Purple Ochre was established in 2026 after multiple strands of a personal journey collided in a pivotal moment. Through lived experience of disability, neurodivergence, mental health conditions, and queerness, a deep personal engagement with cultural and spiritual ecology shone a light on the connections between diverse ways of being human and our more than human kin.
Purple Ochre is composed of three intersecting strands:
- Investigate: Personal artistic practice of kinship through visual arts and creative writing
- Generate: Demonstrating disabled / neurodivergent ways of being and knowing as a core contribution to cultural ecology
- Facilitate: Community exploration of disabled and neurodivergent relationships with the more than human
A note on terminology: Disability is an incredibly broad classification. Many people with chronic illnesses and/or are neurodivergent are not disabled. I tend to use the terms ‘disability’ and ‘disabled’ as shorthand for the diverse forms of disability, those who have chronic illnesses to the extent that the condition affects their daily lives, and those whose brains process information differently. When using the term disability as shorthand, I do not intend to exclude those who are chronically ill or neurodivergent who are not disabled. The shorthand is used only for coherence and, in the context of work with Purple Ochre, should be understood as an inclusive, broad term that may include some non-disabled chronically ill or neurodivergent people. In instances where the term is used to refer to a sub-set of this broad group it will be explicitly stated.
Why Purple Ochre?
Purple is the colour associated with the International Day for Persons with Disabilities, marked on the 3rd of December each year. Purple represents the diverse perspectives and experiences of those who are disabled, chronically ill and/or neurodivergent.
Ochre is a natural earth pigment, ground rock, that has been used by artists for millennia. While the term ochre has become synonymous with a brownish-yellow colour, the natural pigment comes in many colours depending on the composition of the rock, ranging through browns and yellows and including blue and green hues.
Bio
Dr Rachael Taylor established Purple Ochre in 2026 to provide a resource space for engagement, exploration, and development.
My journey to developing Purple Ochre has drawn on expertise gained through lived experience, tertiary study, employment, informal learning, and relationship with diverse communities beyond human. Each part of this journey has involved connecting and learning with and from many individuals and communities across disciplines, cultures and worldviews. Purple Ochre brings all of that experience full circle into a cohesive, holistic whole.
Throughout a varied career working and studying across very different sectors and disciplines, dominant themes and priorities have intersected and persisted. I have a BA in Fine Art from the University of Chichester, during which I specialised in textile and fibre arts with a focus on land art. After working in health and social care, I returned to university and completed a BSc in Environmental Management and Sustainability (Manchester Metropolitan University) and MSc in Environmental Change and International Development (University of Sheffield).
I proceeded to doctoral study, researching adaptive capacity in farming communities in Northern Ghana. The extended periods of fieldwork in Ghana became a formative part of my journey to Purple Ochre, exposing me to other ways of knowing and being in relationship with the land. After completion of my PhD in Science Policy (University of Sussex), I returned to Ghana to work for a local non-governmental organisation working with rural communities to support environmental management.
Following a period living in Northern Ghana, my health dictated that I return to the UK. While I have continued to work in roles supporting programmes working across Africa, my employment has become increasingly office-based and home-based as my health has changed.
I became disabled by chronic illness at the age of 12. I lost my teenage years in a haze of working out how to live with a body that worked differently. Decades later, in 2019, my health began to change and I again entered a period of learning how to live with an unpredictable body. This shifted gear in 2020 after a relapse in my condition which I did not recover from, leaving me with significant mobility restrictions. Now disabled both physically and by chronic illness, my existence shrank to mostly housebound.
This severed me from the natural landscapes in which I felt most at home. My inspiration, my guide, my wellbeing abruptly became inaccessible.
In the years since, I have embraced my disability pride, neurodivergence and queerness to live fully and in kinship with my environment. Through ongoing exploration of cultural and spiritual ecology, I have reconnected with the landscapes, environments, communities and kin that I felt severed from. I have learned firsthand how disabled and neurodivergent bodies can relate to our more than human kin in ways beyond those that are forced into us through prevailing capitalist and colonial Western worldviews.
Purple Ochre is my way of showing the world the huge value that disabled and neurodivergent ways of being and knowing can bring to reestablishing the connections with the more than human that Western worldviews have broken.
Purple Ochre 