Episode 17: Contra* Curation with Eliza Chandler, Lindsay Fisher, and Sean Lee

Introduction:

Welcome to Contra*: the podcast about disability, design justice, and the lifeworld. This show is about the politics of accessible and critical design—broadly conceived—and how accessibility can be more than just functional or assistive. It can be conceptual, artful, and world-changing.

I’m your host, Aimi Hamraie .  I am a professor at Vanderbilt University, a designer and design researcher, and the director of the Critical Design Lab, a multi-institution collaborative focused on disability, technology, and critical theory.  Members of the lab collaborate on a number of projects focused on hacking ableism, speaking back to inaccessible public infrastructures, and redesigning the methods of participatory design—all using a disability culture framework. This podcast provides a window into the kinds of discussions we have within the lab, as well as the conversations we are interested in putting into motion. So in coming episodes, you’ll also hear from myself and the other designers and researchers in the lab, and we encourage you to get in touch with us via our website, www.mapping-access.com or on Twitter at @CriticalDesignL

Interview:

Cassandra Hartblay: I’m Cassandra Hartblay, your host for this episode, a contributor to the podcast and the Critical Design Lab, and an Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Health Humanities at the University of Toronto. In this episode, I sit down with three of the organizers of the Cripping the Arts symposium, which took place in Toronto, Ontario in late January of 2019.

Cassandra Hartblay: At the table were Eliza Chandler, a professor of disability studies at Ryerson University and a curator and art maker; Lindsay Fisher, an artist, designer, curator, and director of the Toronto-based nonprofit Creative Users; and Sean Lee, director of programming at Tangled Art+Disability, and a performance art creator.

Cassandra Hartblay: The episode was recorded at the gallery space of Tangled Art + Disability. It’s a high-ceilinged, brick-walled art gallery in an retrofitted warehouse building in Toronto full of arts organizations, and the acoustics of that space are part of the interview you’re about to hear.

Cassandra Hartblay: You’ll also notice as you listen that because we have four separate voices in the conversation, the dynamics of the discussion are a little different than our usual back-and-forth podcast format. For the most part, each of the speakers has a quite distinctive voice. But, if you’re not sure who is speaking, you can find out by following along in the transcript, and as much as possible, we’ve edited the episode to help you distinguish between voices.

Cassandra Hartblay: Finally, if you’ve been listening to Contra* this season, by now you’ll have heard the news that the Critical Design Lab, the collective that makes this podcast, also has a new project in the works in collaboration with Tangled Art + Disability. So, if you’re curious about the timeline, that project, Crip Ritual, came about after the interview that you’re about to hear was recorded, early last year. Alright, let’s dive in.

Cassandra Hartblay: I guess we’ll start with the story behind the symposium, Cripping the Arts, a three-day event at the Waterfront Centre in Toronto including panels and performances, which has just concluded. How did Cripping the Arts come about as an event? And, what was the impetus that brought it all together? Sean, let’s start with you.

Sean Lee: Well, so Cripping the Arts really originated when Eliza Chandler was the artistic director [of Tangled Art + Disability] in 2016. And it was really a momentous - a monumental moment - in which creators and gatekeepers were connected, at least that was from my perspective.

Eliza Chandler: That’s a good way to put it.

Sean Lee: And the, I think the second iteration was really about bringing the conversation to the next level. So often, I've seen conferences, symposiums and different workshops, oftentimes, it's about starting at the ground level, anytime that the mainstream is sort of brought into the fray. And to me, the second iteration of Cripping the Arts really meant that we could go from the conversations that have begun to percolate from the first one. And it allowed us to think, with some nuance around some of the things that have developed like, for instance, I was on the panel for disability arts leadership. And I think we got to talk about not just the successes of a disability- led arts organization, like,  like Tangled - Tangled is, I believe, the first disability-led arts organization in Canada. And we got to talk about both the successes and the kind of interesting, interdependent ways that leadership has kind of organically formed, but also the failures. And it was a good moment to think about how disability led movements might also exclude others from participating, how it might have definitions that when applied, make us less flexible.

