Anthony James Heaton OBE (born 11 October 1954) is a British sculptor, disability rights activist and arts administrator, who was appointed an OBE in 2013 for services to the arts and the disability arts movement. He was CEO of the arts charity Shape until March 2017. In 2012, he won the competition to produce an installation celebrating Channel 4's involvement in the London 2012 Paralympic Games. This produced his 'Monument for the Unintended Performer'.
Early years
Heaton was born in Preston, Lancashire, in 1954, the son of a coppersmith. When, at the age of 16, a motor bike accident left him with a spinal injury, he switched from a comprehensive school to a local arts college at Southport. From 1972, he was self-employed as artist, sign writer, disc jockey, record shop proprietor, progressive rock band member and mural painter. According to a Disability Arts Online profile, at this period "Heaton gathered enormous expertise and self-reliance whilst appearing to drift aimlessly". In 1986 he enrolled on a visual arts degree at Lancaster University whilst earning a living as a sign-painter.
A contemporary of Andy Goldsworthy, Heaton experimented with environmental sculpture on sands at Morecambe Bay. Lancaster's head of sculpture, Paul Hatton, noted that the marks left by Heaton were immediately distinguishable from the footprints of his fellow students and urged him to develop work about this. Heaton states that, "A chance comment about how the marks left in the sand by my feet and crutches made my tracks immediately identifiable became the catalyst for a whole series of works relating to disability and my interaction with the environment". Heaton exhibited a plaster cast of his feet and stick imprints, his first piece of disability art.
Artistic career
Heaton's early sculptures often use what Disability Arts in London magazine described as "the everyday impedimenta of disability: collecting cans, NHS wheelchairs, X-rays, Part M of the Building Regulations". But his work contradicts the normal associations of such materials by turning them into "profound and joyously witty statements about the nature of our oppression".
An early piece, "Springback" (1990), is an assemblage including a spinal X-Ray juxtaposed above the shock absorber springs of a scrapped motorcycle, referring to the accident which caused his impairment and the metal strengthening spring placed inside his spine.
'Shaken..not Stirred' (1991) consisted of a seven-feet high pyramid of 1,760 charity collecting cans, its ascending ranks of red plastic referring to the hierarchical nature of the charity system. The whole edifice was brought crashing to the ground when Heaton threw an artificial leg at it, suggesting that the hierarchical system could be destroyed by the collective power of disabled people. As his work has developed, it has embodied ideas about disability and impairment. For instance, "Split" (1995) is a woodcarving made from a piece of ash discarded by a wood turner as useless because it has a shake; a fault running through it. Heaton saw this as "indicative of a society that sees only perfection and disregards all that is damaged or perceived as impaired".
The 1994 sculpture, 'Great Britain from a Wheelchair' is a map of Britain made from two grey NHS wheelchairs. "A delightful game, it forms a wonderful repudiation of the value judgement ('This is for some tragic bastard', in Heaton's words) implicit in the wheelchairs." An image of this work was chosen by the National Disability Arts Collection and Archive as an example of work from the 'golden age' of disability arts. During the 2012 Paralympics Heaton was invited to redesign 'Great Britain From a Wheelchair' as lecterns for Lord Coe and Sir Phillip Craven during the opening and closing ceremonies.
In 2012, he was commissioned to produce 'Monument to the Unintended Performer', an installation for the Big 4 sculpture sited outside Channel Four's offices. It brought together three elements in addition to the Big 4: the first based on the classical Greek sculpture Discobolus, the discus thrower, evoking the spirit of the Olympics; the second element, a circle, representing the wheel of the international symbol of access; and lastly, the introduction of gold, silver and bronze considers hierarchy. Heaton stated: "I wanted to use the structure of the Big 4 as one of four elements that would fuse together to form a new cohesive piece - which would provoke thought and celebrate Channel 4's involvement and commitment to the Paralympics. The subtext is the assertion that disabled people are almost always the object of scrutiny and curiosity."