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A chat with Oily Cart on how Sensory Theatre grows inclusion and access
ET’s Mary Pollard joins Maka Marambio de la Fuente, Oily Cart’s Access and Wellbeing Officer, to learn about their work and explore their sensory At Home show, A World Beneath Us.
It’s a glorious autumn day and the sun is shining as I cross the playground of a primary school and ascend to the offices of Oily Cart, one of the most renowned UK theatre companies offering work for young people. Today we’re actually going to be exploring underground with Access and Wellbeing Office Maka Marambio de la Fuente, learning about their job, and also take a look at Oily Cart’s At Home show A World Beneath Us, a sensory production targeted at people labelled as having profound and multiple learning disabilities (PMLD).
Maka treats me to coffee and biscuits as we chat about their role here and the importance of inclusive practices. Oily Cart’s ethos and ethics are all founded on inclusion and access, ensuring that everyone has the opportunity to experience cultural events and have the best possible experience when they do. There’s an understanding here that people communicate in different ways – not always through language but also through the senses. They explain how creating Sensory Theatre for and with disabled, neurodivergent or Autistic people can lead to a better representation of them and, more widely, offer a more informed knowledge of how we all fit together in this world of ours as their narrative becomes a part of the conversation.
As Access and Wellbeing Officer, Maka oversees how the company is working both internally and externally to ensure they’re meeting expectations in these areas. It’s a whole network of interactions and they aim to listen to everyone’s voice; to work and create with disabled and non-disabled people as active participants, no matter their access needs, so they are appropriately represented. Maka’s responsibilities include attending rehearsals and events, and consulting with expert families who advise on Oily Cart’s work, using their individual experiences to inform those ultimately shared with others.
Maka describes a wraparound consideration of audiences, creatives and producers alike that embeds care into the everyday – an almost mycelial network beneath the output that promotes communication and provides security. For creatives and participants alike and across the industry, being involved in the cultural process enables personal empowerment, education and self-worth.
This idea of integral, invisible networks is reflected in their At Home show A World Beneath Us, devised for PMLD and which this summer was sent to 50 families who might otherwise be unable to participate in a theatrical production, perhaps because they are unable to leave their homes or because the experience of attending a venue is too difficult. We talked to Associate Director Natalya Martin about the show a little while ago, but today Maka lets me enjoy the full experience for myself.
It begins with a box full of items that arrives by courier. Anyone can enjoy the experience contained within, perhaps with a carer to help if required. There’s an initial excitement as we unwrap the items and read the simple instructions on beautifully crafted, tactile paper. It includes a film made and directed by disabled artist Greta Chambers, who also features in the footage. This immerses us in a landscape of the natural world, offering sounds of crackling leaves, birdsong and babbling brooks that heighten the senses.
Next we try out a sensory cushion – just lap-sized but beautifully textured with multiple fabrics, perfect for examining with fingertip touch. On the reverse is a stitched representation of the mycelium beneath the ground, tactile and interesting to stroke. Maka hands me a torch switched to a blue light function, and the network lights up excitingly and unexpectedly in the dark.
The torch is also used to create shadows of leaves contained within a small lightbox, of hands and the paper packing from the original box, all exploring the ecology of our human connection with this natural project. With the help of a bowl of water and some coloured filters we project onto the ceiling, creating multiple beautiful ripples and movements. It’s so simple, yet so rewarding, as our expectations of what might be achieved with just a little imagination are heightened and we become creatives ourselves.
Fitting with Oily Cart’s ideas of legacy and sustainability, the box of items impressively uses sustainable, recyclable materials, can be used multiple times in different ways, and can itself be passed on to others to enjoy.
It’s been a lovely way to spend a morning and I feel like I’ve had a trip to the spa when I finally emerge back into real life, enlightened and ready to discover more about disabled-led work. Oily Cart’s practice is about so much more than putting on a show – it’s a creation of delightful wellbeing in a theatrical ecology of active participants and creatives where we are all part of an inspiring narrative. That’s a network I’m happy to help grow.
Thanks very much to Maka for taking the time to share this brilliant work with us. If you would like to learn more about A World Beneath Us you can read about how one of the families that tried it out enjoyed it here, or visit the Oily Cart website to read more about their exciting, inclusive work.