Sean Lee: And, we had a really wonderful moment that engaged and centered indigenous, black, people of color communities within the frameworks of disability. And I think that was a much needed conversation that had begun in the first Cripping the Arts.

Sean Lee: That is a conversation that has kind of come to its next level, and we can begin to think about other aspects of what does it mean to, you know, lead with difference, I think that means that we have to think about those, those very definitions of madness, of Deafness, of disability, and how how we identify with it politically, and how we identify with it artistically, and curatorial. So that's kind of my entry way into that, that into Cripping the Arts, it was just a moment, I think, for us to to be nuanced about disability, and to not start from the first place.

Cassandra Hartblay: Sean, I’m glad that you brought in this idea of “disability led” arts. You mentioned it during one panel discussion at Cripping the Arts, and it’s stayed with me. And I wonder, could you say a bit more about what you mean by “disability led” and why that’s important to you and to the spirit of Cripping the Arts? And also, to all of you -  is there a kind of consensus about the phrase “disability arts”? Where does that term come from, and what does it mean for each of you? And also, you mentioned the phrase “disability aesthetics” - is there an aesthetic that defines disability arts?

Sean Lee: I think what I'll start with is thinking about that that's square one sort of situation, because I think, you know, starting at square one has its advantages

Sean Lee: But I think what we need to do is recognize how movements grow. And I think about the parallels that emergencies of, of like queer arts and feminist arts have towards that relationship, that when it's led by the community, when it's championed, and really, at that kind of ground level, then it grows and it'd be good begins to get picked up by the mainstream, it doesn't. And you know, it doesn't start at the beginning all the time, whereas disability, because the very concept of disability as a political identity is still, I think, really fresh and new. A lot of folks come at it from the medical model without understanding how this is art rooted in like social practice and rooted as a movement activist movement. And so to me, it has to play a number of roles.

Sean Lee: Sometimes if it's the first and only thing that someone comes into, it needs to still be accessible to a degree. But I think that doesn't mean we should sacrifice the place that it's gone to I think we need to account for the ways that and it's that's that's sort of the most complicated part is how do we keep that conversation going while still being being invitational because I think of how my, in my own arts education like I didn't, I didn't learn about Tangled, I didn't learn about disability arts, but I did learn about feminist arts, I did learn about queer arts, Black Arts, and the way in which, like, those movements have formed.

Sean Lee: And I kept trying to draw parallels in my own practice to how it within my kind of many intersecting identities, something could be built from there. And so to be able to enter into disability arts, at a time when disability arts was being picked up, I think, was really an incredible opportunity. But I want other, you know, artists coming into this to be able to come in from that same, you know, education level of just not really knowing what disability arts is. But it still does need to evolve, right? So that's sort of where I think I've been grappling with how do we start and taking an intersectional lens has really helped in that it allows us to think about how those other movements have led with difference and we can apply those some some of those, you know, educational and kind of standards that others spaces have developed to our own.

Cassandra Hartblay: Lindsay, you look like you have something to add here.

Lindsay Fisher: You know, it's just making me think about, like, just saying it over and over and over again, “disability arts, disability arts.”

Lindsay Fisher: And this, I'm taking a risk by saying this and I might call you in a week and ask you not to put this in, but, I've never identified with disability arts, like, personally. Like, I came into disability arts because I, you know, learning — well, late 70s, 80s performance art. Marina Abramovic, and I identify with that — that way of working. Her work to me was, about — death, and like, vulnerability, and about aging, and about disability. It was about that to me. And I think, um, that’s why I'm having such a hard time, you know, drawing a line around disability arts, and saying THAT is disability arts, or that IS disability arts, or that isn't disability arts. And I say that even though I am working in disability arts, and and I do call myself — in some spaces — a disability artist. It's just an ongoing, kind of, conversation I have in my head. So, yeah. [laughs]

Cassandra Hartblay: What does that bring up for you, Eliza?

