Hazel McMichael

come collaborate with me on a digital project exploring histories of “madness” and psychiatric treatment in the lives of people associated with the Bloomsbury group @charlestontrust.bsky.social

It’s Section 28 all over again….

Screenshot of Vicky's letter to the Prime Minister (page 1)

Screenshot of Vicky's letter to the Prime Minister (page 2)

(1/2) With a heavy heart, I have written to the Prime Minister to tender my resignation as a whip.

Whilst I will continue to support the government in delivering the change the country so desperately needs, I cannot vote in favour of the proposed reforms to disability benefits.

A Reform councillor calling children in care 'evil' is missing the point When a Reform councillor brands children in care as “evil”, it says more about political ignorance than the kids themselves. Here’s why.

It's my day off. I'm on my way to Glasgow. But that didn't stop me from writing a reactionary op-ed for @bigissue.com this morning after a Reform councillor referred to some children in care as “not just naughty children... but downright evil.”

Read my take below. ⬇️
www.bigissue.com/opinion/refo...

Flyer for VERSUS VERSUS Bloodaxe Books launch event with author photographs of Rachael Boast, Karthika Naïr, Chisom Okafor and Daniel Sluman

I'm excited to share details for the launch of VERSUS VERSUS: 100 poems by Deaf, Disabled & Neurodivergent Poets, hosted by Bloodaxe Books on their Youtube channel. DATE: May 22 at 7pm (BST). Link and details in comments.

Disabled activists gate-crash DWP event and send message to ministers: ‘Your consultation is a sham’ Disabled activists gate-crashed one of the government’s “sham” consultation events on its disability benefits green paper, and persuaded civil servants to let them put questions that ministers had …

www.disabilitynewsservice.com/disabled-act...

Networks like NSUN seem vital at this time. I’m so grateful for this space to connect and contribute to conversations on complex issues like this away from social media.

so excited to be part of this project and work alongside these wonderful people!

"Applying a 2% tax on assets over £10 million could raise up to £24 billion a year, Tax Justice claim. Around 22,000 people would be impacted. On the other hand, the DWP’s health and disability benefit cuts will put an extra 250,000 people, including 50,000 children, into relative poverty..."

I love telling students about #BorgDiem, Cy Weise and co’s disabled, crowdsourced dictionary of now nearly 300 words for self-ID.

YouTube video by Dolly Sen Benefit Cuts Will Kill

My 4 min video on proposed disability benefits cuts as a disabled person who works with the help of PIP, & how this is continuing previous governments' killing of disabled people through brutal DWP systems and policies.

youtu.be/lCr9RuTpOys

If you want to write to your Labour MP about disability benefit cuts but have limited spoons, here’s a template from @sensecharity.bsky.social you can use:

t.co/E8QB6EDi9o

Public backlash *does* work at times so let’s keep the pressure up. You too, non-disabled allies!

Afterwords: Pauline Oliveros airs tonight on BBC Radio 3 www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Feat. Stephanie Loveless from @deeplistening.bsky.social, @irenerevell.bsky.social @drlcagray.bsky.social, Maria Chavez and Annea Lockwood

Produced by @listentosteve.bsky.social

📸 Paula Court

Hazel faces the camera with an excited and exhausted expression in Duncan Grant’s studio at Charleston, standing in front of a mantelpiece painted with nude male figures and a bowl of water with two fish, next to a large antique glass and wood cabinet filled with ceramic objects.

I’m finishing up my first week in my dreamy new role as Curatorial Fellow at @charlestontrust.bsky.social with @accentuateuk.bsky.social - so excited to work with disabled co-producers on a crip, mad & queer project responding to the collection & its equally delightful and difficult histories.

A 2025 High Court ruling declared the DWP's incapacity benefit cuts "misleading" and unlawful, finding cost savings-not employment support-were the true motive, setting a precedent against opaque welfare reforms. • In 2024, Disability Rights UK and advocacy groups pressured the government to reconsider Work Capability Assessment (WCA) changes, warning they would push disabled people into poverty. • The 2017 Supreme Court case "MM v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions" ruled WCA descriptors discriminated against people with mental health conditions, setting a precedent that welfare reforms must not disproportionately harm disabled groups. • In 2023, Z2K's legal challenge overturned DWP plans to close the Independent Living Fund, citing Equality Act violations, reinforcing judicial scrutiny of welfare policies that cut disability

Just a reminder that disabled folk and organisations have incredible form for beating the DWP in court when they break our human rights:

It’s about time major institutions like Tate start following the example of smaller ones like @museumartcraft.bsky.social and actively address Eric Gill’s sexual abuse of his daughters. www.ditchlingmuseumartcraft.org.uk/event/eric-g...

Anne Carson · Beware the man whose handwriting sways like a reed in the wind This​ is an essay about hands and handwriting. I think of handwriting as a way to organise thought into shapes. I like...

‘The brain has its own handwriting, which depends on a certain protein. I can imagine my poor brain throwing up its hands in dismay to find all the good handwriting protein gone.’

Anne Carson on handwriting, online early from the next issue: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Behold this spectacular contemporary phenomenon wherein the collective courage of women - symbolized by individuals like Gisèle Pelicot and Carla Antonelli (here pictured) - stuffs patriarchy's shame back down the throats of its propagators. I could watch Antonelli's speech again and again.

