Crenshaw’s article highlights how identity politics can ignore intragroup differences. (Crenshaw, 1991) To explore qualitative differences, I selected 3 interviews with individuals of diverse race and sexual orientation with hidden and visible disabilities.
Christine Sun Kim is an American German deaf artist with Korean parents and cisgender mother (Art21, 2023). Sunaura Taylor is a queer American artist and scholar in the Division of Society and Environment born with arthrogryposis and uses a wheelchair.(Examined Life, 2010) TextaQueen is a queer disabled South Asian Australian diasporic artist with chronic pain. (Gupta, 2020) For a comparative analysis, I have examined the structure of professional artists, citizenship, and visibility to mirror Crenshaw’s divisions of structural, political and representational intersectionality. Likewise, qualitative differences pertaining to social, cultural and economic privilege are revealed when disabled artists seek freedom from the effects of their impairment, as Crenshaw evidenced when battered immigrant women seek shelter from abuse.
Independence was highlighted as incorrectly equated to ableism, and how all individuals are interdependent upon social ethos and Governments. Taylor and Sun Kim exemplified how geographically relocating can ease ontological and financial experiences owing to different governed systems enabling a freer existence. (NYC to LA, and U.S. to Germany). Taylor exemplified how identity freedom was tethered to social disability in the way San Francisco’s systemic social and physical structures allowed her impairment not to disable her. Sun Kim’s freedom was similar and intersected with her deaf/parental identity however her relocation demonstrated how national citizenship also determines access to supportive governed systems. TextaQueen’s impairment impacted on mobility for social interaction, their economic privilege enabled establishing a global artist residency from their Victorian inner-city property. Collaboration was a shared aspect and individuality determined organisational and conceptual focus. Sun Kim’s heteronormative family exchanges determined her art-making approach through collaborative drawings and sound; Taylor’s philosophical corporeal exchanges with Judith Butler respond to navigating social and built environments; TextaQueen’s online support residency is for “crazy & crip” artists of colour.
“Othering” was a key concern. Taylor makes the internal and external effects of “othering” distinct when describing the difference between the disabling effects of society and impairment as embodied effects. Crenshaw makes the dehumanising violence of “othering” explicit in the 48 Hours episode, which correlates with Sun Kim’s artwork Degrees of Deaf Rage in Everyday Situations. Taylor’s qualitative ease in an environment depended upon the visibility of disabled people and accessible design. While Sun Kim made disability “writ large” by creating large-scale captions on Manchester City to equate deafness to scale, TextaQueen’s aversion to visibility developed from patronising institutional othering of brown, Queer, feminist, and disabled identities under the guise of intersectionality. TextaQueen exemplifies how institutional categorisation can perpetuate othering, yet offering academic support for inclusivity can paradoxically depend on disclosure, and some students’ prefer privacy or are unaware of their disability such as dyslexia or dyspraxia. Only 17% of UAL students declare a disability, 22% declare LGBT+, and 23% declare B.A.M.E.* and these categories will surely intersect. Teaching art theory and studio practice, I adapt my approaches across digital, visual, sonic, and analogue in the hope of enabling students to choose methodologies suitable to their individual needs, without disclosure if they choose privacy. I have found alternative submissions are key to supporting diverse students and students often require examples of them and encouragement to invent their own.
* UAL categorisation term 2022-23.
References
Art21 (2023). Christine Sun Kim in Friends & Strangers – Season 11 | Art21. 16 October 2020. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NpRaEDlLsI (Accessed: 25 April 2024).
Crenshaw, K. Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color. Stanford Law Review, Jul 1991, Vol 43, No.6 pp. 1241-1299.
Examined Life – Judith Butler & Sunaura Taylor (2010). Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0HZaPkF6qE(accessed 5 May 2024)
Gupta, Nila. Me And TextaQueen Final Edit Copy. Disability Arts Online, 2020. Soundcloud. Available at: https://soundcloud.com/user-475703944 (accessed 5 May 2024)
Mahmood Martin, Haneen. Interview 182 – TextaQueen. Liminal. 6 July 2021. Available at: https://www.liminalmag.com/interviews/textaqueen (accessed 5 May 2024)
UAL Equality, diversity, and inclusion report 2022-2023. University of the Arts. Available at https://www.arts.ac.uk/about-ual/public-information/equality-objectives-and-reports(accessed 5 May 2024)
Hi Michelle, thank you for sharing this analysis of how intersectionality manifests in the lived experiences of diverse disabled artists, including TextaQueen whose work I wasn’t aware of previously.
The comparative approach of the three interviews I thought was really effective and illuminated the differences shaped by intersections of race, disability, gender, sexuality, and nationality. Their narratives highlight how factors like citizenship and geographic location can drastically impact access to supportive systems and freedoms.
I appreciate the nuanced discussion around independence and interdependence.