Eliza Chandler: Yeah, I think that — like speaking, as I rarely do [sarcasm], like from a disability studies perspective or like a critical theory perspective — I think we're you know, at this moment right now and sort of shifting away from identity politics and assuming assuming that there is a singular experience or an experience of an identity that brings you into a movement or a culture in a similar way, or in an intersecting way. So I think, like Lindsey, like, for a long time I was really adamant that like disability arts was a thing, it was a culture to be protected, it was a politic. But now, I’m like reminded of when Deirdre Logue had her show at Tangled a few years ago. And Deirdre would, I think what I identify as a queer feminist artist. She's a co-founder of the Feminist Art Gallery, she’s been making work for a number of years, so many years, in fact, that the show at Tangled was a collaborative show with other galleries in this building, and it was a retrospective of Deirdre’s life’s work. And I was here when that was curated, and when we decided to curate that, and I remember, there were questions from the public about why her show was in the gallery. Did she identify as disabled, or deaf, or mad? But, it was really clear for me that her work — as you're saying about Marina Abramovic — was about disability. And she and I had conversations about this. Her work is about doing the same thing over and over and over and over and over again. And to me that's — that’s interrogating one’s relation, non-normative relationship with the world, and how for some bodies, entering into the world is an easy and unquestioned process, and for others, it's not. And I think that is a disability politic to think about that.

Eliza Chandler: And the other way, that Deirdre integrated accessibility into her work — because that was the requirement of Tangled, to make the work accessible —  but she used that as a creative impetus. I think it does relate to Cripping the Arts, actually, because the conference was not called Disability Arts, it was called Cripping the Arts, using cripping as a verb as we all do. Following Kelly Fritsch, you know, it's about desiring the disruption the disability makes. And so I think for Deirdre, I don't want to speak on her behalf, but, rather than to sort of slap on some access features at the end, or not at all, she worked with deaf and hard of hearing artist David Bobier to create vibrating extensions of her videos.

Eliza Chandler: So, there was one video in which she was biting a balloon until it popped. And you can imagine the sort of, the sound of that, and the anxiety that act, and the sound, would produced, that might not easily be translated through a caption that said, “Squeak! Squeak!” or, even an audio description that she's biting a balloon until it burst, right? And, instead of, or on top of having both of the things, which the work did have, she -  Deirdre and David Bobier collaboratively built this plinth that you could sit on while watching the video, and it vibrated with the sound of that work. And I think sitting on the plinth, for me, changed the way that I experienced that work. So I don't know — like, you know, I don't know how Deirdre identifies in her mind and in her body. But to me, that like, really fits in with a crip culture, and fits in with desiring the disruption that disability makes, and in a proactive way, and sort of taking that up as a creative invitation.

Eliza Chandler: I think, maybe when we reframe the conversation, as a conversation about Cripping the Arts, and we’re not sort of requiring people to pin themselves down in an identity, which, as we learn from the indigenous and race panel, even the word disability doesn't easily fit into an indigenous lexicon or worldview. And even sort of the idea that, you know, that we rail against the medical system (as I do!), requires that first I have access to that medical system. And Mona Stonefish, the Elder for the event, and her granddaughter Sky Stonefish, who were both on that panel, made really astute comments about how access to medical care is a matter of justice. And that, I mean, I think that that disrupts our, our — our disability politic to the core. So not requiring people to identify, and not requiring people to take up a similar politic as, as, as you're saying, instead of the, the disability politics that existed in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. I think if we're listening to that intergenerational knowledge, like I even have to admit that like, yeah, I think a lot of my ideas around having a disability at the core, have changed even since the last Cripping the Arts, because, because of these intersectional conversations, and because of the way that access has become, as you're saying, more of a cultural consideration, rather than a logistic concern. It, it can help us sort of ground our movement in something cultural rather than biological.

Lindsey Fisher: And also just that disability is — it's part of all of this, it’s not, it's not us and them, and it's not, you know — you are or you're not disabled. And I believe, and I think that Deirdre, you know, in explaining that show, the value and the politic is in the relationship, is in the learning, it’s in the sort of back and forth, it's the conversations, it's Deirdre experiencing what disability is by incorporating vibrating tactile  technology. Or being open to — I mean, we all will be, if we aren't already, we will all be, quote unquote, disabled, eventually. I mean, so then you start to think about what does disability mean?

