THE DAVID HEVEY GUIDE TO WHAT’S ON
THE NDMAC WEBSITE, EXPLORING HOW WE TOLD
THE HERITAGE STORY OF THE FIGHTS FOR RIGHTS
Overview
NDMAC is about reflecting that joy and passion of campaign culture: the fight by disabled people to remove barriers and live full lives. The period of our collection focuses on the struggles that built up to the passing of the Disability Discrimination Act – but goes far beyond that, too, into personal recollections of wider fights for
rights.
The Catalogue
The catalogue which was photographed inhouse and with data added by Alex Cowan, our Head of Collections and Archives, has over 1,500 newly digitised items and several Wow factors, in particular the collection from Keith Armstrong. These were left as part of Keith’s estate when he passed away in 2017 and I spent long nights in our cold storage going through photographic neg after neg and finding such wonderful witness-to-history moments in them. Keith was on so many of the landmark demos – Block Telethon, DAN protests, CAT protests and many more – and, hugely importantly for the movement, he took his camera along! We have shared this unique body of work with the world in many projects so far, including CRIP ARTE SPAZIO: THE DAM IN VENICE 2024 and in our RIGHTS CUTS ACTION: Shape Open 2025.
The Oral History films…. with more to come
The NDMAC archive focuses on personal stories of the struggle, with organisational heritage records kept by organisations like Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled
People. So we have gone for lived-experience oral histories showing a variety of activists who shared their powerful stories with us of what it was like inside the movement fighting for justice and rights. People like Allan Sutherland, John Kelly, Sue Elsgood and others shared their powerful and amazing life stories with us on this site.
The three chronologies of the disabled peoples’ movement
Three different approaches to the timeline of the disabled peoples’ movement. First, the great Judy Hunts No Limits, which provides one of the great overviews of the disabled peoples’ movement, goes deep into the organisational and strategic developments of the movement. Second one, which is very different, is the Crippin timeline of cartoons parodying so much able-bodied nonsense; a timeline put together by NDMAC working with Crippen (aka Dave Lupton). And the final one produced by NDMAC is written by Alex Cowan and Allan Sutherland, as a series of significant milestones for the lay reader. The Piss On Pity Graphic Novel also has a sense of a chronology of ideas and fights, too.
The Piss On Pity graphic novel
I was part of the fights-for-rights movement back in the day and photographed and filmed many of the protesters and demos. It was a life changing experience for me and I adored these people, whom we have recreated in a graphic novel about the fight for rights. We wanted to show as fully rounded characters, such as Mike Oliver whom I really adored: many were like me – disabled, working class, radical and with nothing left to lose. There were so many great people, like Mike, who were radical, kind, generous, had a great sense of humour and were able to have a laugh, and yet had huge integrity and wisdom. In my view, proper old school radicals!
The Crips V Coppers cardboard theatre
showing the battle(s) of Westminster bridge by DAN, which were, like Block Telethon, leading events bringing together disabled struggle and important media coverage. This is a way of creating a back-to-analogue home-use game for all ages to play around with, while learning about the very serious issues of disabled people fighting for access in the landmark events of the 1990s, and in particular the protestors stopping the buses on Westminster Bridge, with Parliament right next to it also being lobbied to bring in full civil rights for disabled people.
The Video Game: Shaken Not Stirred
Inspired by Tony Heaton OBE’s landmark disability art as political intervention piece, called Shaken Not Stirred, NDMAC has created a retro-feel video game in which players control an avatar of artist Tony Heaton to throw a prosthetic leg and smash the pyramid of charity cans, colliding with surrounding artworks by Heaton and figures from the disability rights protests to score points which players then submit to a leaderboard. This is video game as art, about art of protest. See Liam Hevey’s blog about creating the piece.
The Tabletop Role Play Game: Clerk & Dagger
Clerk & Dagger is a ttrpg of rogue accountants and cursed coins, created by Liam Hevey. Players take on the role of Clerks, booted from the defunded Accounting Guild and now out for revenge against the Foes who despoil the sunless city of Dis. Sharpen your dagger, polish your abacus, and begin the audit! Download the 90-page NDMAC-print-run of PDF of Clerk & Dagger containing all the information needed to play, including nine premade Foes GMs can pitch against the Clerks. It’s a hilarious game exploring power and how to get it in a late-capitalist audit-as-control nightmare.
The wellbeing zones and repository at our partners, Buckinghamshire New University (booking on this NDMAC site)
We have developed a learning zone with Bucks University, with NDMAC (and NDACA) supporting the development of the Bucks Uni Wellbeing Zones. This zone has NDMAC artworks, protest tees, crip drip and more. Bookings to visit the accompanying Repository can be made via this website.
The NDMAC website cardboard protest aesthetic
After much research and development, we alighted on a stylistic idea to make the website design feel like it had come out of the movement itself – so cardboard, tape, scrawled signs and so on, but beneath which was these beautiful hi-res catalogue, film, graphic novel and other discoveries. Much of the movement ephemera we have collected came from the analogue times and we have conveyed that through these stylistic choices.
How the elements fit together – we wanted to convey the story of crips fights for civil rights
So all the elements are about exploring power: power then, and power now. From the Keith Armstrong collection where he seemed to be on every major demo, to the Clerk & Dagger table top role play game where players occupy a game world of little power for the outsider, reflecting how difficult the pursuit of justice is now, we wanted to create tools for a range of users online needs to explore, enjoy and learn from.
NDMAC links to other great heritage locations too
As our NDMAC (and NDACA) Head of Archives and Collections Alex Holmes says, we are by no means the only heritage story of the disabled peoples’ movement - for example, look at the great work GMCDP and CDS have pioneered and undertaken, with links to both organisations on this website.