TThe latest edition of the BBC documentary In My Own Words tells the story of Alison Lapper. As you'd expect from this formidable woman, born with shortened arms and legs and abandoned in an orphanage by her mother, she tells her story with unsentiment and relentlessness. Nearly every word hits like a poignant hammer-blow. She says art is about expressing and evoking emotion, but with a new exhibition full of work dedicated to her son Paris, who died five years ago at 19, it's still hard to truly understand how she endured all that and found the strength to keep going. Maybe we should, and we should. But she's extraordinary.
We begin with the event that first brought her to the public's attention: the installation of Marc Quinn's sculpture Pregnant Alison Lapper on the vacant fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square. We watch footage of passersby as they respond. “Who the hell would have thought to put that here?” one says. “It's not what Nelson wanted to see,” another says, almost comically. Another wonders whether it's a good thing for people to look at “deformities” – this is less than 20 years ago.
Back in 1972, in a clip from a documentary about Chailee Heritage, where she lived from six weeks old to 17 years old, the presenter explains that all of her children, busy juggling their own jobs, were “severely disabled and therefore had to be constantly looked after and their will to live encouraged.” Fast forward to her first exhibition in London, comprised of photos capturing the stunning differences in her nude body, and a gallery director explains that while her work is very good, “collectors who bring it home want something fun, something exciting, anything… and if they put a picture of Alison Lapper on their wall, they have to justify it every day.” When her son entered the mental health system and moved 20 times in the last two years of his life, many of the homes he was in did not have disability access. Literally and figuratively, she had little access to her son.
But the portrayal of the systemic, deep-rooted prejudice on which the rapper fought and forged is, unfortunately, only a small part of the story. In one interview with her mother, who was so overwhelmed after Allison's birth that she didn't see her for four years, she explains that it would have been much better if her daughter had been adopted. “Because then someone would have loved her, right? Obviously, she didn't take it from me.” “Let me tell you this from her own mouth,” the rapper now says. “How do I cope?” Perhaps even more heartbreaking is when she recalls her mother's criticism of Paris' “weird” name. “I thought, 'How can I make my mother proud?'” she recalls. The young mother believed that giving birth to a normal child would repair their relationship. The depth of her longing and her inadvertent insight into internalizing so much toxicity is unnerving.
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And then her beloved son died of an apparent accidental drug overdose after years of struggling with his mental health. We watched as he was born by Caesarean section. Everyone in the room was filled with joy. “I had fun being pregnant,” the rapper said. “I was so energetic and healthy. I can't believe my body gave birth to this perfect little being, especially when they told me he would never be born. I foolishly thought I could pave the way for other parents with disabilities. When my son was born, I was a different person.” And then he was gone. She fought so hard to get people to trust her with the care and upbringing of her son. She loved him as much as his mother didn't love her. “But it's like the doubters won, you know? He's dead.”
It's painful to watch. It's hard to imagine what it's really like to live as a rapper now that the rapper, who is clearly only just beginning to process her grief, has produced a series of paintings depicting Paris's life and theirs, currently on display alongside Quinn's sculptures at Worthing Art Museum. But her words and work bring us as close as possible. For the rest, I suspect she prefers we never to know.
