Claire Cunningham

“I really love turning into this sort of four-legged creature. All the little places that you can wedge the crutch really right into a corner or into a crack. In Scotland, we’d say nooks and crannies. I get so lost in that sort of play…when the ground really becomes… my companion.”

In this new solo Cunningham asks what it is to wander. To seek to scale great heights. What can be learned from those of us who reach for the ground through crutches as 4-legged creatures? What it means to keep going and, importantly, the wisdom to know when to turn back. 

Led by her lived-experience as a disabled person, her memory of training as a classical singer, knowledge drawn from the world of mountaineering, and Gustav Mahler’s “Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen”,  Claire Cunningham sets out to traverse known and unfamiliar landscapes. Through a crip* lens, Cunningham invites us to pay closer attention to the ways we navigate the physical world, alongside profound loss and change in our lives. 

*Crip is a political and cultural identity embraced by some disabled individuals