Disability Artivism Now! Disability Artmaking and Worldbuilding

Course Description

Frida Kahlo, Vincent Van Gogh, Stevie Wonder, Jillian Mercado, Chella Man. Pante Hart.
Disabled artists have transformed fashion, film, art, and pages. Artists paint, lyricize, and write through the revolution. The often inventive (and sometimes weird) experience of disability can be a space for creativity, world building, and political activism. Disability art and activism give us the tools to imagine new futures outside of exclusionary systems. These arts are portals through which we can dream and imagine possible futures!

Disability arts is an umbrella term that includes the arts made by disabled, d/Deaf, Mad, chronically ill artists–including those who are still figuring out their connections to these communities. Disability arts are as fluid as the people and communities making them––disability art reflects the diversity of disabled, queer, racialized, mentally ill, neurodivergent, experience. We will start our course by journeying through the history of disability arts in Canada. Disability arts in Canada are rooted in histories of institutionalization, deinstitutionalization, and questions of who is a “real artist.” We will explore this history and how the disability arts movement has grown from these histories into a powerful push towards creating a vibrant disability culture.

Through the first half of this course we will explore the history, politics, and resistance of this movement. We will paint, write, collage, zine-make, and glitter glue as we learn and try out the techniques, politics, and histories of the movement. We will also tour the Carleton University Art Gallery (in person) and Tangled Art Gallery (virtual) to experience these artworks as a class.

Through the second half of the course, students will be encouraged to share their craft, through the creation of a digital gallery to share with the world! After experimenting with texture, colour, medium, and message, we will develop an artifact––an individual or shared art, writing, music, or craft pieces alongside artist statements. You will leave this course with a physical reminder of the political power of disability arts and the community we will build!

Please note - we will be discussing ableism and other forms of oppression.