Join us at Birmingham School of Art (B3 3BX) or online for an in-depth conversation with the artists of ‘Languages of Intimacy’, who will be talking about their process-oriented practices, the experience of creating the exhibition, and broader themes of intimacy, play, crip time and the messiness of institutional and non-institutional practice in relation to the disabled body and experience.
Further details will be shared in the run up to the event.
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.
For access information about ‘Languages of Intimacy’ and Birmingham School of Art you can view a pre-show document at the links below. The document contains information about the gallery space and the contents of the exhibition.
