Battling mum and her Down’s girl who wowed art world
WHEN Mirka Anderson gave birth to her daughter Emma, she was told her child would not amount to anything because she had Down’s Syndrome.
But the cruel prediction could not have been further from the truth – for Emma has flourished into such a talented artist that her work has now been displayed at the Tate Modern.
Miss Anderson, 33, won a competition to exhibit her paintings at the gallery after a college teacher encouraged her to enter.
Her mother, 66, said she had spent ‘33 years of her life fighting for the fact that [those with Down’s Syndrome] have potential’.
Mrs Anderson was told Emma had the genetic condition the day after she was born at the Rosie Hospital
‘You discover amazing stuff’
in Cambridge. She claims she was told by a doctor that she didn’t have to take her daughter home ‘because she won’t do anything anyway’.
‘Until now I still can’t digest it,’ said Mrs Anderson from Royston, Hertfordshire. ‘It was very damaging as a mother who had just given birth to be told your baby is a useless piece of flesh. Look at her now. She’s a super-kid.’
Her daughter faced a struggle to be accepted into mainstream education, and Mrs Anderson said she had to ‘plead people’ just to get her into a play group. ‘I feel that we should give these people a chance,’ she said. ‘Not bundle them off to special schools and treat them as social lepers.’ Her daughter’s big break came at Cambridge Regional College, when a staff memeber helped to enter some of her pieces for a competition at the Tate Modern in 2005.
The painter and sculptress was one of only two students from the college whose work was selected by the gallery, and she continues to sell her work at public exhibitions.
Inspired by her daughter’s talents, Mrs Anderson has now directed a documentary about her life, The Sky is the Limit, which has won silver at the World Human Rights Film Festival. Mrs Anderson said she made the film as part of her ‘one-woman mission to spread awareness’.
‘It has a strong focus on the fact these people are socially marginalised,’ she added. ‘Spend some time with them and you discover amazing stuff. But in this day and age nobody has time. I’m showing it can be done, with patience and tolerance.’
Down’s Syndrome affects 1 in 1,000 births. The NHS is preparing a new non-invasive screening system for ‘high risk’ women – but critics fear it could lead to an increase in abortinos of babies with Down’s.