The film by Christine Sun Kim, A Selby Film, is a beautiful, poetic and sound immersive film.
When I first watched the film, I thought of how important is to discover one´s vocation and how important is to be given that opportunity.
Christine was able to explore the world through art; Her film was an immersive experience in terms of sound and colour. Dealing with personal and important issues of our era. Through a personal experience, Christine addresses a bigger issue that so many people face – the barriers that the world has. Starting at home. I love how honest she is, opening up about her childhood and how difficult it was for her to learn a language because her parents were learning sign language and english at the same time, and because of that it was very confusing to her.
One of the parts that most resonated with me was when Christine talks about that “there were all this conventions about what was proper sound.” and people would tell her to be quiet. This is especially moving for me because it touches on a personal experience. It is really hard when people are not empathetic with you and dictate what you can or cannot do. Having been there my self, through a personal experience with my younger brother, although a different situation, there are so many conventions, or ways of doing things that exclude people if they are disabled or neurodiverse.
The film has both sign language and subtitles, which made me feel included and I was able to understand Christine.
Thinking of my teaching practice, I encourage my students to bring their own life and to reflect on their lives and on their uniqueness. I do this inviting them first to bring their “daily life” as research: for example, it can be a conversation they have with their family or friends, a meal, a smell, a film, an experience.
In my tutorials, one of the main things I have been trying to focus, when giving examples of other artists for my students to look at, is to present neurodiverse artists and people with disabilities and/or practices who work with neurodiverse groups.
I first come across with Judith Scott’s sculptures through the book by by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Touching Feeling: Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity.
Judith Scott Scott, who is the frontispiece to Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick´s book, showed interest in art after a workshop where she was introduced to the medium fibre art. Scott was self-directed and her wrapped sculptures, as you can see in the images, in the shapes of cocoons, were made from found materials. She created nearly 100 sculptures. And she died in 2005. Scott suffered from Down Syndrome and was also deaf, a condition that was misdiagnosed as mental retardation until she was an adult.
This leads me to the second resource, the UAL Disability Service Webpages, and it makes me think what is the university doing to include disable people and to make them feel welcome.
In the disability page we can find information about Individual Support Agreement (ISA)
“ISAs are informed by the social model of disability, which says that individuals are disabled by environmental, attitudinal, or procedural barriers, rather than by their impairment or difference. This means that the focus of the ISA is on practical steps which can be taken to remove barriers, rather than providing medical or personal information about a student.“
At the beginning of the year, in my tutor groups, I go through the UAL page of Disability and dyslexia -I show my students how can they have access and if they would like or have any doubts I am available to talk. Again, when I have the first tutorial with them, I asked them if they are aware of any disability and if at any point of the course they need or want support they can talk to me or the disability adviser.
I also keep a track of my students attendance and I will email them if they miss a class. That helps me to understand if there´s anything that I can do to help them deal with any barriers that exist.
This is my first year of teaching within the curriculum, and I think I am so fortunate that I am able to attend a PGCert because it is really helps me in my role. Plus the discussions at home and with my colleagues are of invaluable help.
I still have a few doubts about the “system” of the ISA. I have a few students with ISA and for that reason I am familiarised with a few steps I have to do to make the students feel comfortable.
I am also aware of my bias and how this influences my role.
This year I had an autist student.
I am not sure how to write this because I don’t want to come across wrongly. The disabilities are not written on ISA´s. I understand that “ISAs are informed by the social model of disability, which says that individuals are disabled by environmental, attitudinal, or procedural barriers, rather than by their impairment or difference. This means that the focus of the ISA is on practical steps which can be taken to remove barriers, rather than providing medical or personal information about a student“
Comparing my student’s ISA´s, in this a person who has dyslexia and a person who has autism they are exactly the same. However the needs from these people are completely different.
My student, was coming from overseas and because of Covid the student arrived later in the first term, and she did not take part on the first month of introductory workshops. We met online.
With her Disability Adviser, the student agreed an Individual Support Agreement (ISA), which
was then communicated to me.
The student arrived. It coincided with a day of the open studios. I met the student at lunch time in the canteen, before going to the studios so we would have time to talk and familiarised in person. I asked the student if the student would like me to introduce her to a classmate. The student replied no.
