Pictures for the Beehive

About

Saturday 16th July - 9.30am-4pm
Sunday 17th July - 12.30pm-3pm
This is an exhibition of portraits, mostly drawings.

Every portrait is of someone who attends The Beehive Centre, a therapy and activity centre in Dorset run by the charity Diverse Abilities. The people who go there have physical and learning disabilities, and for most of them it is the very first time anyone has ever drawn or painted them.

This process – of quiet attention, whether in drawing or being drawn, or just in being there – has been an extraordinary experience for everyone who has taken part in this project.

People with profound disabilities, our neighbours, are so often unseen. We hope this exhibition will change this invisibility.

This Roadshow aims to raise money as well as awareness. Any donations will go towards a therapy pool at The Beehive, where people who desperately need hydrotherapy can access it.

Hydrotherapy has immense physical benefits but the emotional and psychological benefits are also staggering. Imagine that being in water is the only time you will ever experience being held by someone – to sway to music – or enjoy any freedom from a bed or chair.

Adults with learning disabilities are particularly vulnerable to social exclusion.

This exhibition and the building of the hydrotherapy pool both aim to tackle this and to bring to the people of The Beehive equity of visibility and equity of health.