Voice ≠ Speech: A Visual Conversation

Voice is not the same as speech. This workshop makes room for slower perceptual knowing through visual exchange: letting thinking gather visibly and making space for what doesn’t arrive at conversational speed.

Co-facilitated by Jade Foster and Cecilia Wee, the workshop is held largely as a visual conversation - working through marks, drawing, and writing rather than spoken discussion. Together, we invite art workers (artists, curators, and producers) and community organisers to reflect on care and access-centred practice, on what it might mean to hold articulation rather than rush to release it, and on the kinds of insight that arrive slower than speech.

Voice ≠ Speech: A Visual Conversation is part of the public programme for Leah Clements’ new commission Apophenia. In Apophenia, access is not an addition to the work but part of its form. This session takes that proposition into our own ways of producing, curating, organising, and creating.

Who is it for?

This workshop is open to people who have a care and access centred practice rooted in intersectionality and disability justice and activism, and/or to those who are exploring non-speaking, anti-ableist approaches, and/or people who are curious about the questions and values underlying these practices.

All forms of communication are welcome; no prior knowledge or active engagement with the subject are required. The workshop will be held in a relaxed environment that makes space for reflection, contemplation and fun.

Access

The workshop starts at 1pm, but we encourage you to come for registration and a relaxed start at 12.30pm. A break is scheduled at 2pm but participants are welcome to move around, take time out, and eat whenever they need to. Refreshments will be available throughout the workshop.

The workshop will be on the ground floor and has step free access. You’ll find the entrance to the workshop space at the back of the lobby and someone on the front desk should be able to point you in the right direction. The entrance to the venue is wheelchair accessible. You need to ring a doorbell for someone to let you in.

A member of staff will be present at the entrance and in the workshop for the whole event.

Public universal toilets are available on the ground floor. While the toilet is designed to be wheelchair accessible, this is through two sets of double doors.

Soft and hard seating options are available.

About the artists

(they/them) is a freelance British curatorial and business consultant of Afro-Caribbean heritage, born in Sandwell and based in Yarm, North Yorkshire. Their practice spans strategy, commissioning-led exhibition-making, research and artist development.

They are a Director of Black Curators Collective, building a collaboration with Yorkshire Sculpture International, and Editor of Voice ≠ Speech, an open-access journal from Soul Choice Editions exploring the distinction between voice and speech. Previously Curator at DASH (Disability Arts in Shropshire), they developed commissions and programmes centred on disability justice.

Independently now, they are supporting Polish artist Daniel Kotowski (Venice Biennale 2026, Polish Pavilion). Foster has worked with organisations including Glasgow International, CCA Glasgow, Peer Gallery, Harewood House and Hospital Rooms. Their writing appears in Art Monthly, ArtReview, LUX, Camera Austria International and Corridor8. They hold an MA in History of Art from UCL and are completing an MBA in Cultural and Creative Leadership at Teesside University.

(she/they) is a social practice artist, independent curator, researcher, equalities activist, and union organiser. Their research-based creative practice utilises printmaking, sound, text, creative pedagogies, performance, and conversation, to create experimental dialogues of resistance that connect generations, histories, and futures.

Working with professional and non-professional collaborators from historically marginalised backgrounds, Cecilia explores how anti-oppression and liberation can be cultivated in times of conflict and genocide, through creative making. Their practice is informed by formal and informal spaces of learning, such as cultural institutions, trade unions, and community organising. Cecilia has curated exhibitions, edited books, and led research with organisations including Arts Council England, NHS Grenfell Health and Wellbeing Service, Resonance FM, and Tate Modern. She is part of collaborative duo (CWxWC), with artist and activist William Crosby, investigating ecologies and economies through sound and listening. Cecilia is Tutor (Research) at the School of Communication, Royal College of Art.