Sick of being Patient

About Charlie Fitz

Charlie Fitz (she/her/they) is a UK based sick and disabled artist, arts practitioner, writer and medical humanities postgraduate at Birkbeck, where she is a recipient of the Wellcome Trust studentship. She studied English and drama BA hons at Goldsmiths College, University of London, graduating in 2012. She began an MA in Comparative Literature at Goldsmiths in 2014, shortly afterwards becoming seriously ill. Since becoming sick Fitz has turned to art practice as a meditative process, a form of disability activism and as a means to understand and reclaim her experiences of illness and trauma. Her multiform works explore lived experiences of illness, disability and trauma; whilst aiming to resist and challenge the expectation that the 'sick' be patient or passive to Western biomedicine.

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In 2017 she worked as the engagement assistant for the Arts Council Collection(ACC) Exhibition 'Coming Out' at Birmingham Museum & Art gallery (BMAG). In 2018 Fitz was on the activist panel consulting on curatorial and learning strategies for the ACC exhibition 'Woman, Power, Protest' at BMAG. In 2019 she was a guest speaker at Robinson College Feminist Society at Cambridge University, presenting on Feminist art & activism. The same year she produced her first joint exhibition 'Radical Acts of Care' in collaboration with Oscar Vinter. The exhibition was hosted online and in person in London and Manchester. In 2020 Fitz worked as an information assistant at Ikon Gallery In 2020 additionally producing engagement material. Fitz had work exhibited in 2 online group shows, Profile Gallery's 'Virtual Exhibtion' and Oddball Gallery's 'Locked/Down'. In 2021 she had artwork in the Able Zine x Kiosk N1C exhibition 'See You At Home' in Coal Drops Yard, Kings Cross London. She currently has artwork in the virtual show 'Exhibition: Work in PROGRESS' by TRIAD³, in the exhibition Nineteen Forty – 2022 at In Transit and in Hysterical at no format gallery.

She has also had artwork published in Cordella Magazine, Able Zine, Disability Arts Online, The Grapevine Zine, Life Continues After, dubble, Sisters of Frida and Resting Up. 

Charlie is a co-founding member of Resting Up Collective and one third of the arts practice group  TRIAD³ which received the Arts Council DYCP fund in 2021. She works as a freelance designer and arts practitioner and has recently completed a virtual arts residency with In Transit.

After completing her MA Fitz plans on working towards her first solo exhibition and continuing her arts practice and academic research. 

What is 'Sick of being Patient'?

The word patient and patience both come from the Latin word 'Patien', which means 'one who suffers'. 'Sick of being Patient, is the home to a range of visual and written solo and collaborative creative projects by Charlie Fitz. Many of the visual art projects are collaborative pieces with Oscar Vinter. Fitz & Vinter are partners in art and life. The projects aim to resist and challenge the expectation that the 'sick' person be patient, passive and submissive to medical institutions and a society that is systematically failing the chronically ill and disabled.