Aaron Williamson
Fire Station Residency
2001-2005
Aaron Williamson’s work is informed by his experience of becoming deaf and by a politicised, yet humorous sensibility towards disability. At a University of California San Diego lecture in 1998, Williamson coined the term ‘Deaf Gain’ as a counter-emphasis to ‘hearing loss’.
Over the last twenty five years, Aaron has created more than 300 exhibitions, performances, interventions, videos, installations and publications for galleries, museums and festivals including the Venice Biennale, Italy; Nippon Performance Art Festival, Japan; DaDao Festival, China; ‘Intercambio’, Argentina; Columbia University Chicago, USA; Taipei Performance, Taiwan; ‘Eruptio Action Art’ Transylvania; ANTI Art Festival, Finland; the British School at Rome and many other European venues. Aarons work has been shown at Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Serpentine Gallery, Whitechapel Gallery, Victoria and Albert Museum, Hayward Gallery, South London Gallery, The Showroom, Gasworks, ICA (all London); Spike Island & Arnolfini Bristol; Ikon Gallery, Birmingham; Bluecoat & Liverpool Biennial; Chapter Arts, Cardiff.
Fire Station Residency 2001-2005
Acme's residency at the Fire Station is one of the most directly supportive schemes for artists in the United Kingdom, providing combined studio and living space at low rents, as well as a half rent residency for a deaf or disabled artist. This five year fixed-term residency scheme is intended to allow artists more time to concentrate on the development of their work and professional careers, and less time working to survive. 2001-2005 residents were selected by Angela Kingston (curator), David Panton (Co founder of Acme), Damien Robinson (artist and administrator), and Lindsay Seers (artist).