‘Languages of Intimacy’ was the first large-scale exhibition of visual work in the UK by British artist Bella Milroy and Indonesian artist Khairani Barokka, on display at Birmingham School of Art.
‘Languages of Intimacy’ explored interiority and play from two distinct sick-disabled perspectives. As process-oriented artists coming together through this collaborative project, ‘Languages of Intimacy’ explored the potential of illness and disability to facilitate intimacy in powerful and life-affirming ways. Existing in a world that does not value the presence of disabled people, the exhibition considered how intimacy emerges amongst isolation and marginalisation.
Khairani’s work explores Indonesian indigeneities and sick intimacies of crowded spaces within communal cacophony, juxtaposed in a surreal, playful manner with modernity and hypercapitalism. The practice is a rebuttal to the forced isolation and societal / medical neglect that disabled and ill people face, particularly the most vulnerable. The concept of intimacy was expanded through the exhibition, exploring the presence of global majority knowledge and highlighting the threat that colonial capitalism poses to precious indigenous relationships between human and non-human beings.
Bella’s practice explores internal worlds and spaces of domesticity via the lens of sickness and cripness, exploring intimacy via ways we interact with the creatures and other living beings we share space with. The work examines ways in which play and radical relationships with those we surround ourselves with are essential strategies for survival in a hostile environment. Both artists bring together the home, the sick-bed, family, familial care, love and respect for those who are human and non-human as fortifications against the systems that seek to undermine the sick-disabled experience at every turn.
About the Artists
Bella MilroyOpen accordion
Bella Milroy is an artist and writer based in their hometown of Chesterfield, North Derbyshire. They work responsively through mediums of sculpture, drawing, photography, text, writing, gardening and curating. They make work about making work (and being disabled) and not being able to make work (and being disabled). This process-based practice is fundamental to them as a disabled artist. They are continually motivated by concepts of public and private spaces and where the sick and/or disabled body exists within them, themes which emerge throughout much of her work.
They are passionate about contributing to the cataloguing of disabled artists, as well as advocating for better, more accessible and enjoyable working experiences for disabled artists across the industry. Examples of this are found in many of their curatorial projects such as Soft Sanctuary (2019-2021), Mob-Shop (2021), and Further Afield (2024). They were Artistic Associate at Level Centre, Rowsley, Derbyshire 2021-23. In the autumn of 2025 they will begin their post graduate research at the University of Leicester, exploring rural and disability arts and curatorial practices from 1989 to present. They will be carrying out much of this research using Wysing Arts Centre’s archive, where they will act as Wysing’s Research in Residence.
You can find out more about Bella’s practice via their website here.
Khairani BarokkaOpen accordion
Khairani Barokka (b. 1985) is a writer, artist, arts consultant, translator and editor from Jakarta. Khairani’s writing and art centres disability justice as anticolonial praxis. This often involves subverting expectations of formats such as captions—which in her work often takes the form of poetry, essays, and hybrid work—and practices such as translation. By focussing on affective flows of violence in colonial capitalism past and present, Khairani consistently links environmental and indigenous justice to disability justice, and to historical colonial archives and visual cultures, in the work. In particular, Khairani centres forms of disability justice that are rooted in Global South lived experiences, including her own.
She regularly teaches, mentors, and consults for arts organisations, and has a PhD by Practice in Visual Cultures from Goldsmiths, University of London. Among her honours, she has been a UNFPA Indonesian Young Leader Driving Social Change, a Delfina Foundation Associate Artist, an Artforum Must-See, and Associate Artist at the UK’s National Centre for Writing. In 2023, Okka was shortlisted for the Asian Women of Achievement Awards in the Arts and Culture Category. Her books include Indigenous Species (Tilted Axis), Stairs and Whispers: D/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back (Nine Arches, as co-editor), Rope (Nine Arches),Ultimatum Orangutan (Nine Arches), shortlisted for the 2022 Barbellion Prize, and 2024’s amuk (Nine Arches), longlisted for the Jhalak Prize. Annah, Infinite (Tilted Axis, 2025) is her creative nonfiction debut, and is a Bookseller Expert Pick.
You can find out more about Khairani’s practice via her website here.
The exhibition presents alongside an expanded public programme, details of which will be announced in due course. Check the ‘What’s On’ page of our website for further details.
A 3D virtual walkthrough of ‘Languages of Intimacy’ has been created by V21 Artspace.
Within the walkthrough, you can find high resolution images of Bella’s drawings and Khairani’s films, as well as the exhibition text (both in written and audio form) and written descriptions of the artworks.
Please note that the subtitles for Khairani’s film works, ‘Kerokan Pol’, must be manually enabled. You can do this using the closed caption button in the bottom left hand of the video player when you open the file. To change the language of the subtitles between English and Indonesian, go into the video settings.
Within the exhibition, the films in ‘Kerokan Pol’ are presented with both English and Indonesian subtitles visible at the same time. The films in the walkthrough will be updated in the coming weeks to reflect this intended form.
We have created a full access guide for ‘Languages of Intimacy’ which you can view below, alongside further information about Birmingham School of Art.
‘Languages of Intimacy’ is generously supported by Arts Council England, Paul Hamlyn Art Fund, The Elephant Trust, Shape Arts and DASH.