Sean Lee: To me, I think this also comes down to developing crip aesthetics, because to me, Deirdre’s exhibition very clearly had queer aesthetics. And that means, I think, when you're entering into the queer community, there are ways that you come in, and you really recognize that this is a space that’s, um, that is yours culturally, and has been made for you and your are represented in these spaces. And that hasn't been what disability has typically had.

Sean Lee: And so I agree to an extent that the identity the some of the identity politics in which disability is sort of has created are really ways in which some that might actually exclude a lot of people from being within that narrative. But at the same time, I want to be conscious of how, how when we're creating a culture, when, for example, we create a, you know, queer aesthetics, that doesn't necessarily mean that everybody has to identify as queer in this one way. I think queerness has been very successful because it's had this flexibility, and it's had this sort of, it's had like an agenda to basically disrupt. And that's crip, that's that's crip as well.

Sean Lee: And so, yeah, I think there's there's many ways in which we can navigate this, we have to think about folks who are just entering in, and who don't have some of the language that has developed, right? And then there's people who have been in this conversation, there's that intergenerational con —  there's the intergenerational conversation. And then there's the conversations that have been percolating within academia. And so there's all this complexity in which we when we're thinking about disability arts, like, are we thinking of it, as you know, when when you hear the word “disability arts,” some might hear it from kind of a medical model, some might hear from that the academic model, some might hear it from an activist model, some might think of it as, as just a culture. And so, as we develop these crip aesthetics, then maybe we can let go of some of those ways in which we've clung on to more normative ways of defining disability and madness and Deafness, right? I guess that kind of addresses that crip aesthetic question?

Cassandra Hartblay: I love how all of these examples are drawing out the way that disability arts as a phrase is potentially essentializing or exclusionary as an identity category, but that there’s possibility for a kind of important opening in terms of disrupting expectations about what art does and whom it interpolates. So that cripping the arts as an idea is about a crip aesthetic that understands accessibility as an exciting disruption and opportunity.

Cassandra Hartblay: One thing that I noticed is that there are some really interesting things about the way that you organized accessibility at the conference: there was a live stream so that folks who couldn’t attend in person could follow along; and an access guide with a glossary. Can you talk more about the aesthetics of access, and how you were thinking about accessibility in planning the conference?

Eliza Chandler: I think that we all approach accessibility as more than a solution to a problem. But it's something that’s iterative and a combination of best practices, but also, historical knowledge, what worked and what didn't, and asking people what they need, but telling people won't be preemptively thought about and asking them that. But also, having things like an access team on site, whose purpose is to not only communicate the access, but also be flexible and be responsive to the inevitable access need that we haven't thought about in our planning.

Eliza Chandler: So you know, it's a bit of a back and forth. But I think something that we really, that I really learned in planning all of this, is how to communicate access, and how to communicate what, what we planned for, and the opportunity that that brings.

Eliza Chandler: So the first day, when Lindsey presented on the first day, the first day was about the impact of relaxed performance, which is a way of producing theatre in the Canadian theatre sector. And I think we sort of early on, as we were planning the conference really, we thought about adopting a principle of relaxed performance, that is, creating a visual story, which is something that theaters have been doing to sort of orient an audience who might not have ever been to a theater before, to what to expect. Even like a brief on what theatre culture is, from what time to arrive, that there’ll be an intermission, that  you can eat in the theater or not, things like that. So, Lindsey had this great idea to adapt that and model as our access guide.

Eliza Chandler: We decided to do it because we wanted everyone to know the access provision that we provided. So that, you know, so that it was creating and welcoming an invitational introduction to the conference. And even what a difference it makes when you don't have to ask, “Will there be ASL?” or, “Will there be audio description?” but that somebody has planned for you to come to the conference, and has that thought about your needs, and has done it already.

Eliza Chandler: But it also gave us an opportunity to think about, like, what is a conference? What kind of knowledge base do you have to have to know what you get? And it's not even a conference — at one point, it was called the symposium, which is even more obscure. What is it? What is a symposium? What is the building looks like? What does the building look like with lots of people in it? What are panels? Can you ask questions at a panel? What is a moderator? Knowing that a moderator is there to sort of contain and facilitate the discussion is a useful piece of information to know. And me, as someone who's been to lots of conferences, you know, I, I, because of my experience, I know that. But an arts worker, or a community member or, you know, a new academic even, might not know any of these languages. So to create the access guide, became a really great opportunity to sort of unpack these normative assumptions that this imaginary knowledge base that we all have in common. To state things. And to even think about, “What are — Why do we have moderators? Is it necessary to have Q&A at every panel?” and things like that.

