art smarts

Chapter 4. Art, Identity and the Disability Movement

Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it.
Bertolt Brecht

How do you identify yourself?
Would you say:

I’m an artist; my disability is secondary.
I’m a person with a disability who happens to make art.
I’m an artist with a disability; both identities are equally important.
I’m a person with a disability, but I don’t identify with that community very much.
I’m an artist, but I’m not very in touch with the arts community.
...or none of the above?

Discussions of identity come up a lot among artists with disabilities. As people with disabilities, we, like other marginalized groups, have faced the challenge of defining our own identities in a world that is constantly labelling us. Often people without disabilities assume that we all identify strongly as people with disabilities, and that this is the whole of who we are. They may assume that our art will always be about disability, and as such is not really art. But, in fact, there is great diversity in how artists with disabilities define themselves. An artist with a disability may identify strongly as a person with a disability or as a member of the disability community, or they may not. Most of us have more than one thing that makes up our identity – disability, sexual orientation, race, religion, gender, and so on. Artists with disabilities have a whole range of ideas about the connections between having a disability and making art. Artists who feel a strong connection between their disability and their art tend to see themselves as part of the disability movement.

there is great diversity in how artists with disabilities define themselves

The disability movement in Canada:

In Canada, as in most of the world, people with disabilities were until recently seen only as clients of the medical/rehabilitation system – sick and helpless, stupid, contagious or even dangerous. These beliefs and attitudes led to institutionalization and mistreatment, which continue to this day. We face barriers every day with inaccessible public spaces and transportation. We have been excluded from full and equal participation in Canadian society.

As self-help and human rights movements began to flourish in the 1960s, groups in the U.S. and Canada began to advocate for the rights of women, people of colour, and gays and lesbians, demanding that all people be treated equally.

In the early seventies, people with disabilities began to form provincial organizations to lobby for transportation and access needs. In 1973, a conference held by the Canadian Rehabilitation Council for the Disabled (CRCD) in Toronto provided a chance for disabled people from across this country to meet for the first time.

In 1976, representatives from Manitoba, Alberta and Saskatchewan held a series of meetings, inviting others to form a national coalition, and the Coalition of Provincial Organizations of the Handicapped (COPOH) was born. COPOH’s motto was “A Voice of Our Own”, and it was to be a voice for people with disabilities in speaking to the federal government, service providers and the Canadian public.

In the late seventies, COPOH gained provincial affiliates from across Canada, and together these groups worked at both national and provincial levels to shift the perception of people with disabilities from objects of charity to citizens with equal rights. Over the years, COPOH held national forums to discuss such topics as employment, income security, rehabilitation, transportation, consumerism and independent living, and to develop strategies for change.

COPOH and other groups were successful in ensuring the entrenchment of disabled people’s rights in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Section 15, which protects persons with disabilities, among other equality-seeking groups, from discrimination, came into effect on April 17, 1985.

In January of 1994, COPOH’s council of representatives decided to change the organization’s name to the Council of Canadians with Disabilities (CCD), so it would more accurately reflect the organization’s structure. Council members also wanted a name that is consistent with current terminology; it was felt that the word “handicapped” was outdated and inappropriate.

People with disabilities continue to demand the choice to live in our own homes, have adequate incomes, get an education, have children, receive therapies of our own choice, and go to theatres and restaurants. We believe that we have the right to live our lives as independently and with as much dignity as possible. Thus we tend to support the Canadian disability movement that has worked very hard to improve conditions and attitudes toward us. There are many more organizations across the country that serve and advocate for people with specific disabilities. The preceding is just a mini-history of the national cross-disability movement, and it is not meant to represent the whole picture.

Yet despite hundreds of organizations across the country, with governments changing regularly and the trend toward conservative, bottom-line financial priorities, it seems to many of us that the work will never be done. So we are always looking for new and creative ways to reach the media (one of the most powerful ways to educate the public), to rejuvenate and sustain our common pride, to demonstrate our talents and abilities, and to fulfill ourselves personally. What better way than through art?

As Catherine Frazee comments about the growing “disability culture” movement:

“In Canada, the United States and around the world, artists and performers with disabilities are contributing to one of the most radical and effective aspects of disability culture – challenging conventional notions of beauty, form and motion.”

And Bonnie Klein has this to say:

“To give permission to the artist within your disabled body is an outrageous act of defiance.”

When art is used as a tool for social or political change, it can be called “agit-prop” (short for agitation propaganda). There is a long tradition of agit-prop art, from the written and the spoken word to theatre and visual art. It has also been grouped with “avant-garde” or “conceptual” art because in all of these types of art, the ideas expressed are more importatnt than the form.

Many people say that just being a person with a disability is a very political position to be in. Art that emphasizes concepts or ideas rather than the appearance of the artwork itself might seem well suited to an artist with a disability, if they want to inform or influence their viewing audience. Of course, not all artists with disabilities feel compelled to express any social or political ideas in their art.

What do the artists have to say?