Welcome to Aaron Markwell our new Artist in Residence

Posted on: 2nd July 2024

Introducing Aaron Markwell who has been awarded Helix Arts first Disabled Artist Led Residency.

Photo Credit Fatima Sastre

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We are delighted to announce that Aaron Markwell has been awarded the Re:Visits Disabled Artist Led Residency.

The Re:Visits Residency is a new commission as part of our Re:Visits programme which celebrates and commemorates our 40th anniversary. Helix Arts often works with Disabled artists and most of our work has been with participants facing multiple and complex health inequalities.

This residency welcomes a North East artist who identifies as Disabled to join us for a participatory arts residency. We asked the artists applying to consider how they would work with local communities and how their work would be informed by our archive.

Aaron Markwell

Aaron is a multi-disciplinary, HIV+ queer artist who works mainly through dance and interior design. Their diverse practice has led Aaron to working in the public, education and commercial sectors, collaborating with well known international brands, artists and diverse local communities.

We asked Aaron to share initial thoughts on what he was most excited for about the residency and he told us: ‘I’m most excited to explore the archive with the communities here across the North East; recontextualising some of Helix Arts amazing work around HIV into 2024/25.’

Our Director Cheryl shares, ‘The Re:Visits artist’s residency has been in development for a long time, especially in my head! Listening and responding with disabled artists and specialists has been an interesting and critical journey for us. Now we have appointed Aaron I am excited about challenging the possibilities of our archive. This will be complemented by welcoming our new archive lead, Charlie Barron to the team too.’

Aaron will begin the in-house residency soon and will be delving into our archive which we are pleased to share is becoming more accessible thanks to the support of the Heritage Lottery Fund.