Thirteenth International Conference on The Arts in Society

Abstract

Through a range of contemporary film, fiction, art and performance we investigated moments of disability agency and resistance to ableism. Understanding disability theory – including how normalcy and able-bodiedness operate in compulsory fashion, how disability and the disabled figure function in narrative, and how disability brings an important, often-overlooked aesthetic to art and culture – helps us situate the sociocultural importance of our work as artists, our experiences and the experiences of others in equitable ways. Even as the late Tobin Siebers suggests “disability enlarges our vision of human variation and difference, and puts forward perspectives that test presuppositions dear to the history of aesthetics” (Disability Aesthetics 3), surprisingly, a disability studies perspective was new for my students. My poster presentation will share a few key concepts relative to disability studies, art and social practice as well as some achievements of our class, including brief summaries and images of presentations and student comments that project an ethos of disability. Doing so provides a model of disability as knowledge and community for students at Emily Carr and our university more generally.