We talked a bit more and I started to feel feelings of protection and care, a sense of responsibility towards the student, more than the other students. I also noticed that there was something else that I was not aware. As the conversation went on the student said it was very difficult for her to be in places with more people, that it was very difficult to make friends because those people would always abandon her. I ask her a few questions.
The student said she had autism.
I felt a huge sense of care towards the student because what happened to me in the past.
I asked the student if she would like to walk around with me and see the art work. I said that I wouldn’t put the student in any difficult situation. The student agreed to walk around with me. The student walked and took pictures. I asked if she was taking pictures because she was interested in certain kind of works. She said yes but it was mainly to show her mother.
I stopped to talk to another tutor. The student said to the tutor that she liked the tutor nails and we chatted a bit.
The student attended barely any sessions and she would email me saying that it was very difficult to her to be around so many people. Another thing that I think it was challenging was the fact that there´s not a specific brief of what has to be done in fine art. Fine art is very self directed course.
For a while I was in conversation with the student, with her mother and with the disability adviser. A Specialist One-to-One Study Skills Support was in place to help the student.
We wrote a specific brief for Unit 1 and 2 of a body of work and other tasks the student had to submit. However, the student ´s mental health was very fragile and the student asked time out.
I felt a huge sense of responsibility and helpless at the same time. It was hard because it touched in issues of the past that I also couldn’t do anything. Although the situations are completely different. It is a prof that we have our bias and that will influence our behaviour, for good and for bad.
I don’t think there´s an easy answer but I feel that a more personalised supported is needed if we want to be an inclusive institution.
I am wondering what could it be different. Could these measures be in place for the moment the student arrived to the UK?
The Social Model of Disability at UAL says that “we are not disabled by our individual difference. we are disabled by barriers by the world around us”
How can we create a university that is designed with everyone in mind? A university that removes barriers for everyone, whoever they are.
Our third resource is an article that refers to the # disability too white and confront us with the idea of disability and what we see in the media and the fact that there’s a lack of representation of disabled people of colour in media.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/confronting-the-whitewash_b_10574994?guccounter=1
“Q. When you started it, it was obviously in response to the lack of
representation of disabled people of color in media. Can you expand on that
a little bit more?
A. You don’t see disabled people of color in media, and if you do, they are
usually played by nondisabled actors and actresses of color. I think that alone
erases us from being a part of the few roles that are meant for us, that’s part of
the problem. There’s only a handful of disabled actors and actresses of color
that come to mind that are doing great work that deserve the same attention
and support as their white counterparts. So I think that when it comes to the
media, the media has to do a better job at highlighting better portrayals of
disabled actors and actresses to really be visible and have those roles; to be
creative enough to write shows, screenplays, and movies; and to give them the
space, financial support, and backing to tell our stories our way. There’s a lot of
room there for representation of disabled people of color in the media to be
more present, to demystify what it means to be of color and disabled.”
Confronting the Whitewashing Of Disability:
Interview with #DisabilityTooWhite Creator
Vilissa Thompson
This reminds me, when I was young, in a Brazilian soap novel, there was this actress who was playing a disabled women. This person wasn’t disabled and I can think of many other people who are not disable playing these roles. However, I cannot think of the opposite.
I feel media has more and more power, and because of that a huge responsibility too. I was very pleased to see recently, in the film Eternals, Lauren Ridloff, who was born deaf to hearing parents played the role of a superhuman. The character is the first deaf superhero in the MCU.
Often my students bring their interests in media into the class room and it is often a good opportunity to discuss stereotypes. To discuss this, I found very interesting to talk about Bell Hooks. In one of her interviews available here and transcript in here Bell Hooks says:
“What does it mean that media has such control of our imaginations that they don’t want to accept that there are conscious manipulations taking place and that in fact, we want to reserve particularly for the arena of movie making a certain sense of magic? A certain sense that reality is being documented and, again, you know, I think that part of the power of cultural criticism and cultural studies has been it’s sort of political intervention as a force in American society to say, there really is a conscious manipulation of representations and it’s not about magical thinking, it’s not about like pure imagination, creativity, it’s about people consciously knowing what kinds of images will produce a certain kind of impact.“
Media is now 24/7. We have to be critical of the images we see and what is not seen. In addition, we talk in the classroom of our responsibility, as artists, using images and producing new meaning: The work produced by artists will carry its own meaning, beyond the intentions of the artist, and it is also our responsibility to understand the repercussions of such thing.
