Access At The ICA

By Elle, StilettoWheels & PlusBlack, September 14, 2017

I saw a fantastic documentary a week or two back at The Institute For Contemporary Arts (ICA): Chasing Trane. It’s on until this weekend, to 15 September. I urge you to go see it.

To pique your interest, from the ICA’s website:

Chasing Trane: The John Coltrane Documentary is a thought-provoking, uplifting and powerful film about an outside-the-box thinker whose boundary-shattering music continues to impact and influence people around the world.

This rich and compelling portrait of a remarkable artist reveals the critical events, passions and challenges that shaped the life of John Coltrane and his revolutionary sounds. It is a story of demons and darkness, of persistence and redemption. The film captures the incredible journey of a spiritual warrior who found himself, found God and, in the process, created an extraordinary body of work that transcends all barriers of race, religion, age and geography. This is a film for anyone who appreciates the power of music to entertain, inspire and transform.

The beauty, poignancy, energy, pain, joy and inspiration heard in nearly 50 Coltrane recordings from throughout his career brings alive the artist and the times in which he lived. Even those familiar with his music will be able to hear and appreciate the music of John Coltrane in a new and exciting way.

Me and D loved it.

The ICA, a favourite venue of ours in pre-wheelchair days, is accessible for wheelchair users though not in the most wheelchair friendly location, down The Mall in Central London which is on high terror alert right now.

The Mall is generally open to traffic and, as usual, we drove in. There is a spacious drop off area adjacent to the ICA entrance. Expect to see police about and be questioned by them but we had no problem with my drop off, nor with my later pick up, and D then drove toward Trafalgar Square, swung up Pall Mall and parked, coming down the steep flight of steps to the side and rear of the ICA, back to where he’d left me.

From the drop off area, there is level access into the ICA, image above, and then on into the Cinema via a spacious ramp, first image below. The wheelchair space is at the back, second image below, with a decent view though it won’t be the biggest screen you’ve ever seen.

Outside the ICA, though level, the pavement and paving are old, bumpy, sloping and broken. Safe enough but best take some care with the wheels. Inside is all easy.

Chasing Trane is so worth seeing. Do catch it if you can. If not, do download when it becomes available. I’d hope you’d enjoy it as much as we did.