RECLAIM // Invisible Bodies Community Art Project

Exeter, Devon, United Kingdom

£160

raised so far

We are raising funds

7 supporters

Donate

Crowdfunder is secure

Your payment details are protected

Always on

This project successfully funded on 9th December 2025, you can still support them with a donation.

Aim

Together, we will create an immersive, empowering artwork on the RECLAMATION of differently-abled communities.

Invisible bodies are falling through the chasms in our systems.

Invisible bodies with invisible needs, unrecognised and unacknowledged.

This artwork is a social and personal reclamation of their visibility, and their value.

It is an embodied, expressive rally cry to reclaim ourselves from broken systems - where chronically ill, neurodiverse & medically-traumatised individuals fall into the cracks and are systemically gaslit and overlooked.

Keynote slide showing the artist to the right painting a large, vibrant canvas on the floor. To the left, the question: “Who *are* the invisible bodies?” And the answer: “When our sociopolitical systems favour male-based medical research, hormonal rhythms & performance attributes, this is primarily who falls throigh the cracks: • Women, non-binary & trans people • Those with chronic illnesses (often multiple conflicting conditions) • Those who have suffered an iatrogenic event and/or trauma • Those with neurodivergencies. Underneath the image of the artist, it reads: “Often, an invisible individual will fall into *all* of these categories. I am one such person.”

Hi and welcome! My name is Zoë and I'm an artist, author, and creative embodiment coach.

I create large-scale painted canvases and installations that serve as energy landscapes to help us connect to all the parts of ourself and our world, both seen and unseen.

For a long time now, I've been drawn to create a powerful piece that speaks to my own experience of chronic illness and living, breathing, working, and being in a disabled or differently-abled body and brain. 

The world being, what is right now, I have felt pulled to merge my own experiences with those of others, whether they identify as being disabled, differently-abled, chronically ill, neurodivergent, living in a different body, or something else entirely.

Because whatever the identification, the common themes that come up over and over again are invisibility and disempowerment, and my RECLAIM | Invisible bodies project is fuelled by these, simultaneously aiming to flip the script for us individually, as a community, and within the greater collective - including our systems. 

Heading reading “This artwork comprises 3 parts.”

I believe that art has the ability not just to highlight an issue, but to transmute it in real, visceral and rippling ways. Your donation to this crowdfunder will help me to plan, organize, collaborate, purchase materials, create, market, and bring to fruition all of the following parts of this project:

The artwork comprises a canvas installation, community-representative workshop, & performance-piece video.

Keynote slide showing the artist to the right painting a long canvas of several metres, using her whole body. To the left, the heading “A canvas installation” and description: “ A 2m x 5m hanging canvas, exploring the emotional-embodied, gesturally-expressive response & somatic transmutation of existential invisible-body energies. • Sculptural & affective inclusions to the canvas will come from the community-representative workshop.”

Keynote slide showing a woman’s upper body lying on a large piece of highly colourful, expressively-scribbly pastel art. The woman has pastel colour on her chin, and she is looking directly at the camera. To the left reads: “ 2. A COMMUNITY WORKSHOP & CALL-OUT Employing trauma-informed bodywork techniques alongside my SacredExpression Method, self-proposed participants will explore & express exactly how it feels within an invisible body, and how they will begin to reclaim their inherent value. • Words and phrases of reclamation will also be collated from the larger community to be added to the work.”

Keynote slide showing the artist to the right sitting on a large, lagoon-blue canvas with bold, expressive marks. To the left reads: “ 3. A PERFORMANCE -PIECE VIDEO • Demonstrating my intuitive, highly intentioned energy transmutation approach, I will take footage of my entire painting process. • Edited together with consensual photos from the community workshop, a final performance video of under 5 minutes will accompany the final physical artwork.”

INTENDED AUDIENCE:

This artwork is primarily for every differently-abled person who has been systematically let down, abused and disowned by the systems that were supposed to support them. 

The piece as a whole, speaks specifically to:

  • The physically, emotionally and neurologically “disabled” persons who fought with every ounce of strength they had for support, only to have it refused or taken away. 
  • Anyone and everyone justifiably outraged at the lack of humanity within our government systems and blatant disregard for the quality of human life over and above our capitalist aspirations and outcomes. 
  • The medical and healthcare community, from undergraduate to specialist, and academicians.

Audience goals:

  • Get people talking, even if they disagree, or it hits a nerve.
  • See people sharing their visit to the artwork on social media and giving their impressions.
  • Have people join in with the activities and give positive feedback about their experience
  • Engage with the community about these crucial, painful issues in an empathic, compassionate and expansive way.
  • Garner positive local (and national) media coverage 

Exhibition Venue & Details:

Keynote slide showing intended installation site to the right, a large floor-ceiling interior shot, with a full-length window on the left and current children’s library furnishings to the right. The text on the left reads: “ INSTALLATION SITE • Former Children's Library / Surridge's Gallery, Princesshay, central Exeter. One of several empty commercial units in the central shopping area of Exeter, this site provides a wonderful opportunity independent of institutional bias, to showcase this systemically-challenging work. • Crucially, it is also accessible and provides adequate space for supporting activities, such as creative and wellbeing workshops.”

I have chosen an empty commercial unit within the Princesshay shopping area, in central Exeter. The unit recently temporarily housed the Children’s Library, and before this was Surridge’s Gallery. It is a large, modern space with easy access, is inviting and well-lit, and within short range of parking and amenities of all kinds.

The exhibition will comprise:

- An immersive, interactive art installation embodying the project’s potent themes & utilising expressive pieces from the community workshop.

- A performance-piece video expressing and summarising the message of the exhibition, to include community comments of personal reclamation.

- A ”Wall of Power” showing specific expressive pieces of the workshop participants’ alongside an invitation to add your words of reclamation to the wall on large post-it notes.

Possible Extras:
If support allows, I would also like to include some small community empowerment sessions within the exhibition space, including but not limited to a:

- Drumming & Voice Activation circle

- Somatic, trauma-informed body-love workshop

- Shamanic journeying & vision-meditation

- Playfully-embodied, gesturally-expressive session

TIMELINE:

  • Start: Mid/end October 2025
  • End: Mid April 

Exhibition Dates (TBC): 23rd March - 5th April 2026

Your donation and enthusiastic support will make this happen! Please check out the rewards on offer, and be sure to share this page with your friends 💗🙏.

Thank you!

Funding method

Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made

Report project

Show your support

Donate

Payment and personal details are protected