Disabled Artistic Practices

Catalog description

In the last decade, the field of disability arts has expanded within the public eye exploring themes of identity politics, disability as a verb, queer crip methodologies across dance labs, curated shows, collectives, and individual practice. This rise in attention is an echo of the sentiments given to artists during the AIDS epidemic nearly 30 years prior while engaging with contemporary arguments of individual versus collective action, memory, pain, sexuality, loss, amnesia, archival pursuits and more. Questions of institutional inclusion versus institutional protest, censoring, bodily autonomy, and mutual aid organizing, however, have begun to complicate this act of inclusion. Disabled Artistic Practice(s) is a class that will explore these nuances while supporting students in the development of their own artistic practices in relationship to these surrounding themes. This class will study the theoretical impulses and methodological questions of Black visuality studies, queer theory, crip theory, film theory, visuality studies, and affect theory to guide our exercises in artistic practice and development. We will use texts and teachings from Sins Invalid, Jasbir Puar, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna Samarasinha, Carolyn Lazard, Park McArthur, Constantina Zavitsanos, Kayla Hamilton, Joselia Rebekah Hughes, agustine zegers, alx velozo, Alcide Breaux, Nat Decker, Cielo Saucedo, Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo, Paneteha Abareshi, Kamra Sadia-Hakim, Elle L’Sur, Amalle Dublon, Johanna Hedva, and Bob Flanagan. Students will also have the opportunity to have workshops with curators and artists whose contemporary practices are pushing the fields of artistic practice, film studies, critical studies, and curation. Reading is both in depth and attends to a broad survey of the field. There is one required text. All other texts have been uploaded in PDF form on Canvas.