About

San Alland Bio (they/them or just ‘San’)

A close-up of San outside wearing a white N95 mask, black t-shirt and grey jacket. San is white with long reddish-brown hair, smiling with crinkly blue eyes at someone off-camera. Green trees with sun-dappled leaves blur behind them.
Photo by Riley Skelton.


San is a writer, performer and interdisciplinary artist shielding in Glasgow. San plays with a wide variety of media, from avant-garde poetry, weird fiction and multimedia essays, to audio experiments, film-story hybrids, and documentaries.

San’s work examines history, alternate realities, ‘qrip’ (queer crip) audiences and languages, anti-eugenics, and political mourning. For 30 years, San has revelled in exciting cross-media collaboration and formal experimentation. They’ve published and presented extensively in Tkaronto, Edinburgh and Glasgow, as well as throughout Turtle Island, the UK and Europe.

San specialises in integrated access, and is committed to remote and non-time-based participation. They strive towards disability justice, which includes clean air and a free Palestine. It’s become rare for San to participate in public arts because most institutions, galleries and publishers don’t meaningfully engage with disabled and ill people.

Recent Work

2025

San has a poem in the Bloodaxe Books anthology edited by Rachael Boast, Versus Versus: 100 Poems by Deaf, Disabled and Neurodivergent Poets.

Two of San’s poems have been carved into an accessible picnic bench in Williams Treaties First Nations territory (Cobourg), curated by Carol Anne Judd for Poetchry’s How We Roll.

Sore Loser, co-written with Etzali Hernández, is part of the Wellcome exhibition curated by Lea Cooper, Zines Forever! DIY Publishing and Disability Justice.

2022-24

For San’s Locked World Commission with Birds of Paradise Theatre Company, they created a filmic essay with creatively-embedded access, Writing From the Groin: How Non-disabled CisHet Monied White People Lock Themselves into Mediocrity. During San’s 2022 online talk at Temporalities of Access (Language of Holes / Wysling Arts Centre), they screened excerpts from the project’s audio-described and BSL-interpreted video. The Winter 2024 issue of Wordgathering features San’s musings about Writing From the Groin, which involved 30+ collaborators: A Manifesto of Manifestos.

For a commission from Edinburgh’s Rhubaba Gallery, San collaborated with Emilia Beatriz and Etzali Hernández on a poetic podcast and transcript, Grief Offerings: (End of) Life Wishes.

San organised and hosted the online Qrip Shielders Salon, via Cachín Cachán Cachunga Queer & Trans Arts.

2021

An outdoor reading on a ramped concrete sculpture in front of grass and concrete graving docks. Left is San Alland, wearing jeans, a black shirt and jacket, red boots and a grey cap, holding a copy of the book Stairs and Whispers. San is seated on the ramp in front of a mic. To their right is Bea Webster, seated a metre away further up the ramp. Bea is using BSL and is behind a small amplifier. San and Bea look at each other. San is white and Bea is Scottish-Thai with long dark hair. A red polka dot facemask hangs from the mic stand. Captions read "I am your audience. Remember me, I am yours."
San Alland and Bea Webster, Glasgow International, 2021.

The Glasgow International presentation of Jacqueline Donachie’s STEP featured a short film of San’s poem, Audience. Bea Webster accompanied San’s reading with British Sign Language (BSL) performance.

Disability Arts Online awarded San and Etzali Hernández a commission to create a paper and digital zine on queer disabled grief, Sore Loser. The duo also produced a podcast and transcript on memorialisation.

San authored and collaborated on access for a variety of independent art films, notably audio description support for Raisa Kabir’s House Made of Tin, and AD scripting for Kerstin Schroedinger’s Song of the Shirt (both with Collective Text). 

2020

Proper Tales Press celebrated its 40th anniverary with the 2019 publication of San’s second chapbook of stories, Anything Not Measurable Is Not Real. Canada Council for the Arts awarded San a 2020 Digital Originals grant for Measurable, an audiobook and film-stories of the chapbook.

Kenny Fries commissioned San for Disability Futures in the Arts; San wrote and recorded an essay on disabled queer and trans filmmakers, Remembering the Now.

