In this paper, we document our experiences of developing processes to conduct oral history interviews with first generation disabled artists in Ontario. Mia Mingus’s view of access intimacy as shared work between disabled and non-disabled people is an important starting point. We were committed to engaging with artists during this process focusing on access in its many forms, supporting each other, and being respectful of embodied differences. Mingus (2017) notes that abled –bodied people need to inhabit our world. Given these important starting points, these interviews involved work on our part that is often not part of oral histories projects, but is work that is grounded in a social justice framework.
Presenters
Karen Yoshida
Karen Yoshida, Ph.D. is Professor, Department of Physical Therapy and cross-appointed to the Dalla Lana School of Public Health- Social Science Division and a collaborating member for the Centre for Research in Women’s Health. Since 1987, she leads an innovative Critical Disability Studies and diversity component, in partnership with the disability rights communities in Toronto within the MSc. Physical Therapy program. Her research interests focuses on Activist Disability Oral History, arts-based research and dissemination, and community disability leadership and activism among disabled young adults. Presently, Dr. Yoshida is a co-investigator on the Bodies in Translation: Activist Art Technology and Access to Life. SSHRC partnership grant. In this grant, Dr. Yoshida is leading an oral history study on Canadian disabled artists and cultural activists.
Fady Shanouda
Fady Shanouda (he/him) is an Assistant Professor at the Pauline Jewett Institute of Women’s and Gender Studies at Carleton University. He is a Critical Disability Studies scholar whose research examines disabled and mad students’ experiences in higher education. His scholarly contributions lie at the theoretical and pedagogical intersections of Disability, Mad, and Fat Studies and include socio-historical examinations that surface the interconnections of colonialism, racism, ableism/sanism and fatphobia. He has published scholarly articles on disability/mad-related issues in higher education, Canadian disability history, the anti-fat bias in medicine, and community-based learning.
Jeff Thomas
Jeff Thomas (b. 1956, Buffalo, New York) is an urban-based Iroquois, self-taught photo-based story teller, writer, pubic speaker, and curator, living in Ottawa, Ontario, and has works in major collections in Canada, the United States, and Europe. Jeff’s most recent solo shows were Birdman Rising, University of Southern Illinois, A Necessary Fiction: My Conversation with Edward S. Curtis & George Hunter, Art Gallery of Mississauga, The Dancing Grounds, Wanuskewin Heritage Park (Saskatoon), and Resistance Is NOT Futile, Stephen Bulger Gallery (Toronto). Thomas has also been in many group shows, including The Family Camera, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Ontario, Tributes + Tributaries, 1971-1989, Art Gallery of Ontario, Land/Slide: Possible Futures, Markham, Ontario, SAKAHÀN, National Gallery of Canada, UNMASKING: Arthur Renwick, Adrian Stimson, Jeff Thomas, Canadian Cultural Centre, Paris, France. In 1998, he was awarded the Canada Council’s Duke and Duchess of York Award in Photography, Royal Canadian Academy of Art (2008), The Karsh Award in photography (2008), the REVAL Indigenous Art Award (2017), and the Canada Council Governor General Award in the Visual and Digital Arts (2019).
Sean Lee
Sean Lee is an artist and curator exploring the assertion of disability art as the last avant-garde. His methodology explores crip curatorial practices as a means to resist traditional aesthetic idealities. Orienting towards a “crip horizon”, Sean’s practice explores the transformative possibilities of accessibility as an embodied politic and disability community building as a way to desire the ways disability can disrupt. In addition to his position at Tangled Art + Disability, Sean is an independent lecturer, speaker, and writer adding his insights and perspectives to conversations surrounding Disability Arts across Canada, the United States and internationally. Sean currently sits on the board of CARFAC Ontario, Creative Users Projects, and is a member of the Ontario Art Council’s Deaf and Disability Advisory Group and Toronto Art Council’s Visual Arts / Media Arts Committee.
nancy viva davis halifax
nancy viva davis halifax was born on the north shore of new brunswick on mi’gma’gi territory \ i am a white settler \ queer & crip \ a celtic mongrel \ working on stolen & sacred lands \ heir to a complex history & present of dispossession & resurgence \ i was trained as a conceptual artist at the Nova Scotia College of Art & Design \ a training that continues to influence my art praxis \ as activist & embodied \ of the body & responsive to wounds written on body\s
