Unbuilt Environments

About the project

Artist Alistair Gentry and researcher Anna Landre of the Global Disability Innovation Hub have brought together voices from East London’s disability communities to create their project Unbuilt Environments. 
Anna and Alistair used 3D software Unreal Engine to build a digital installation that acts as an area for expression, protest, and prototyping by disabled people. The project draws upon the social model of disability (the idea that disability is largely created by inaccessible environments), and the works fluctuate between dreams of utopia (criptopia) and apocalypse (cripocalypse) to envision new spaces that reflect disabled experiences of space. Through a series of discussion and model making workshops with a diverse array of disabled people in East London and beyond, they gathered these ideas and imagery for transformation into animations and virtual spaces. 

The installation showcases the works simultaneously on multiple screens in a mirrored room, a nod to the diversity and simultaneous commonality of disabled people’s bodyminds and experiences. It includes an audio description and commentary track by Anna and Alistair. 
 

About the artists

Alistair Gentry is an artist, writer, producer and educator who lives in East London and makes live art, performance lectures, artistic interventions, participatory experiences and live role-playing games, often focusing on communities and audiences outside of conventional gallery or performance spaces. He also works as a producer and researcher with disabled, LGBTQ, low income and other marginalised artists, and on projects related to debt relief and sustainable energy. He is part of the Julie’s Bicycle Creative Climate Leadership cohort.

Anna Landre is a wheelchair-using activist and researcher whose work focuses on what she calls the disability law "implementation gap," which is when good laws on paper fail to translate into better real-world outcomes for disabled people. Anna is a PhD candidate at the Global Disability Innovation Hub and works as the Global Research & Response Lead at The Partnership for Inclusive Disaster Strategies, a disaster response organization by and for disabled people. She has been featured in outlets including The New York Times, Washington Post, Forbes, and Vogue. In 2022 she was ranked 4th on the Shaw Trust's Disability Power 100, a list of the 100 most influential disabled people in the UK. 

Thanks to Richard Amm, Beyond Sight Loss, Bikeworks, Vicky Blencowe, Aksa Canolliaksa, Ashrafia Choudhury, Criptic Arts, Aqua Ephraim, Pardeep Gill, Shahid Latif, Jamie Lawson, Chris Miller, Owais Niaz, Davies Simbayi, Natalie South-Law, Ying To, Yusuf Zeyreck.