Raising Awareness for Ataxia

A SOUTH Devon artist is taking her talents to Trafalgar Square to produce a one-hour sculpture to represent the disease which has attacked both her mother and her sister.

Bev Ashby, has won a spot on Trafalgar Square's Fourth Plinth as part of artist Anthony Gormley's One and Other project which is currently taking place 24 hours a day in central London.

The 54-year-old sculptress, from Harberton near Totnes, will be using her hour between 7pm and 8pm on Monday 21st September to create a work representing ataxia, a little known neurological condition.

Bev, who is originally from South Africa, wants to use her spot on the plinth to highlight the condition which affected her mother, and which her sister Cheryl also has.

She said: "My sister has a severe form of ataxia, but she is the bravest woman I know.
"Not many people could cope with being limited to a wheelchair, unable to even boil a kettle or cook a meal, and living on their own with just the phone line, internet and a panic button for company.

"I am doing this plinth challenge for her. If I can do anything to highlight or help those with ataxia, I just have to do it. "

Bev's sculpture will be a cast of a human figure, which will be wrapped around with bands to show how a degenerative condition like ataxia imprisons people in their bodies. The figure will also echo Anthony Gormley's iconic casts of human figures.

She said: "I want to show that anyone can get ataxia, they are ordinary people, coping with life like everyone else, but living on a slippery slope which results in so much more effort to keep up, get things done, walk down stairs, make a phone call, eat a meal."

Ataxia affects the brain and nervous system, causing problems with balance, coordination, and speech. Eventually most people with the condition end up in a wheelchair and dependent on others for care.

Bev will spend her time on the plinth stacking together her sculpture and plastering it, and will speak about what it's like living with ataxia. She said she is excited by the opportunity and hopes that sculpting will take her mind off the eight-metre-high platform she will be standing on during her hour.

www.thisissouthdevon.co.uk/news/Plinth-sculpture-ataxia-cause/artic...


You can also watch online at http://www.skyarts.co.uk/site/plinth/ (scroll to right)

If anyone on here lives in the London area please go along to offer support. I believe people from Ataxia UK will also be there.