Eliza Chandler: And so, we worked with Sol Express who are an arts organization here in Toronto, that works with folks labeled with the cognitive disabilities and intellectual disabilities, who came to the last Cripping the Arts. And part of their feedback was that it would have been great to have a sense of the language being used in the presentations. So we worked with them to develop this access guide. And you'll see, as part of it, part of it is sort of what what will come up during the symposium. We identified key terms that we thought might come up, and then with the, with lots of help, designed a glossary of terms to think about that. And, I mean, the fascinating thing is, of course, it's not about dumbing a concept down to some imaginary level of education. It's really us all, over the holidays, having these Google Doc conversations about — what is a standard? What do we mean by genderqueer? Like, how is it different than gender fluid or trans identity? And how specifically does that relate to cisgender? What is a land acknowledgement? Do elders give a land acknowledgment? Or do they do something else entirely? Is it a settler responsibility to do a land acknowledgement? How does that relate to the role of the elder? What is decolonization? How does that relate to transatlantic slave trade and indigenous land, like, those are two different things that we mean, when we talk about decolonization? So for me, as someone who sort of throws these words around all the time, to be forced to actually think about like, what, what I mean, when I'm talking about this stuff, and to create some sort of definition, which, you know, they're not plain, there's nothing plain about the definition that are created for we try to really explain what we mean in sort of jargon free terms.

Eliza Chandler: And so, I think, that again, is an example of how access is not a straightforward problem-solution equation. It really gives the occasion to think really carefully about these sort of things that we might just assume. We might assume that everyone has the same experience of getting off of the TTC and into Harbourfront Center, and same experience, knowing what to wear in the morning to go conference, or whatever. And the same experience of what decolonization means.

So it was a great, it was great to work on that. I'm really, I think out  of everything with Cripping the Arts, and like, I'm really proud of that. And I think it will be a great template to give to people, and have people elaborate on, and to use with their own with their own stuff.

Cassandra Hartblay: Wow, yes - I agree that this access guide is a really phenomenal creation, and such an important example of what access can look like. And it also gets to something that we talk about in the lab, and on the podcast, about what it means to create access conference and knowledge sharing spaces - as a kind of design for ways of being together.  So - um - I’m just thinking back to sitting in the audience at Cripping the Arts, and really being cognizant of the amount of care and the amount of labor that went in to producing an experience like that one.

Cassandra Hartblay: So I mean, in terms of thinking about the amount of labor that goes into creating something like an access guide, or an intersectional conference, do you have any thoughts of what you might say to other people about who might be resistant or scared to kind of take the first step toward trying out a more accessible conference model for themselves?

Eliza Chandler: I remember a really cool moment, I think it was on the first day, when we were talking about relaxed performances. And the people in the audience kept saying, you know, ASL is really expensive, its understandable, like, it's beyond the budget, it really throws you, you know, budget akimbo, you know, all of these comments kept coming up and up and up. And then this great Deaf activists Sage Willow was in the audience and, and they said, you know, they — they signed of course, you know, “STOP with this!” like, “We don't need our access to be a price point that's too high or unmanageable. And nobody in here is talking about how expensive the speakers are, or how expensive the lights are, or how expensive the chairs are in the room for all of you people don't, don't come with your own chair, like, like being in the space together is expensive.” And it does take care and to elevate some, some ways of communicating and taking care as being “extra” or, you know, extreme, to come back to this design language.

Eliza Chandler: I —  so I guess the reason I raised that is because, like it is extra to create all that stuff to think about this. Planning for the access was a HUGE part of planning this symposium, which started at the very beginning, as we were creating our budget and, and pulling together the team, and we had someone dedicated exclusively to coordinating the access then. And I mean, that was a multifolded process that there was in constant negotiation with the the artistic program, the panelists, and things like that.