For a commission from Birds of Paradise, San addressed the inequalities of the pandemic response with the online event, A Wake: on mourning, marking, and moving forward together with joy. 

San was also guest editor at Disability Arts Online. They wrote four articles and curated a programme featuring 32 multiply-marginalised LGBTQIA+ writers and artists.

Writing History

A cut-up poem from websites of literary agents and publishers. Text is pasted in white strips on a black background. It reads as follows if blended together: unable to consider poetry, We are not considering poetry manuscripts at this time. We don't represent poetry, What not to submit please note that we are currently not taking on poetry We do not represent poetry Please note we do not accept self-help, poetry or What not to submit Our poetry list is also full for the foreseeable future We don't represent picture books, poetry or dramatic works Please don't send me children's books (picture books, middle grade or young adult), fantasy, poetry collections, or non-fic We will not be accepting poetry submission until further notice. WHAT WE DON'T REPRESENT We don't represent authors of plays, poetry or We are NOT at this time accepting poetry Please don't send us poetry not accepting poetry
Published in Zarf, 2020. A cut-up poem from websites of literary agents and publishers. Title: “We especially welcome submissions from underrepresented writers, including those who are POC, LGBT, have disabilities, or come from a difficult socio-economic background.”

Since 1998, San’s poems, essays and short stories have featured in international anthologies and magazines. San has published three poetry collections and two fiction chapbooks. Their poetic ‘collaboration’ with dictation software, Naturally Speaking (espresso, Toronto) co-won the 2013 bpNichol award. Blissful Times (book*hug, Toronto) was widely reviewed as a groundbreaking digital hybrid.

San co-edited (with Khairani Barokka and Daniel Sluman) the multimedia UK anthology, Stairs and Whispers: D/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back (Nine Arches). San’s poems appear widely, including in Zarf, make/shift, Literary Review of Canada, Anything That Moves, Feral Feminisms, and the anthologies Why Poetry? (Verve, Birmingham), Red Light: Superheroes, Saints and Sluts (Arsenal Pulp, Vancouver), Catechism: Poems for Pussy Riot (English PEN, London), and Versus Versus (Bloodaxe, London).

Story publications include British Council, Gutter, Extra Teeth, Cosmonauts Avenue, SubTerrain, and The Deaf Poets Society. San also has stories in anthologies such as Protest! (Comma Press, Manchester), Thought X: Fictions and Hypotheticals (Comma), We Were Always Here (404 Ink, Edinburgh), and Can’tLit (ECW, Toronto). San’s essays have been commissioned for Disability Futures in the Arts, Disability Arts Online, and the anthologies The Bi-ble Volume 2 (Monstrous Regiment, Edinburgh), Imaginary Safe House (Frog Hollow Press / HA&L, Victoria/Hamilton), and The State of the Arts (Coach House Books, Toronto).

For more info, visit Books or Publishing & Performance. For audio recordings, visit San’s SoundCloud.

Performance History

A live theatre performance. On the far left, captions are projected onto the wall. The say "Shit. Can any of you do a German accent?" To the right of the captions is a large video projection of nine people holding colourful chapbooks. A Black woman is speaking. An onscreen caption reads: "You are in an elevator." Below the screen and looking up at it is a Chineses BSL interpreter. She has long hair, is dressed like a mermaid and sits on a table. To her right is San, who has their back to the camera as they talk to the screen. They have short brown hair and lean on a black cane.
San Alland in Equivalence, with Lisa Li as Mermaid/BSL Interpreter, 2016.

For three decades, San has performed original works at international festivals, theatres and galleries. San’s creations have been produced by Soho Theatre (London), Oxford Playhouse, Homotopia (Liverpool), Waterspout Theatre (Bermuda), New York International Fringe Festival, and MayWorks Festival of Working People & the Arts (Toronto).

As a 2016 Anatomy Arts Associate Artist, San created an onstage / onscreen performance of their short story with film, Equivalence. Edinburgh Filmhouse and Transpose (Barbican, London) also presented the story-film-play, which featured integrated audio description, captions and BSL. Equivalence follows on from San’s multimedia work on genderqueer and disabled poetics in their Toronto shows Body Geometry (The Theatre Centre, 2002) and Strange Attractors (Hysteria Festival / Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, 2004).

