As Trust New Art Creative Fellow (2019-2020) I co-created The Factory alternative art school with 180 neurodiverse and mobility diverse children, young people and adults from across Nottinghamshire at The Workhouse, Southwell.

The Factory curriculum foregrounded social relationships and experimental processes. Casual Terms was my creative response to the current experiences of the people involved in The Factory and stories of marginalisation at The Workhouse in the past.

In Casual Terms we hear how workhouses, domestic servility and indentured labour formed a ‘complete system’ that oppressed people in the past and how inequality and precarity is enforced in the present. I directed, produced and co-edited Casual Terms. Tommy Chavannes shot and made animated visuals for the film. It was made as an installation for the Do It Different exhibition and is also a standalone film.

Collaging stock corporate film footage Casual Terms juxtaposes re-worked footage of precarious labour in present day DRC and Bangladesh with voices that narrate the historic deprivation of liberty at The Workhouse. The uncanny and at times dysmorphic gif-like visuals that are created co-opt the intended function in a disquieting manner.

The narrators hail from children’s homes, Nottingham Mencap and The Workhouse and the unique rhythm of their speech and timbre of their voices inspired the music. Incorporating field recordings made around the workhouse and during the projects, the music subverts the rhythms of menial routines and references different electronic music genres that draw on industrial activity as a creative source.

The title refers to the term ‘Casual people’ which was coined by artist Tyrone Nash to describe people without disability. Referring to language and the process of fixing conditions, in Casual Terms, the word term takes on multiple meanings. The film asks the viewer to reconsider the language and conditions imposed on people labeled as disabled and meet them on less casual terms.