Forging a life and livelihood in the arts is not easy. Surviving economically, being understood and respected as an artist is a challenge. Thinking about intersectionality, what are the other factors that act as barriers to entry and success within the arts?
A common thread in each of the below texts was meaningful expression of individual subjectivities, often through art. Disability was also a unifying factor in each person’s lived experience and there were also sadly themes being silenced, dismissed, and erased.
Christine Sun Kim is an artist who is deaf, and her work explores how sound can be seen and felt. Khairani Barokka uses art, performance, and poetry to express the invisible but real pain often ignored when experienced by brown women. Vilissa Thompson, a disability activist, started #DisabilityTooWhite to decry the lack of representation for people of colour in disability discourse. She speaks of erasure when nondisabled actors of colour play what few roles there are for disabled people of colour in film and TV. Claude Davis-Bonnick’s case study challenges the ocular centred focus within art universities by having a more inclusive teaching and learning approach for garment design and construction.
Davis-Bonnick says a common attitude they experience is “If they can’t see, how can they understand what beauty is?” This illustrates the pervasive narrowness of conceptions of art and beauty and who is allowed to participate in these spaces. Reading these cases I asked myself if any one of these writers/artists came to study at UAL, how would they learn? When we imagine a UAL student, are we thinking of them?
The UAL disability pages foreground the university’s social model of disability and share key information for prospective and current students. I saw the role of my work in online learning in delivering this social model of disability. Making online resources available for students to access whenever and however – ie through videos with transcriptions/captions, to alt-text and screen reader friendly resources – makes the learning environment accessible for everyone.
But work needs to happen even before prospective/current students encounter these online resources. Non-disabled people, like me, must listen to disabled people’s experiences to ensure that disability is not a barrier to art and creativity and to champion representation so that disabled people can see their place at UAL as well.
Readings
Barokka (Okka), K. (2017) “Deaf-accessibility for Spoonies: Lessons from touring Eve and Mary are Having Coffee while chronically ill,” Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 22(3), pp. 387–392. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/13569783.2017.1324778.
Blahovec, S. (2016) “Confronting the Whitewashing Of Disability: Interview with #DisabilityTooWhite Creator Vilissa Thompson,” Huffpost, 28 June. Available at: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/confronting-the-whitewash_b_10574994?guccounter=1 (Accessed: May 4, 2023).
Christine Sun Kim (2023) Vimeo. Available at: https://vimeo.com/31083172 (Accessed: May 4, 2023).
Davis-Bonnick, C. (2023) Understanding visual impairments: Ocular centred mainstream Creative Arts Universities, Shades Of Noir. Available at: https://shadesofnoir.org.uk/content/understanding-visual-impairments/ (Accessed: May 4, 2023).
University of the Arts London. (2023) Disability and dyslexia, UAL. Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/students/student-services/disability-and-dyslexia (Accessed: May 4, 2023).
2 replies on “Blog post 1: Disability”
Nina, interesting thoughts on the ‘ocular’ centered focus of university education from Davis-Bonnick, and I had not considered this previously and reminds me of Kim’s work when she talked about how sound had been defined by others for her, I’m not yet qute sure how to relate that in practice to the students on my course but thinking on it! I am already finding that I’m more attuned to conversations with students and these conversations are being woven through content and topics. I like your reflection on thinking of these as barriers to success – what visible and invisible barriers are students facing.
Hi Nina, I really enjoyed reading about your personal perspective from your own teaching practice and the ways you create inclusive resources and the space that is available for additional forms of inclusion. When I was reading your post I also thought about the variations, debates and differences between representation and inclusion. Or diversity and inclusion. I thought you might find this article interesting: https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/equality-diversity-inclusion/disability-equality-higher-education/disabled-students-commission
It is about an independent and strategic group that takes responsibility for advising, informing and influencing higher education providers to improve support for disabled students.