Crip Casino

Crip Casino is an interactive installation exploring the nature of institutionalised spaces.

Institutions it has been exhibited at include: Tate Modern, Somerset House, Wellcome Collection, Collective Edinburgh and Platform Southwark.

On a research trip to a private Sanatorium in Budapest, I was fascinated to see how wealthy elderly women with arthritis related to their disability. Time and time again they explained how they “deserved” to be here, in this healing luxury resort, having saved their money successfully throughout their life. In contrast, during a medical stay at an NHS-based rehabilitation facility in London, I encountered many people who felt they “deserved” to be disabled for having made poor choices in life: damaging their joints by working in the cold freezer section in Tesco, or having had a baby.

Crip Casino is designed to explore the nature of deserving. Using 1:1 interactive games, DIY hacked fruit machines, the installation examines the relationship between chance and ritual, winning and losing. Participants, both dis+abled are invited to play a series of games which lead them to reconsider their position in life.
Expect wonky glamour, Instagrammable pain & underground experiments, in a gambling institution as bizarre as its inhabitants…

Crip Casino is produced by Nick Murray. The Assessment is performed in collaboration with Jackie Hagan. Casino facilitators include: Megan Dalton, Martha Perotto-Wills, Avery Curran, Ola Zielinska, Ruby Maclennan, Amy Cutler, Mila Araoz, and Amy Butt.

Fruit Machine Series

The surrealist game “Exquisite Corpse” meets working fruit machines to create a series of ever- changing poems. Crip Casino explores the overlap between chance, ritual and winning and losing. Participants, both dis+abled are invited to play a series of games which lead them to reconsider their position in life: whether health and physical capacity, financial security and status are the result of luck, chance or hard work; whether any of us truly “deserve” the role we are given.

Elvis: King of Physiotherapy Clubs, supported by ACE, 2018

Dr Elvis: King of Diagnostic Procedures, commissioned by Shape Arts, 2019

999 My Arm is Missing, commissioned by Now Play This Festival, 2019

“The Assessment”: a 1:1 performance in 3 parts

A collaboration by Abi Palmer and Jackie Hagan, The Assessment is a Kafkaesque sequence of 1:1 interactive games and installation, designed to explore the narrative of how disabled bodies are depicted as a drain on society’s resources. At various points within the game, you may win, be forced to commit fraud, or taxed unfairly. The game culminates in an income assessment, where you may be forced to sacrifice your prize to the National Health Shrine “for the good of everyone,” or else join the highest echelons of society, taking the best object from the shrine (and leaving it a little worse for everyone else).

Inspired by the aesthetics and participatory nature of the Fluxus movement, the layout of the games and installation of the National Health Shrine are site-specific, built using found objects and prize eggs.

National Health Shrine

The National Health Shrine is a central feature of the casino space. It benefits everyone in the room, however some benefit more than others. Some are also expected to contribute more to the Shrine than others. The culmination of The Assessment is a tax interrogation. The final outcome may result in heavy taxation: if an overpayment has been made, the player must submit all their winnings to the National Health Shrine. If, however, they find themselves in the highest echelons of society, they must take the best object from the Shrine and leave immediately. Some winners are allowed to take as many objects from the Shrine as they please, but must accept the knowledge that they may be ruining the exhibit for the rest of society. Some winners are entitled to benefits, but also taxed: they may take an object from the Shrine, but must also return one. Others are invited to take full responsibility for re-organising the Shrine, and again, the weight of society’s wellbeing is up to them. The Shrine therefore transforms and evolves as the day goes on.

Past Events:

September 2021-January 2022: Crip Casino at Collective Edinburgh

Between September 2021-January 2022, Crip Casino was invited to inhabit The Dome at Collective Edinburgh, as part of the group show Acts of Observation. For this pandemic-specific installation, Crip Casino has been frozen in time: the National Health Shrine immovable and slowly declining, in memory of all the disabled and chronically ill bodies forced into limbo and awaiting treatment during this period. Collective commissioned the film Assessment Booth No.3 to serve as a looping performance in the physical space.