ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a short autobiographical piece about lying down in public places. It explores the influences involved in the process of Lying Down Anyhow. Lying Down Anyhow is less the story of a troubled body than of its interface with the language, values and physical structures that limit the possibilities of lying down in public places. Those codes and constraints permeate my internal world, shaping my thinking and behaviour. Bedding Out was a durational performance which emerged from the current welfare benefits overhaul in the UK, which threatens many with poverty and a propagandist campaign that has seen a doubling in disability hate crime. The project had artist-activist Liz Crow taking her private bed-oriented life and placing it in the public arena for all to see over a 48-hour period in order to show that what many see as contradiction, or fraud, is simply the complexity of life.
