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REACH: Lighting Up the Belgrade

Hayley Williams-Hindle has created REACH, an installation piece which honours venues that closed due to the pandemic

REACH is an installation piece which honours the closing of the spaces where we collectively gathered before Covid-19, including the Belgrade Theatre, and celebrates the step-by-step unlocking which we are now experiencing.

REACH was installed on Tues 16 March 2021, to mark the anniversary of the closing of the Belgrade Theatre. Hayley Williams-Hindle lit REACH in red, in solidarity with theatres across the country and the #LightItInRed campaign. REACH changes colour this week to signify the reopening of these spaces as we emerge step-by-step out of lockdown.

Williams-Hindle is a research-based interdisciplinary artist, neurodiversity advocate and researcher, brain and behavioural change practitioner, somatic practitioner, and a coach with a particular focus on neurodiversity. More information about her can be found on her website or on Twitter.

At the end of 2020, it was announced that Williams-Hindle was shortlisted for the Unlimited Commissions. She is one of 77 artists/companies chosen from 468 applicants. Her sculpture, Portrait of a Brain, will capture the neurodiverse cognitive profile through colour and light, and celebrate the personal life and premature death of its subject.

Williams-Hindle was selected to take part in the AD:Vantage Leadership programme, a development opportunity for d/Deaf, disabled or neurodivergent people who work in arts, culture or heritage. The programme was funded by Coventry City Council working in partnership with New Art West MidlandsCoventry Biennial and Warwick University.

Her piece In Praise of Fidgeting! was commissioned and supported by Coventry UK City of Culture 2021 and Unlimited, celebrating the work of disabled artists, with funding from Arts Council England and was one of five micro-works programmed as part of Southbank Centre’s Unlimited Festival in January 2021.

Williams-Hindle was inspired to create REACH after reading a poem of the same name, which can be downloaded here. REACH is the result of her asking the question “What happens when we close those places where we come together and how do we still reach out to one another under those circumstances?”

She hopes that the experience of REACH will provide a meditative moment to reflect on this last year and hold the anticipation of future times when we can reach out to one another.

Hayley would like to thank local family business Table Art for their facilitation and logistical support.