Eliza Chandler: I think what I would say to someone who was interested in thinking about that, you know, it will force you to think differently about the conference. You can't just sort of carry on the way that you've always planned a conference and, and hope that your inclusion of disabled people won't be disruptive. I mean, that's what we think about when we think about desiring this disruption, like, it will disrupt every single part of your process, including your ability to be spontaneous and sort of last minute about including an extra speaker, or something — or, you know, your panelist can’t show up the day of and say, I have a video I want to show. Well, is that video captioned? Has the audio describer seen the video? Do they know how to describe it in real time? Those are all kinds of considerations. So it's disruptive, I think, but but the like, in that disruption, I think collectively, you're really thinking about how bodies and spaces are designed for all kinds of bodies: how different kinds of bodies receive and give inclusion. Who is recognized as the leader and the knowledge producer? And, you know, by thinking about those things intentionally, I think you're just producing a different kind of knowledge and a different kind of way of perceiving that knowledge, which… is pretty exciting.

Lindsay Fisher: If I were to say one thing to people, you know, organizing an event or something, is it one thing I've learned from Cripping the Arts, and helping to organize it, is going back to failure, we embrace failure. It has to be part of the process — is to be willing to fail, and to be open to failing, to failure. And because you know, it's a cliche, but you only learn through failure, you only get better to failure, you only become more inclusive through failure.

Cassandra Hartblay: Wow. Yes. There is a kind of courage in that, isn’t there, that access is never finished, but an inchoate process, a set of relations, and so it can never be perfect, so it’s inherently about learning from small — or large! — failures of access. So, thanks for that, Lindsay. But I want to shift gears a bit now away from the accessibility at the Cripping the Arts conference itself and back to some of the big picture questions that came up in the panel discussions during the event.

Cassandra Hartblay: One that we alluded to briefly earlier - on Sean’s panel - there was a conversation about the way that disability arts -  disability studies, so often feels “stuck” at the “introduction to disability culture” mode or in academia, this “disability studies 101” phase. And in the context of the panel, it was about what can be taken for granted in terms of a starting place, and carrying knowledge forward.

Cassandra Hartblay: And that always has to do with the received notions and broader cultural conceptions of an idea. I was teaching recently with an article that Eliza wrote - in which you (Eliza) talk about an idea from a Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie lecture, what she calls the danger of a single story, and you write that disability arts isn’t about representing disability in any one particular way, but about increasing the number and complexity and diversity of representations of disability that we all have access to collectively.  

Cassandra Hartblay: And it seemed to me that this idea has a lot to do with Cripping the Arts as a project, and was one theme that came up several times in the panel discussions. So, I’m curious, to you all, what is the single story of disability arts, as you see it? So if there's sort of like a way that you see disability in the arts normally getting reproduced in mainstream culture, mass media, or typical sort of arts funding and exhibition spaces - what is that, and how might we think about that differently going forward?

Eliza Chandler: You know, when we think about disabled people, we often think of people disconnected, as not becoming together through a shared, lived experience, as not being connected by cultural practices, language, humor, and when I say cultural practices, they mean, anything from knowing the best QPoC ASL interpreters, to having straws at the bar table. And, you know, and even knowing to include end times to all your events so that people can book their accessible transit. Those kinds of cultural assumptions, so, I think the single story of disability, is that we're disconnected, we're not agentive, and we're not sort of celebrating the differences that disability makes.

Eliza Chandler: So disability arts, I don’t think, doesn't replace that single story with another single story, or a better single story, or a more emancipated single story. But it really allows us all to speak, to speak about our own stories and our own experiences. And some of those might confirm a single story, some, like, might make artwork about how they suffered through their disability, or something like, or how they're isolated because of disability, or something like that. But the multiplicity, I think, that self-authored and self-narrated, in the multiplicity that disability arts allows for, we can sort of, yeah, disrupt the single story.

Eliza Chandler: And I think the single story of disability art, as you've been saying, is that it's, it's therapeutic. It's created for a cathartic experience or even a physical rehabilitative experience and learning, you know, fine motor skills or whatever it is. And then — and to understand that as, as the impetus behind the art disabled people create really divorces that art from any sort of intention, including a civic intention, political intention, an intention to be recognized as a professional artist who exhibits and gets funded and all that stuff. So I think disability art really speaks back to all of that.

