August 28, 2012 2:28 pm
Artist Explores the Deep in Underwater Wheelchair
Artist Sue Austin scopes out a pool in her underwater wheel chair. Photo: Sue Austin
A special self-propelled underwater wheelchair designed with help from dive experts and academics will debut this week in London as artist Sue Austin performs submerged swimming pool acrobatics on the buoyant contraption.
Austin has been wheelchair-bound since 1996 and acknowledges that this has impacted both her life and her art. She writes on her website:
My studio practice has, for sometime, centred around finding ways to understand and represent my embodied experience as a wheelchair user, opening up profound issues about methods of self-representation and the power of self-narration in challenging the nexus of power and control that created the ‘disabled’ as other.
The underwater wheelchair work, dubbed “Finding Freedom,” is part of her larger Freewheeling project.
To move through oceanic depths, the wheelchair uses a propeller and fins positioned at the back of Austin’s legs that allow her to steer via an acrylic strip attached to her feet. According to SmartPlanet, the design originally proved challenging since most propeller models rely on hand movements, but Austin lacks the strength to maneuver them properly. Instead, the team worked to make her wheelchair more buoyant by modifying the heel plates into fins and tweaking the seat to cope better with underwater pressure.
Here, you can discover “a gentle, dream like exploration of an exotic underwater” alongside Austin and her underwater wheelchair:
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I would not have thought that the seated position would be ideal for underwater exploration, but it does appear to work well for her. Still she cannot get up close to things that are beneath waist level. I would expect future designs to be more streamlined, with an extended bodily position.. and waterproof dual joystick hand controls perhaps. So one could descend to the sea floor and touch the sand… and maneuver in a manner more seal-like. Or like a submarine jetpack.. I think it’s wonderful regardless.
Comment by marykate clark — August 29, 2012 @ 4:58 am
Mesmerizing. Just beautiful, and she seems to be so fully engaged with the experience.
But an underwater wheelchair is a very strange way to go about this. It’s designed for an entirely different purpose, and most of its hardware is not functional underwater. (The wheels are useless, and the seat is not needed in a neutrally buoyant environment.)
There are several long-standing organizations devoted to training and assisting disabled SCUBA divers. They use standard SCUBA equipment, modified as necessary – not land-based mobility devices. (The effect of buoyancy actually increases mobility for some disabled divers.) There are now well-developed programs for training such divers, and providing them with trained in-water backup divers for safety.
Here is a good place to start:
http://www.hsascuba.com/
Comment by Kevin T. Keith — August 29, 2012 @ 12:57 pm
Hello,
Marc Smith here from All Time Medical. I came across your site while doing some research and got to see your inspirational website. I thought it might interest you to know that we’ve just made a infographic entitled “Paralympics: Inspire a Generation” I think it is something you and your readers will appreciate. Here’s a link to it, the embed code is under the infographic. http://www.alltimemedical.com/article.html?id=72
Thanks!
Marc Smith
Comment by Marc Smith — September 5, 2012 @ 3:51 pm
This is absolutely incredible. I am in the mobility care business and this is the first I am hearing of this. I love to hear about people who despite their disabilities don’t give up on doing what they want/dream of doing. I also love that companies are listening and are trying to accommodate these dreams. This is something I will be looking into further!
Wheelchairs and diving.. I love it.
Comment by SCG — November 6, 2012 @ 11:53 am
MEALS ON WHEELS FOR SHARKS
Comment by benjamin — June 13, 2013 @ 2:33 am