Around the toilet: Co-creating intersectional understandings of gender, disability and access

While toilets are often thought to be a mundane space, for those for whom a lack of adequate or accessible toilet provision is a crucial practical issue on a daily basis, toilets are 'the big necessity' (George, 2011). For some, a lack of adequate or accessible toilet provision is a crucial practical issue on a daily basis. Disabled people, for example, frequently report that accessible toilets are 'not accessible enough' (there may be too few, or they may be too small for larger wheelchairs, or not have a hoist or changing space) (Changing Places, 2013), while other studies show that diminishing numbers of public toilets can prevent older people leaving the house (Knight and Bichard, 2011, Department for Communities and Local Government, 2008). Thinking around toilets, and their function as material as well as socio-cultural environments, presents an opportunity to think in multi-faceted ways about forms of identity. Toilets often present a stark visual and material enactment of a gender binary ('Men's Toilets', 'Women's Toilets', 'the Ladies') in ways that can be problematic for trans, genderqueer, or non-binary people who do not identify with the gender they were assigned at birth. Conversely, it is often the 'accessible' (disabled) toilet that provides a gender-neutral space. For some disabled people, this can serve as an example, reflected in the built environment, of the oppressive assumption that they are genderless and asexual (Kafer, 2013).

In recognition of the fact that the social issue of toilets is about practical access and personal affect, this project uses arts- and practice-based approaches to experiment with 'toilet talk' as a method of investigating issues of 'access' and 'identity' in relation to gender and disability. While the research and activities will focus around gender and disability, we also seek to consider additional intersections of identity including race, ethnicity, age, religion and faith. Five research workshops based around the arts practices of reflective storytelling, making/creating and performance, will take place between April and September 2015, in collaboration with three community partners: Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People (GMCDP), Queer of the Unknown (a performing arts collective) and Action for Trans* Health. Following these workshops, ideas and reflections will form part of an Architecture Live Project undertaken by MA Architecture students at the University of Sheffield, resulting in a number of installations/provocations. These installations will be displayed in public spaces in Manchester with the intention of stimulating city users to reflect on issues of access and identity in social spaces. The activities and installations will be captured in innovative visual and material forms that will be displayed at an end of project event targeting urban planners, architects and other city professionals. The aim of the project is to explore and disrupt received notions of 'access' and 'identity' and to find ways of articulating the idea that 'peeing is political' (Molotoch, 2010, 2).

As outlined in the Pathways to Impact document, the project has been co-devised and developed in close conjunction with project partners Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People (GMCDP), Queer of the Unknown and Action for Trans* Health. As such, capacity for impact has been considered at each stage of the research/dissemination process. This statement outlines both the direct and immediate beneficiaries, but also the more indirect and longer term impact that will outlast the 9 month duration of the project. Direct and immediate beneficiaries include: project partners and their networks of members and/or client user groups; non-HEI Connected Communities researchers; city-users that engage with the installations/provocations developed through the research process; urban planners, architects and other city professionals (including policy makers) targeted through existing networks by the end of project event (detailed further in Pathways to Impact). Indirect and longer term beneficiaries include: disabled people and their families, trans* people, and others for whom toilet access is a problem (older people, people with children and carers, for example), policy makers, city professionals reached through less direct means (e.g. networking, blog, press coverage).

Each individual research workshop (Stage One - April-September 2015) has been co-designed with Community Co-Investigators representing the interests of their members or user groups. As such, each workshop will result in the production of a tangible output which can be used through the campaigning activities of project partners. Project partners, however, are also keen for public engagement to be a core component of the project. Therefore, Stage Two involves collaboration with Sheffield School of Architecture to create a series of installations/provocations based upon Stage One findings which will engage city users in creative and stimulating ways (October-December 2015). We envisage these installations as having the potential to attract local press coverage, thereby maximising impact beyond the remit of those who directly engage with the installations. Publicisation of the installations to media outlets will be facilitated with the support of Sheffield Hallam University's Media Centre as well as the contacts and resources offered by Leeds University's Arts Engaged team. Finally, an end of project event in December 2015, will employ these installations/provocations to 'target', and disseminate learning to, architects, urban planners and other city professionals.

We aim to assess and evaluate impact at each stage of the project through methods which include recording participant responses to workshops in an appropriate and sensitive manner (through written and/or oral forms), public and media responses to the installations, and facilitating a (moderated) comment section of the project blog (see Pathways to Impact). Such responses will all add to the rich and varied data collected, and will feed into the production of an end of project event. More indirect and longer term beneficiaries of any changes in policy and practice will include those for whom a lack of adequate toilet provision currently restricts wider access to community.