N.B. This is a repost from my original post in May which was published to an incorrect location – apologies to my blog group if you could not find it before – very grateful for later comments now. Thank you! Lana

Christine Sun Kim film Thought-provoking film, which challenged me as a non-disabled person, ‘looking’ for the disability-in terms of the creative potential she found in being deaf. Firstly, she flags the invisible nature of disability in the opening scenes, and secondly she poses pertinent questions such as: who owns sound, and how does sound manifest for those with hearing difficulties? The installations she creates with motors transform the sound into movement signalled the creative potential of sound beyond being able to hear it. They made me think of the BBC children’s programme “Magic Hands” – where songs are transformed into sign language, dance and animation, presented and made for a deaf audience, but rich and enjoyable creatively for all. In a learning context, the difficulties and frustrations she expressed with language constraints provided a reminder to look for different ways of allowing a student to engage with learning and art practice if they are similarly struggling with formal English language. It would be a provocative resource to share with students in thinking about not only their own disabilities, but also other forms of restriction they are facing as students e.g. money, studio space, and their own creative potential to work with restrictions. This could then open into a sharing space in terms of volunteering our own experiences of visible and invisible disabilities, either our own or through contact with others.

UAL’s Disability Service Webpages are a helpful resource for students in outlining some of the ways in which we can help our students, and I will refer back to these pages myself on behalf of students in the future. I was aware of some of the support that we offer as I have a number of dyslexic students, but I realise now that as an non-disabled person, I have only had a need-use relationship with these pages in terms of learning more about adapting my materials and feedback to be clearer for the dyslexic students. In fact, viewing the material as a whole helps in shifting perspective for teaching as a whole. I was fascinated to come across the link to more information on the the social model of disability, as subscribed to by UAL, but directed to an outline provided by Scope. “[The] social model says that people are disabled by barriers in society, not by their impairment or difference. Barriers can be physical, like buildings not having accessible toilets. Or they can be caused by people’s attitudes to difference, like assuming disabled people can’t do certain things. The social model helps us recognise barriers that make life harder for disabled people. Removing these barriers creates equality and offers disabled people more independence, choice and control.” I think this model presents an empower way of thinking about disability, and I am very pleased that UAL signs up to it.

Confronting the Whitewashing Of Disability: Interview with #DisabilityTooWhite Creator Vilissa Thompson. This articles flags some important issues I had not considered: the lack of representation of disabled people of colour in the media, and moreover, “that a lot of African American organizations do not talk about disability, or if they do, it is not in our experience or our voices”. I was shocked to read about some of the exclusions laid out in this Huffington Post article, but it is also quite simplistic, and I am aware of arguments, for example put forward by Jack Halberstam, cautioning against forming groups on the basis of victimhood. In my PhD research I drew on the writing of Mel Y Chen: Animacies: Biopolitics, Racial Mattering, and Queer Affect who discusses in the course of the book the difficulties she encounters as a disabled, queer of colour subject. Yet she also talks about privilege, and how as a middle-classed academic she still speaks from a privileged position.

Deaf-accessibility for spoonies: lessons from touring Eve and Mary Are Having Coffee while chronically ill by Khairani Barokka (Okka). This article struck very close to home for me, as my sister is disabled with a chronic pain condition, and I always feel guilty that I can never fully imagine what she goes through on a daily basis. The BBC news reported on 11 May 2022 that 26% of adults in the UK live with chronic pain, so this clearly represents a huge portion of over a quarter of the population- whether or not they would call themselves ‘ disabled’. The author strikes a balance between expressing her frustration and responding creatively. It was good to see her reinforce the social model subscribed to by UAL and explain what it means to her “I take here the social model notion of disabled as the opposite of ‘enabled’ rather than ‘unable’, a perspective I think particularly useful psychologically, for myself and I imagine other young, brown, disabled women, told in so many ways that we are not valuable, beautiful, equal. Eve and Mary Are Having Coffee touches on these intersectional issues, and in it, I am 98% of the time kneeling or laying down, performing poetry and performance art while refusing to stand and cause myself pain, whether seen by others or not.” This is a great reminder that I would share with students that we draw from our embedded circumstances and put them into our creative practices, to claim this space for all of us. I am not disabled, but felt frustrated as a student mother at navigating the university to fit in expressing milk for my baby in shared and ill-thought toilet / quiet room facilities. When I filmed these difficulties and made a film out of them I was able to express my anger but also increase awareness rather than managing in silence.

Shades of Noir: Disability, issu publication. In a rich and varied publication, I focused in on the article: Evolution of Disability Models: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow, as I wanted to know more about the context of the social model that UAL supports. Starting from the Religious Model, of a view that it is not only dehumanising but that casts disability as a cause of shame and godly punishment through to ‘helpful’ but misguided models such as the pitying Charity Model. The Biopsychosocial Model of Disability and Economic Model of Disability gave words to an attitude expressed through policy changes by Government in recent years in making Disability benefits harder to access. A disabled friend of mine has explained to me at a personal level the upheaval and trauma of constantly having to prove illness against a ‘fitness to work’ comparison, and comparing that experience to this model clarifies this as a deliberate, dehumanising strategy. On an uplifting note, it was fantastic to read about further empowering models that build on or complement the social model such as the Affirmation Model and Diversity Model, and I will refer back to these models for further research with students. The Identity Model and Diversity Model in particular could be interpreted in creative ways, and the Diversity Model could encourage participatory projects beyond the abled/disabled binary.