The section on “othering” powerfully illustrated the disabling effects of marginalisation under the guise of intersectionality. I think you captured really nicely how the categorisation of disabled students and disclosure is sometimes a double-edged sword.
I really like and support enabling students to choose their own alternative submissions and is something that I hope to see promoted more at UAL more broadly. This ties in to compassionate assessment as well and the work done by Liz Bunting and Vikki Hill around assessment which you mind find of interest. https://belongingthroughcompassion.myblog-staging.arts.ac.uk/
You discussed how relocating to different geographic areas with different social/political systems enabled some of the disabled artists like Sunaura Taylor and Christine Sun Kim to experience greater identity freedom and ease some of the disabling effects of their environments. This made me curious, as to how might we work to create more environments and communities that allow disabled people to fully express and embrace their identities without having to physically relocate or uproot themselves?
Thanks for your blog Michelle and look forward to reading the next one!
Yasi
Dear Michelle,
I really enjoyed your detailed forensic engagement and dissection of the learning material presented to us on ‘disability and intersectionality’ for Blog post #1 unit 2
I liked, the way you examined the structures of professional artists and the importance of citizenship and visibility. To support Queen Shores. Vision. You highlight the social and cultural differences and privileges that society constructs to prevent the disabled, women, race/nationality to progress. And the layered levels of intersectionality that hinders the progress of an inclusive society.
You highlight the importance of independence, which is equated to ableism. Dependent on government systems, geographical location. A disabled person’s freedom is greatly improved within the community. You use Sun Kim as an example of her relocation in a city and how she blossomed as an artist with the help of government support.
You made a very telling point, which I, as a tutor take for granted or taken as given that you picked up from the reading the material and clearly expressed within your blog. That ‘collaboration’ is an important, productive method of working. You highlight. ‘It’s a shared aspect of individuality, determined organisational and conceptual focus’. Again, you use Sun Kim’s family as an exemplar to focus on the importance of this method of working to progress her art and craft in the social environments.
The ‘Othering’. the act of treating someone as though they are not part of a group and are different in some way can have harmful effects on a person’s life. You use Crenshaw as a perfect example of the ‘Othering’. Example, 48 Hours episodes. Which you link with Sun Kim’s artwork. ‘Degrees of Deaf Rage in Everyday Situations’. If we can make disabled people have greater access, with emphasis on designing a social environment; lives will be improved. Academics can be unaware of student disabilities or students are unaware that they have a disability-such as dyslexia and dyspraxia. I agree with you. We must adapt our teaching practices, through all types of media. Your practice of deploying digital, visual, sonic and analogue – in the hope of enabling all students to choose a methodology that is suited to their needs, is an impressive approach, in how to assess work.
This form of student expression-an alternative method of submission of work to support student diversity. I believe is a good example of best practice. Your approach to this should be highlighted within your course programme.
dear michelle,
Thank you for your blog post — it is dense, and as Michael rightly states, it is forensic.
What resonated with me the most were your reflections on independence and its equation to ableism. I am currently reading a book called ‘Bosses’ by Ghislaine Leung, on the relationship between love, limitations, value, prejudices, and artistic practice. The following quote struck me:
‘Freedom is often conflated with autonomy, but dependence is perhaps less the incarcerator than the liberator. I am free with support, not without. […] I am as dependent as you are and this is not an issue because care exists socially, is required and reciprocated a thousand times over in a moment. That I fail to acknowledge this is the price I pay when I misattribute agency to individual life, as identity in a monological sense, in my vivid financialised disincorporated life. Because love is not romance but trust.’*
It’s a moving thought.
But, you have rightly moved on to consider an ‘aversion to visibility’ and institutional collaboration — which could be determined as a type of dependence. Leung is almost self-deprecating in her own rejection of the value of interdependence, by admission — she ‘misattributes’ agency — and her use of the word ‘disincorporated’ suggests a desire to deprive corporate powers of her voice — that which might negate her individuality and power, or perhaps even her image?
I appreciate these considerations in line with TextaQueen’s feeling of being ‘othered’ through categorisation — but I am interested to ask the question of who sees and values these types of collaborations? Is this value completely fragile when working with corporate powers whose intersectional ally-ship does not run deep, or does this fragility, and the element of ‘categorisation’, not negate the meaning of the work to the audience at large?
The question of outreach continues to challenge me in my own consideration of the ethics involved with corporate collaboration. By nature of working with UAL, RCA, and other universities, I have found myself ‘othered’, and I have also found myself contradicting many steadfast ethical values I hold outside of my employment. I continue, at present, because I hope that the outreach each corporation affords me holds a greater opportunity for systemic change than if I were to limit my collaboration to non-corporate entities. But I envy TextaQueen’s commitment to a truth, and mode of individuality, that runs deep.
I wonder where our students would place themselves on this axis of trust? It is a conversation I will raise with them. With thanks to your discursive blog post.
Warmest regards,
eilis