Our 4th resource is the inspiring paper by Khairani Barokka (Okka). The article presents her lessons from her tour solo deaf accessible poetry/art show around UK, Austria and India, with little resources and in chronic pain. The artist was in physical pain while doing the shows. The show is called Eve and Mary Are Having Coffee.
The work by Okka is cutting edge in what art can be and in what it is for. It expands our comprehension and understanding of what it means to be human.
I totally agree when Okka tells us that “the sheer impossibility of human communication is why we attempt to bridge it anyway, by writing, speaking, creating…”
“Perversely, the absolute facts of miscomprehension, the inability to transfer someone into our bodies to experience what we feel, were at the root of both the extreme chronic pain and fatigue I’ ve experienced for nearly six years now and the impetus to create a show that would illuminate this pain where the sighted saw none. To realise a form of interpretation that was not only ocular-centric – as I would paint my right side and chest in the blue ‘ coffee’ a pantheistic deity had poured over my nerves, and provide the script in full on devices for hearing-impaired audience members – but audiocentric, as poetry equal parts ominous and whimsical described abstractly the bizarre, frustrating, hopeful, and livid states of living with this condition as artist, as woman, as Indonesian woman abroad, living with what I perceive as intergenerational trauma in my body, as well that induced by healthcare abuse and neglect.”
Khairani Barokka
This pain was not visible.
This disability was not visible.
How many disabilities we don’t see,
Not just because they are not visible but because we don’t know them?
“I remember a deeply empathetic group of academics and artists being kind enough to listen, and Petra Kuppers asking me what I do for self-care. It was horribly embarrassing to have burst into tears, yet concomitantly, I wanted people to know: academia and the arts, for some of us, are contact sports. What we do literally bruises us, maims us, and brings to bear how intellectual and artistic curiosity, our intelligence and our knowhow may face head-on the fact of not being the recipient of proper healthcare for years”
Khairani Barokka
I read recently that someone is not weak because they cry in front of someone else, instead they’ve been too strong holding their tears. Empathy is one of the strongest things we can feel as humans. Listen to what others have to say. Not criticising, not judging.
As a tutor I feel so blessed when the students share things with me and one of the things that I want to continue cultivating is empathy.
This reminds me of the term “Intersectional feminism”, coined over 30 years ago by Kimberlé Crenshaw, a lawyer, a civil rights advocate and intersectional feminine –
“We tend to talk about race inequality as separate from inequality based on gender, class, sexuality or immigrant status. What’s often missing is how some people are subject to all of these, and the experience is not just the sum of its parts,” Crenshaw said.
This makes me think of university as a place to start things: as an open space, for inclusivity. What the disability activist and blogger Vilissa Thompson said about media and the lack of disable people of colour, is the same that happens at university. University has to be more inclusive. That means much more than enrolling people of colour and disable people. It means making sure that this people feel they belonged here. It is about creating conditions so everyone feels welcome.
I researched more about Okka and I found her website http://www.khairanibarokka.com which I strongly recommend you to visit and follow.
The final resource, one article from the Shades of Noir (SoN) around Disability, I don’t know which I should choose. They all resonate with me. And I am finding it difficult to write about it, to be honest.
I am an able bodied, and I am not aware of any disability that I have. But I know what it is to live and to love someone who is disable. And I know how hard it is when society is not made for for someone with disabilities.
The school that doesn’t have teachers that are specialised for someone with disabilities
The lack of empathy from the teachers
The unacceptable behaviour from some of the teachers towards someone disable
The look from other parents
Ways of helping (this is not based on research, but in my experience)
Ask questions
Don’t impose your way of doing things
Ask how can you help
Acknowledge that you don’t know but you are willing to learn.
Listen
Observe
Feel
Don’t criticise
Don’t judge
Smile
One often hears that art is always ahead of our time. I would like to take the opportunity near the end of this post to reflect how can art set up an example for the next future in terms of disability in the arts.
At the moment, I feel it is very white male able-bodied ocular-centric focus.
Reading the example of Gloria C. Swain, a multidisciplinary female artist and senior´s rights and mental health advocate, is an example how the art world can be more inclusive. Gloria is also an ageing black women with a mental disability.
The article is published in an edition of Shades of Noir – Disabled People: The Voice of Many.
In 2016, Gloria was the artist in residence at Tangled Art and Disability, the first gallery in Canada dedicating to showcasing disability, Deaf and MAD art and advancing accessible curatorial practices.
