Miracles are central to the historic signification of disabled people beginning with Christ proving his divinity by miraculously ‘healing’ disabled members of his audiences. Since then Christianity promises that a miraculous healing could be the reward for a disabled person’s penitence and faith, commonly expressed through pilgrimages to sites of apparitions such as Lourdes in France or Knock in Ireland.

With restless camerawork, hallucinatory editing and a riotous soundtrack, The Staircase Miracles is a looped narrative beginning with the mysterious arrival of a golden staircase in London‘s Kensington Gardens. Two Park Keepers tell a TV audience that they expect the occurrence of an apparition on the staircase, calling for people to visit the park to witness the miracle and be cured of the physical impairments.

The ensuing events depict a crown of disabled people gathering at the staircase. To pass the time, curious performances and rituals are presented by members of the crowd: a snake-handling Nun, a Stigmatist, a ‘Wild Boy’s’ erudite lecture, a Christian UFOlogist, and invisible Mystic…

Eventually a female Christ in a wheelchair appears at the top of the stairs, miraculously descending, touching the hands of ecstatic worshippers to ‘heal’ them. Some of them are ‘cured’ before ‘Christ’ reappears at the top of the stairs, opening fire on the crowd with a pea shooter. The crowd is massacred in the park, the apparition vanishes and the staircase is dismantled by Park Keepers.

The loop begins again…

A darkly comic, acidic riposte to Christianity’s institutional aim to exploit disability, the film has an iconoclastic, uproarious character. The unthinkable notion that many disabled people may not actually desire or require a miraculous transformation into a normal body provides its subtext.

The film has full subtitles and an integrated audio description.

The Staircase Miracles is supported by Arts Council England
Aaron Williamson is a recipient of an AHRC 3-year Fellowship