San has contributed to many reading UK series and events, including Last Words (Roundhouse), Jawdance (Apples & Snakes / Rich Mix), Scratch (The Arches), Fail Better, and Neu! Reekie!. Other festivals include Ledbury Poetry Festival, SHOUT Festival, Bi+ Arts Festival, Edinburgh International Book Festival (Words Per Minute), Aye Write, Leith Late Festival, West Port Book Festival, Canadian Festival of Spoken Word, Word on the Street, Scream Literary Festival, VERSeFest, Ottawa International Writers’ Festival, Kingston Writers Festival, Mariposa Festival, and The Hillside Festival.

San is internationally known for founding poetry-music-film collectives Zorras, Stumblin’ Tongues, and They They Theys.

For performances, check out San’s YouTube. For audio recordings, visit San’s SoundCloud. For more info, visit Publishing & Performance.

Film & Photography History

Self-portrait of Sandra Alland. The shot is of their neck, head and arms, from the side. They have short dirty blonde hair and are white. Shirtless, they are attempting to tie a green polka dot tie while wearing cumbersome wrist supports. Behind and around Sandra are handwritten words, beginning with 'Strange how it never hurts when I'm inside her'. Then a list of things difficult to do with chronic hand and wrist pain, things the writer is willing to do in exchange for the chance to 'get my hands on her'. The list includes 'fill in every ridiculous questionnaire', 'type a million emails' and 'open 3000 bottles of wine'.
Self-portrait, GoMA commission, San Alland, 2009.

San directs and edits documentaries, film-poems and strange hybrids. Their shorts have featured at Tate Modern (London), Bristol Museum and Art Galleries, vii Bienal de Arte Contemporáneo (Madrid), Entr’2 Marches (Cannes), Entzaubert Queer DIY Film Festival (Berlin), Kinesthesia Festival (London), Queer City Cinema (Regina), TransLations (Seattle), Malmo Queer Film Festival, San Francisco Transgender Film Festival, Los Angeles Transgender Film Festival, Toronto Bi+ Arts Festival, and Macrobert Arts Centre (Stirling).

In 2016, Brighton’s Viewfinder Project commissioned San to co-create five short documentaries about disabled and Deaf UK artists. LGBT History Month Scotland awarded San a 2013 Cultural Commission, for which San mentored artists in The Queer and Trans Deaf and Disabled Film Project, and produced the I’m Not Your Inspiration film series.

San has shown photography and video at Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art, Midlands Arts Centre (Birmingham), Gallery 44 (Toronto), Gallery 1313 (Toronto), Contact Festival / Pteros Gallery (Toronto) and Schwules Museum (Berlin). With Ajamu X, San was an inaugural artist-in-residence at Glasgow’s Trongate 103.

For more info, visit Art & Curation. For samples of San’s work, visit Films.

Curation & Consultation History

San curates film, visual art and multimedia performance. They are a consultant and lecturer on interdisciplinary art and meaningful disabled access. Over the past 15 years, San has worked collaboratively with artists to make their work more accessible, particularly through audio description and captioning. 

San has created accessible film programmes for BFI Flare (London), Glasgow Short Film Festival / Oska Bright (Brighton), SICK! Festival (Manchester), and Edinburgh Filmhouse / Film Hub Scotland. San has presented at Stirling University, This Way Up, John Hansard Gallery (Voices in the Gallery) and Wysling Arts Centre.

In 2009, San co-founded Scotland’s accessible queer and trans art project, Cachín Cachán Cachunga! San curated 2018’s LGBTQIA+ Disabled and Deaf Pride in Glasgow, and the film-performance sensation at Edinburgh Filmhouse, Who’s Your Dandy? In 2010 and 2011, they organised Faceplant, a zine fair and multimedia event for Edinburgh’s Forest Café, and in 2014 curated the SEEP series of accessible visual art exhibitions.

San’s Tkaronto multimedia curation includes The Queen West Art Crawl, The Theatre Centre, The Salvador Allende Arts Festival, The League of Canadian Poets, and Toronto Women’s Bookstore.

For more info, visit Art & Curation.