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Disability

Carmen Papalia on the art of nonvisual learning

Kristin's picture

Interesting piece by Carmen Papalia, who came to the bi-co as a Mellon Creative Resident in 2012. "Museums disable me as a viewer. Everything, from the artworks to the explanatory text, assumes a subject who uses their visual sense as a primary way of knowing, and I am a nonvisual learner who requires a different frame of reference."

http://blog.art21.org/2014/10/07/you-can-do-it-with-your-eyes-closed/#

Portrait of the heart, Portrait of the Heart

bridgetmartha's picture

To Preface: I'm putting up what I have written of my paper, since I'm unable to work on it any further for the time being (and don't know when I'll be able to get back to it) and figured that, since it's pretty fleshed out already, something was better than nothing. Thus, pardon the complete lack of revision; some parts aren't fully developed, others do not flow particularly well, and points and trains of thought may be repeated. Hopefully I'll be back soon for take two.

 

Portrait of the heart, Portrait of the Heart: Questioning the Ethics of Veteran Portraiture

Queering the Gaze

Sunshine's picture

Beverly McIver is a woman whose life has taken her on a non-normative path. She is an artist who was “thrust” into the role of taking care of her sister who has developmental disabilities. We can see the journey that she has taken with her sister, Renee, and how they have coped with it through Beverly’s portraits. Beverly invites the viewer to peek into her life, and shows them how a ‘non-normative’ life can be fulfilling.

 

Part I: Queering Time

 

Selfie: The Modern, Accessible Portrait

rb.richx's picture

Defining Portraiture

It is often, at least in my opinion, a faux pas to begin a paper beyond grade school with a dictionary definition. That said, I think some dictionary definitions can get the proverbial ball rolling.

Portrait, n. A drawing or painting of a person, often mounted and framed for display, esp. one of the face or head and shoulders; (also) an engraving, photograph, etc., in a similar style.

Access, Accommodation, Universal Design

Kristin's picture

We’re all doing a lot of emotional as well as intellectual work in this 360! Sunshine’s and ndifrank’s posts are helping me to think about incorporating conversations about nonvisible disabilities and about the theory and practice of accessibility and “accommodation” into our class. As Jay Dolmage and other disability studies scholars have noted, access is always aspirational, never perfectly achieved. But it’s always worth aspiring to, and I think we need to address what access, accommodation, and universal design might look like in a classroom/ our classroom.

Social Prosthetics, Revealing Masks

nbarker's picture

What happens when your face is no longer yours? How can you ever feel like a whole self again, when your face no longer represents you? Faces are one of the main ways that we humans form conceptions of ourselves, and they are our method of taking in sensory information, as well as communicating with each other.