says. “In every possible outlet of history, our voices are absent or, at best, we’re spoken about by others and always inaccurately.”
He is, however, optimistic about the future and how museums can better represent disabled people. The way forward is obvious in one sense – more -disabled people need to become involved in studying, interpreting and displaying museum collections.
“One of the conclusions I make in the show is that, historically, exhibitions to do with disability have overwhelmingly been done by non-disabled researchers and curators who are not going to see everything.
“I would urge disabled people to engage with their local museum and talk about their local history through that museum coupled with their experience. This would mean that disabled people can feel they own history and themselves, and therefore -society, in the same way the white middle-class able-bodied male, the person whose image the world was made in, gets their point across.”
Fraser says things are improving in the entertainment business, although more slowly than he expected when he first became involved in disability activism more than 20 years ago. He points to disabled actors who are getting TV roles such as Liz Carr in Silent Witness, and Coronation Street’s Cherylee Houston. “Visibility is followed by accurate portrayal,” he says.
“We are at a transition point in the entertainment industry so I expect, in 10 to 15 years, for things to be a lot better. I hope this extends into museums.”
Fraser recently landed a part in American Horror Story, a US TV series that has more than three million viewers and has won several awards. He has been filming in New Orleans for the past few months and the fourth series premieres soon.
So what can delegates at the MA conference expect to see when Fraser appears in Cardiff? He says he originally thought the performance would be a kind of comedy cabaret, but quickly realised it wasn’t inherently funny. He describes it as more of a funky lecture.
“It struck me how important it was to get the message across, and how unimportant my ego was,” Fraser says. “I mean, I hope it’s great, but it’s not the Mat Show.
“The subject matter is really important, rich and wonderful, and me and my need for tap dancing shouldn’t get in the way. I still sing a punk song, a rap and a musical theatre song at the end, so I’ve managed to get enough of my ego into it, but I’m driving a message through. It’s important. I live for social justice – it’s what I do.”
The Museums Association annual conference takes place in Cardiff on 9-10 October
Mat Fraser at a glance
His career has included stints as a musician, actor and performance artist. Between 1980 and 1995, he was a drummer with several bands, including Fear of Sex, The Reasonable Strollers, Joyride, The Grateful Dub and Living in Texas.
He is a patron of Graeae, a disabled-led theatre company with which he has performed and toured.
Fraser played the drums in a performance of Ian Dury’s Spasticus Autisticus at the 2012 Paralympics opening ceremony, and with Coldplay during the closing ceremony.
Most recently, he has been filming for the fourth series of the US television show American Horror Story, which premieres this month.
Cabinet of Curiosities at a glance
Cabinet of Curiosities: How Disability Was Kept in a Box is a collaborative project involving artist Mat Fraser, the Research Centre for Museums and Galleries (RCMG) at the University of Leicester, the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons, the Science Museum, the Royal College of Physicians and disability arts organisation Shape.
The project grew from more than a decade of work at the RCMG aimed at stimulating and shaping new approaches to the representation of disabled people and disability history, arts and culture.
Fraser was commissioned to create an artistic work that engaged with museum collections and experts in medical history, museums and disability.
He explored each collection, sifting through a wide range of material, to reveal the part that medical advances and the development of the medical profession have historically played in shaping public perceptions of disability.
The resulting performances, which used film and music hall pastiche as well as poetry and song, took place at the Royal College of Physicians, the University of Leicester, the Science Museum and London’s Hunterian Museum.
Fraser has been working with Amgueddfa Cymru (National Museum Wales) on the performance he is developing for the Museums Association conference in Cardiff on 10 October.