Eliza Chandler: But there is an artist, Gloria Swain, who was a Tangled artist in residence, Gloria is a very politicized artist, she identifies as a mad black woman. And talks about her madness as the experience of being racialized and, and living in a colonized city like Toronto, and experiencing racial violence on the daily. And worrying about her, her kids and her grandkids who might also be coming into contact with police and police violence. All of that, she, she talks about it as being a mad-inducing. But she also talks about her artistic practice as being therapeutic. And I remember when she was having a show in Tangled, writing that in her artist statement, and I said, you have to take that out, we can’t have that. And she really spoke back to me and said, “Yeah, but it is therapeutic.” Like, who's to say that it's not therapeutic and political at the same time? Like, “If I’m saying my madness is a political, then I can say that my art is both therapeutic and political at the same time.” And for me, that was a real learning moment of like, yeah, we're not just sort of running from this single story and claiming that art can never be therapeutic, I think where we're running from it, that that's all and only it can ever be. And because of that, you know, we don't deserve to get paid or to write-ups in journals and stuff like that. Which, I guess is another single story. When we imagine that our disability art is only therapeutic and not anything other or different, then we don't critically engage disability art in cultural, or in art crits and reviews and things like that.

Cassandra Hartblay: Sean, you look like you want to jump in here?

Sean Lee: So, Eliza, I think that example of Gloria's exhibition really speaks to some of the nuance that that is allowed in disability arts, right? For those who are participating in disability arts, are simply doing so as part of a larger arts practice that they have. And I think one of the biggest issues is how folks get put into definitions, like well- defined boxes, of “Oh, this is a disabled artists who only makes disability art.” You know, the way you, you mentioned — how it doesn't allow for growth, it doesn't allow for criticism, it doesn't allow for critique, and experimentation. And I think that is one of the biggest faults of defining disability arts in such a strict single story narrative. Is that we can't be part of the cannon as long as we are defined by that. So, you know, for me, disability arts is just one other movement, it's, you know, I fall back to this quote all the time. But, in the UK, Yinka Shonibare, he talks about how he thinks of disability arts at “the last avant garde.”  And I love the way that situates disability arts, both within the canon and outside of it. So that allows us to both participate in the art world when we we need to, but also to engender new ways, new aesthetics of participating in it, that might actually influence the art sector in in other ways.

Sean Lee: I also just want to think about the separated tiers in the art world, the way in which there is like, you know, the commercial sector. In Canada, we have a very strong artist run center culture and nonprofit culture, with public galleries that program art because it is a public good. And then there are, you know, institutions, academic institutions that participate in art. And so these are all ways in which disability arts has contributed to its to the growth overall of contemporary art. And so, yeah, I think we need more artists that are participating in different ways that help us think about not only disability arts from a perspective of access, but as a way of creating culture, I guess. And and access can definitely be part of that culture. But it has to, I think, also be accessible from any starting point.

Cassandra Harblay: This is amazing, and I feel like I could do an entire separate podcast in which we just talk about each of your individual art practices, and what you’re doing next, and what is coming next for the Cripping the Arts project after the second conference. I think we’ll leave it here for today, and I’m really looking forward to seeing what each of you do in the future, and to continuing the conversation. So, thanks for joining us on the Contra* podcast.

Introducing Crip Ritual:

All cultures have rituals. Rituals can be ways to change material circumstances, politics, lived experience, or even spiritual realities. So rituals are a method for designing a better world. In disability culture, we often use rituals as ways of designing and anticipating a more accessible future. What role does ritual play in your life, and what rituals could you imagine designing to ensure a better future for you and other members of disability culture and community? The Critical Design Lab invites submissions to an art exhibition called Crip Ritual, which will be on display in Spring 2021. You can submit your artworks to the exhibition for consideration via our website, www.CripRitual.com, or participate on social media using #CripRitual.

Outro:

You’ve been listening to Contra*: a podcast about disability, design justice, and the lifeworld. Contra* is a production of the Critical Design Lab. Learn more about our projects at mapping-access.com., and be sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter.

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