I love how everything that Gloria made or produced was so inclusive: from the statement that was in the form of a short video which was closed captioned. The whole exhibition was audio described and wheelchair accessible.
Recently, in our off-site show crits, my students and I were raising questions of how the work can be installed to be a accessible. For example, a sculpture in the space should make sure that is accessible from all the sides to a wheelchair. Videos should have captions. If there’s lights flashing or certain lights that can trigger seizures this should have a trigger warning.
My last example goes to an extraordinary artist whose work is beautiful and powerful.
“Corbett refers to herself as a ‘cyborg’ artist. This term may conjure images of tinny 1960s sci-fi movies and metal-plated robot men, but for Corbett (her love of sci-fi aside), it refers to anything mechanical that can enhance human life. ‘It came about when I read Donna Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto (1985). I wanted to use [the book] but with my perspective: a Black woman, queer, disabled and all these other social identities that I have, whether decided or decided for me,’ says the artist, who was born with one arm and without legs. ‘Terminology around disability or anything like that has such a heavy history to it. And it’s something that I don’t necessarily identify with. I would prefer to be called a cyborg.’”
Shawanda Corbett on breaking the mould of ceramic art, Wallpaper
Bibliography:
Barokka, Khairani (Okka) (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, 387-392, DOI: 10.1080/13569783.2017.1324778
Blahovec, Sarah (2017) Confronting the Whitewashing Of Disability: Interview with #DisabilityTooWhite Creator Vilissa Thompson (Accessed 2nd May 2022): https://www.huffpost.com/entry/confronting-the-whitewash_b_10574994?guccounter=1
Shades of Noir (2020) ‘Disabled People: The Voice of Many’. Available at https://issuu.com/shadesofnoir/docs/disabled_people (Accessed: 1 March 2022).
SMITH, S. (2022) ‘Shawanda Corbett on breaking the mould of ceramic art’, Wallpaper, 1 MAR, Available at: https://www.wallpaper.com/art/shawanda-corbett-artist-profile (Accessed: 3rd May 2022).
The selby (2002) Vimeo: Christine Sun Kim – 10min (Accessed 2nd May 2022): https://vimeo.com/31083172
UN Women (2020) Intersectional feminism: what it means and why it matters right now Jul 1, 2020, (Accessed 13 May): https://un-women.medium.com/intersectional-feminism-what-it-means-and-why-it-matters-right-now-7743bfa16757
As you pointed out, ‘Through a personal experience, Christine addresses a bigger issue that so many people face – the barriers that the world has.’
Christine Sun Kim’s experiences made me reflect a lot. Firstly, empathy – It reminds me that we should have more empathy and faith in students when we teach. Empathy to those who need support and assistance. In addition, we have to be aware of some disabilities which are not visible. In such cases, we need to show care and faith in students who have invisible disabilities like neurodiversity.
Thank you for sharing your teaching experiences with students who have disabilities and dyslexia. I teach fashion photography technical workshops, and there is a lot of equipment involved especially when we are shooting with lighting. I have to admit that I often forget there are students who may not able to carry heavy equipment when we bring it out of the media store to the studio/ location. Quite often the studio is not located on the same floor which means students will have to use the staircase. I have to admit that I forget that there could be an issue for those who have any invisible disabilities. I will be more mindful about this in my future teaching.
When you pointed out that the ISA of your students who have dyslexia and autism are the same even though their needs are completely different. I agree that there changes that need to be made to the system to support those disabled students. As those who have the responsibility to make sure students can fully access what they need in the learning process, we have to know what we can do in order to provide support.
In addition, I think fostering a safe place where students can disclose their disability without feeling pressure is very important especially in an educational environment. By doing so, we build trust with students so they can freely develop their work without worrying about the barrier they have to overcome.
UAL workshops like “Seeing is believing” for participants with visual impairment to learn pattern making are beneficial for both the teacher and students who are involved. As Claudette Davis-Bonnick, who taught the workshop, said, ‘I learned to use new multi-sensorial teaching techniques through the project. For example, deciphering the quality and character of fabric by listening to its sound, feeling how it moves between your hands and smelling the aroma after warming the fabric in your hands.’ Being open minded in the learning process is very important especially in art and design field. Students are not the only learners; teachers are learners too.
I really enjoy reading your post, also thank you for sharing Judith Scott’s sculptures. They are very interesting and I am moved.
