Artist Designs Hotel Room To Highlight Difficulties Facing The Disabled

Spending the night away in a hotel might sound like the relaxing retreat we all need, but for those with a disability, it can often be an isolating, humiliating and uncomfortable experience. Fine Art graduate, Christopher Samuel who, as wheelchair user, knows this too well having stayed in places that were unfit for his needs.

Christopher decided to highlight these barriers in his latest conceptual artwork, a hotel room design to be deliberately awkward and inaccessible, ironically named the Welcome Inn. He was commissioned to create the room at Art B&B in Blackpool by Unlimited, a programme that supports creative projects by disabled artists.

It features a bed that’s abnormally high, a bathroom door that doesn’t shut properly, so it gets in the way when reaching for toilet roll, and curtains that don’t close properly ensuring there is always a flood of light in the room. Everything is designed to cause frustration at the simplest of tasks, whether switching lights on or watching TV.

“I knew people would find it amusing at first, but in reality when you live that every day it’s not funny any more,” he told the BBC. “It’s inconvenient, it’s frustrating, it’s humiliating at times.”

“I wanted it to be slightly theatrical and humorous to get people’s attention,” explained Christopher. “On the first night that guests stay they think it’s funny but by the second or third night they realise it’s actually very annoying and inconvenient. That’s when the novelty wears off.”

Christopher has a condition called Charcot–Marie–Tooth disease (CMT), which causes damage to the peripheral nerves found outside the main central nervous system that control the muscles and relay sensory information to the brain.

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