An event poster featuring a picture of Laynie Browne and her new book cover 'Everyone and Her Resemblances'. The event details include: Thursday March 6th 2025, 6:30 pm, Stewart House room 2/3, Senate House Library. The image of Laynie is in Black and White and she is sat at the bottom of a wooden staircase. Her hair is resting in a loose plait on her shoulder and she is wearing a long necklace. The book cover is minimalist. The title is featured at the top right hand corner, and a small moth illustration sits in the middle.

A red-pink event poster with a slightly grainy background. The poster features the title 'Small Press Takeover' in bold capital letters, the visiting press 'Pamenar', alongside the date and time (06.03.2025/ 6.30PM - Stewart House Room 2, Senate House Library) from the left-hand side of the page you can see a black-and white hand holding a book reaching toward the title. Under the hand is a description of the event (a new series of launches, showcases, and experiments in UK independent press) and the names of performers (Laynie Browne, Rhys Trimble, and James Wilkes). At the bottom, my email address is listed (briony.hughes@rhul.ac.uk) please do get in touch if you have any questions or would like any additional information!

Extremely excited for the next Small Press Takeover - Pamenar Press will be launching Laynie Browne's Everyone and Her Resemblances! This poetic sequence is a conversation with an oracular presence, exploring blindness, dreams, and loss🦋

Donate to Postage to send 404 Labour MPs this postcard, organized by Dolly Sen Hello, I am Dolly Sen, an artist, writer, filmmaker and activist. I campaign on… Dolly Sen needs your support for Postage to send 404 Labour MPs this postcard

I want to send 400+ A5 postcards to all the Labour MPs. Can cover printing costs, but have a fundraiser for the postage. Thanks in advance :)

Activism like this is acting like a mosquito, small but irritating, and causing a tiny disruption to comfortable bullshit.

www.gofundme.com/f/postage-to...

A screenshot of the ProjectChange website with the blog post titled “state puppets & poetry”. A preview of the blog post reads “When the state becomes the corporate parent of a child, it also becomes our biographer.” Below this is a headshot of Hazel, a white person with short dark hair, holding a piece of paper with a woodcut illustration of a mouth to their mouth.

On #CareDay I’m sharing these meandering reflections I wrote last year on state ventriloquism and how I came to poetry through care experience for the wonderful ProjectChange, published alongside a bunch of brilliant blogs by #CEP www.projectchange.scot/2024/10/19/s...

The book's cover features a square-shaped artwork by Polish artist, Julian Stanczak, entitled 'Concurrent Colors'. The painting creates an optical illusion of vertical moving curved lines in red and blue, giving the impression of moving waves or sand dunes. At the edges of the painting the lines thin out so that they resemble a comb effect. The painting has a darker blue framing band around it, filling the extent of the cover. The title of the anthology 'VERSUS VERSUS' is in a large red font at the top of the cover, and the subtitle, '100 POEMS BY DEAF, DISABLED & NEURODIVERGENT POETS', is in a large blue font underneath the square painting. The editor's name, Rachael Boast, is in a smaller red font beneath the subtitle.

Coming soon! Versus Versus: 100 Poems by Deaf, Disabled & Neurodivergent Poets. Three months until official publication in the UK and Europe (22 July elsewhere), this anthology is up on the Bloodaxe Books website, with pre-orders via Amazon now available.

www.bloodaxebooks.com/ecs/product/...

The text reads: The Kindling Manifesto / We gather the kindling of care from the institutions of the family, church, and state, from the good that was not good and the care that was not care. From the refuse and the refused we build our nests of fire. / kindlingcare.substack.com. The text is overlaid on a painting by Goya, Fire at Night, 1793-94, oil on tinplate, 50 x 32 cm. A fire blazes through the dark behind a group of people dressed in white, clinging together and carrying one another.

I started a Substack and wrote a manifesto for fellow care experienced people seeking care, community, and identification beyond the institutions that have been responsible for our parenting. Note: this text reclaims discriminatory stereotypes and terms targeting care experienced and queer people.

Access to Work YouTube video by Wellcome Collection

fantastic conversation on interdependent networks of care in art and beyond @wellcomecollection.bsky.social www.youtube.com/live/KXaBnFT...

(image censored because the robot doesn’t like 80085)

A diagram of the fold lines used to make a paper fortune teller. The shapes contain the course information mentioned in the post, alongside two images: the woman carrying two rods in Pamela Colman Smith’s illustration of the The World tarot card, and the Codrus Painter’s vase painting of Themis in the role of the Pythia (Dephic Oracle), perching on a tripod looking down into a bowl she holds with a sprig of laurel in her other hand.

Join me in Making Oracles, a 4 week writing course exploring spiritual, political, historical, and practical ways of giving form to the future. We will be meeting on Tuesdays in May 6-8pm GMT on Zoom. Sliding scale pricing. More info / register here: www.beyondformcreativewriting.org/current-work...

Thank you! I just had to repost as the original alt text flagged the post as “adult content” - oops…

👀👇🔥🔥🔥

'One of the functions of art is to give people the words to know their own experience. There are always areas of vast silence in any culture, & part of an artist’s job is to go into those areas & come back from the silence with something to say.'

Ursula Le Guin

Gallery view of plexiglass cube filled with brownish liquid. Flanking either side on the walls are stacks of plastic bottles.

Perfect time for somewhere to show (and acquire) PISSED (2017) by trans artist CASSILS

The acrylic structure stored 200 gallons of the artist’s own urine collected since Trump’s rescission of an executive order allowing transgender students to use the bathroom matching their gender identities.