Intellectual disability seen through art... or the other way around?

Créahm is a non-profit organisation working with intellectually disabled people in an exclusively artistic context. An original initiative launched some 30 years ago with a multifaceted aim: to take these people temporarily out of specialized care, enabling them to widen their horizons, and letting people see them from a new angle.

The particularity of Créahm is that it doesn’t let just anyone in and it is not a form of occupational therapy either: it provides a context where artistic potential can blossom freely, be it with paints, clay or music.

Artists in their own right

The initiative is nothing but positive for intellectually disabled people. However, Créahm still struggles with the families. They often find it hard (as do the general public) to admit that these people have the same artistic potential as anyone else and can be artists in their own right. Just like with any child, parents have a hard time accepting the idea that their son or daughter can lead a life of their own outside the family circle. Moreover, as Véronique Chapelle, director of Créahm-Bruxelles, explains, “it’s hard enough for them to have a disabled child. But making an artist out of them, that’s just adding insult to injury!”

Belgian mums, Italian mamma’s and Moroccan oum’s all tend to overprotect their children. But the foreign community in Forest, on Créahm’s doorstep, seems to shy away from enrolling their children in a workshop. Misinformation? Language or cultural barrier? Generation gap? Today Créahm tries to reach out to these people by exhibiting the works made by the participants. Among them, we find Paloma Gonzalez and Nouzha Serroukh.

Paloma

Paloma has attended workshops for almost 20 years now. She bases her drawings on photos but gets rid of the details and emphasizes a feature or two. When we met her, she was busy drawing three characters, all with huge heads and lined clothes, using pastel crayons. This was only the beginning of a work that will probably take some time to complete. She spends two days a week at the visual arts workshop and has just recently joined the dance workshop.

Nouzha

Nouzha arrived at Créahm the same year as Paloma. She used to be extremely shy and wary of the people at the workshop. Now she comes two days a week, although she wouldn’t mind coming every day. She has created a soft and round universe with paints, chalk and clay. The legendary figures who inhabit her fantasy world all have hair like fingers and fingers like rocks. An enchanted planet that belongs just to her!

JULIE BOLTERYS - Drawing by Anne Ndaiziga

Event
As part of our campaign against discrimination the Centre d’Animation en Langues, asbl - Animatiecentrum voor Talen, vzw invites you to an evening on the Biouel boat in collaboration with Créahm. The works of Paloma and Nouzha will be there to see as well as those by Anne Ndaiziga. Catch a glimpse into their artistic universe!
When? Saturday October 25
Where? Biouel boat, Avenue du port / Havenlaan, 23 1000 Brussels