Sue Austin has been using a wheelchair since 1996. With the support of scuba-diving experts, Austin has created a wheelchair fit with a propeller and fins that enable her to steer the wheelchair underwater. This wheelchair is part of her ongoing project called ‘Freewheeling’, which focuses on the intersection of art and disability.
Austin started using wheelchair after
suffering from an illness that affected her mobility. She claim that
when she first started using an electric wheelchair she felt an amazing
sense of freedom, however people looked at her differently since then.
Later on she came to understand that people have negative preconceptions
on people who are attach to wheelchair.
In 2005, during her training as a disabled diver, the idea of underwater wheelchair came to her. The concept of underwater wheelchair seems impossible at first but in 2010, through funding from the Arts Council England, she was able to make it come to reality. On the same year, she started working on a project she called Creating the Spectacle! – which aims to change the negative perception towards disabled people like her.
Her story is one of the testimonies today which proves that nothing is impossible if you keep dreaming.
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