Oh wow Suki, thank you so much for your comments. I feel very blessed to be able to teach fine art and talk to my students about it and doing this PGcert is really important because I have been learning so much. There’s so many resources that I am going back to. I totally understand when you say that sometimes one forgets that not all disabilities are visible. Learning is a journey isn’t it? The good thing is we have the space and time to put this knowledge in practice =)
Film by Christine Sun Kim
‘When I first watched the film, I thought of how important is to discover one’s vocation and how important is to be given that opportunity’ Carolina I am quoting you back to yourself because I really love the words you have written. People who are allowed the opportunity to find a vocation are incredibly lucky and people who are denied that opportunity are stiffled, frustrated, disadvantaged and oppressed. I think that perphaps I have forgotten quite how lucky and priveledged I am and have been in the past. Thankyou for reminding me.
Oh thank you Michael for your comment. I really think about this because often one hears that the parents didn’t support their children to study fine art because it is an uncertain career. And then I think about my parents and my dad that always supported me. And now I am a teacher, and I feel incredible lucky to have this role and combining it with my practice as an artist, which leads me back to one of our first sessions with Sergio when on one of the slides there was quote from Thích Nhất Hạnh – “Happy teachers change the world”.
#DisabilityTooWhite Vilissa Thompson
I really enjoyed reading your blog and again your references made me question what I had written in mine. I agree that media is incredibly powerful and of course that power must be wielded responsibly and effectively, but often isn’t . I didn’t recognise your reference to the film Eternals but it reminded me that Troy Kotsur the star of CODA, became the first deaf man to win an Oscar for best supporting actor this year..but that you have to go back over three decades to 1987 when Marlee Matlin won a Best Actress Award to find another deaf actor winning an Oscar.
It is the responsibility of media companies to effectively and often represent all members of society. It makes sense to me that if a disabled person is being represented in a film, for example, the character being portrayed in the film should be played by a disabled actor.
Michael, thank you so much for your references. I didn’t know them.
“Thinking of my teaching practice, I encourage my students to bring their own life and to reflect on their lives and on their uniqueness”
This resonated with me, and as a technician made me reflect on the different opportunities we have with our students to help them find and draw on their uniqueness.
Being a ‘production’ technical area, we see plenty of work exploring sexuality and race, however we are only just beginning to see work from the students relating to disability and/or neurodiverse topics. I think there is more we can do to encourage students to explore the fact that they are one-of-a-kind, whilst doing all that we can to protect their ‘openness and honesty’ from stigma, prejudice and discrimination.
1. Being prepared to offer alternative modes of instruction and assessment
2. Familiarising ourselves with learning disorders, mental health conditions, neurological/developmental disorders and being educated on how to best support these students
3. Exposing students to disabled and neurodiverse artists (as you are doing)
Judy Singer the Neurodiversity pioneer stated that, “Neurodiversity is a state of nature to be respected, an analytical tool for examining social issues, and an argument for the conservation and facilitation of human diversity”.
Hi Claire,
Great to hear from you and thanks you so much for taking time to read my blog. Thanks for sharing with me new references, I didn’t know Judy Singer.
The students. Absolutely agree with you about those three steps we can do.
I am also thinking that perhaps we/UAL could (or maybe they are already doing it) provide workshops to create an awareness on neurodiversity. Obviously this Unit is fantastic in providing that. =)
Hello Carolina, I loved reading your blog, thank you! I really like the way you’ve referred to all the resources to your teaching practice and given such lovely examples. I think it’s wonderful that you’re already giving names of neurodiverse artists and people with disabilities for your students to research. It’s something I would like to start doing within our social learning space.
This statement in your blog ” I read recently that someone is not weak because they cry in front of someone else, instead they’ve been too strong holding their tears. Empathy is one of the strongest things we can feel as humans. Listen to what others have to say. Not criticising, not judging”. This touched me and it just made me feel like we do take things for granted and we need to remind ourselves of these type of statements all the time especially as teachers 🙂
You’re absolutely spot on in regards to your great examples on the ISA’s and two different people with totally different disabilities and as teachers its important we recognise the students needs to address any learning difficulties, this like you said probably begins building trusting relationships along with empathy and being non-judgemental.
I feel your images in your blog were beautiful and they said so much more than words and also I found it less text heavy which made it such a wonderful and easy read too! Thanks again for sharing.