From Asylums to Arts: The Evolution of Disability Arts in Surrey
- Jul 4
- 4 min read
The award of the Turner prize, one of the world’s most prestigious awards for visual arts, to London-based artist Nnena Kalu last December, for her "bold and compelling" sculptures and drawings, is a seminal moment for disability arts in the UK and globally. Kalu has made history as the first artist with a learning disability to win.
Nnena Kalu, 59, is an autistic, learning disabled artist with limited verbal communication. Charlotte Hollinshead, who has worked with her for 25 years, says, "This is a major, major moment for a lot of people. It's seismic. It's broken a very stubborn glass ceiling."
Here in Surrey, we are recognised as leaders in disability arts. Testament to this is that three of our current six Surrey-based ACE National Portfolio Organisations are disability-led. We have many brilliant disabled artists, like Nnena Kalu, making wonderfully imaginative work in the visual arts, theatre and dance, many supported by fabulous charities and arts organisations and all supported by DAiSY (Disability Arts in Surrey).
There is a historic context for this. As the population of London boomed in the 19th century, the capital became overcrowded and needed more space to deliver essential services. Surrey, adjacent and with plenty of open, green spaces, was identified as being the ideal location for building new institutions - that included psychiatric hospitals.
In total sixteen of these residential institutions were created in Surrey, with the Epsom Cluster of five psychiatric hospitals recognised as the largest concentration in Europe. For much of the twentieth century, tens of thousands of people lived within these hospital walls, often separated from wider society and largely absent from public consciousness.
The closure of these institutions during the 1980s and 1990s marked a profound turning point. Driven by the policy of “Care in the Community”, people who had previously lived in long-stay hospitals were increasingly supported to live independently within local communities. While the transition was often challenging, it also created opportunities for new approaches to support, inclusion and self-expression.
Throughout the 1970s, 80s and 90s, across Surrey, charities and community organisations emerged to provide services for former residents and other disabled people. Some of these drew on personnel and programmes formerly deployed in the hospitals, such as music therapy. In 1955, this had been pioneered in Surrey with the creation of Europe’s first music therapy centre at Horton Hospital, part of the Epsom Cluster.
These initiatives signalled a reaffirmed recognition of the therapeutic and transformative power of the arts. Day centres, community projects and independent charities began offering opportunities in painting, sculpture, music, drama, dance and creative writing. These activities were not simply recreational; they provided a means for people to find their voice, build confidence, acquire new skills, and participate more fully in society.
Over time, Surrey developed a particularly strong disability arts sector. Organisations such as Freewheelers, Bloomin’ Arts, Orpheus, Creative Response, Art Venture, Lockwood Arts, Art Matters, Halow, Arthouse Meath and others have championed the creative talents of disabled artists for decades, while networks such as DAiSY have been connecting artists, organisations and audiences across the county as well as championing disabled artists through festivals, performances and exhibitions.
Founded in Guildford in 1995 by Vicki Balaam, Stopgap grew from a local community initiative into an internationally acclaimed integrated dance company. By bringing disabled and non-disabled dancers together on equal terms, Stopgap has challenged assumptions about who can dance, and has helped redefine contemporary performance both nationally and internationally.
In September, Freewheelers Theatre & Media will present an installation, Us & Them, at the Horton Arts Centre in Epsom – located in the chapel of the former psychiatric hospital. Funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, the exhibition explores Surrey's forgotten asylum history through a series of striking paired portraits. Contemporary images of disabled Freewheelers company members, created through Victorian wet-collodion photographic techniques by photographer Emma Brown, will be displayed alongside patient portraits and archival information discovered in historic hospital records preserved at the Surrey History Centre. This archive of rescued institutional records from former psychiatric and learning disability hospitals is recognised as the largest of its kind in the English-speaking world.
The project was inspired, in part, by Freewheelers' proximity to the site of what was the Epsom Cluster. Drawing on archival records, oral histories and contemporary artistic practice, Us & Them invites audiences to reflect on the experiences of those who lived within Surrey's psychiatric hospitals while celebrating the creativity, resilience and achievements of disabled people today. It demonstrates how disability arts continue to evolve and enlist new partners.
Us & Them follows a 2018 DAiSY project called Flotilla, inspired by a remarkable collection of recently restored fantastical model boats made by James Henry Pullen (1836 – 1916) that featured in an exhibition dedicated to the artist at Watts Gallery. Known as the ‘Genius of Earlswood’, Pullen created an extraordinary body of work including paintings, drawings and sculpture which he made during the 66 years he spent at Royal Earlswood Hospital in Redhill. When it opened in 1855 as The Royal Earlswood Asylum, it was the UK’s first purpose-built institution for people with developmental disabilities.
For Flotilla, led by artsist Russell Jakubowski, disabled artists from the DAiSY network created their own fantasy craft that set sail across Woking’s Lightbox Gallery & Museum.
The story of disability arts in Surrey is ultimately one of adaptation and transformation. What began with the closure of institutions and the move towards community living has developed into a vibrant cultural movement. Through organisations, artists, projects and partnerships across the county, disabled people are not only reclaiming hidden histories but also shaping Surrey's cultural future. Culture is for everyone.
More recently, the Surrey Cultural Partnership, working with DAiSY and others, has sought to strengthen and build on this remarkable foundation by expanding networks and deepening connections with major cultural organisations such as the Lightbox, Watts Gallery and Farnham Maltings.
Comments