February 2003 Newsletter

S4DAC wishes a Happy New Year to all our friends and associates. We hope that 2003 is a fruitful year for all of us.

What's Happening?

Since our last newsletter, we have been busy with policy work, Board and staff development, and program planning for the coming months.

In the immediate future, we are being sponsored by Celebration 2010, a three-week, province wide festival of the arts, to present an art exhibit which will take place from February 14 to March 9 at the Art Gallery at Artisan Square on Bowen Island. Thanks to Celebration 2010 for their support, and to Betty Dhont of the Bowen Island Arts Council for her interest in showing the work of our members. We’re calling the exhibit Outside the Lines II, because many of the artists were involved in our previous show of the same name. You are welcome to attend an opening reception at the gallery on Bowen Island on Sunday, February 16 from 1 to 3 pm. Here's the poster.

Following is a call to artists for the Cyborg Project visual art exhibit (as yet untitled). If you’re a disabled artist with something to say about technology, especially the scientific body augmentations and medical implants that people with disabilities are often the recipients of, then take note!

The exhibit will take place throughout December, 2003 at the Pendulum Gallery in downtown Vancouver. So there’s time to develop work, but you need to speak to the curator, Persimmon Blackbridge, by February 28, 2003. After talking to interested parties, Persimmon will invite a limited number of artists to participate. We’ve decided to involve a smaller number of artists in this exhibit, but give them more exposure by allowing them to show bigger or more pieces.

Call to Artists: THE CYBORG PROJECT

"I greatly preferred the idea of looking like an extra from Star Trek to one from Casualty."
Ju Gosling, My Not-So-Secret Life as a Cyborg

What is the Cyborg Project?

The Cyborg Project is a multimedia dance, theatre and visual arts event produced by the Society for Disability Arts and Culture (s4dac), the people who brought you kickstART! The visual arts component will take place in December, 2003, at the Pendulum Gallery in Vancouver, B.C. In this large and very public space, 6-8 artists with disabilities will be invited to show work on the cyborg theme. The curator, Persimmon Blackbridge, is interested in a range of media including installation, new media, painting, sculpture, performance and more.

What is a cyborg?

Cyborg. As in The Borg. Or the Bionic Wo/Man, the Terminator, Robocop. It's a sci-fi thing - a being who is part machine, part biological. You know.

Or it's a metaphor. Most of us here in Canada at the squalling birth of the 21st century, are so entwined with technology that we're virtually part machine.

Cyborg: as in your sister the wirehead, whose social life is a computer screen. Or your cousin who drives his car to the corner store.

You know.

"...the cyborg is a shifting, ever evolving cipher of our own anxiety and desire to give meaning to the technological ethos."
Bruce Grenville, The Uncanny: Experiments in Cyborg Culture

It can be a useful metaphor. It tosses out the old Nature vs. Technology conflict. No more nature = good, technology = bad; or nature = female, technology = male; or nature = barbarism, technology = civilization. If we are cyborgs, we don't have to pledge allegiance to one or the other. They are joined within us. If we are cyborgs, we can acknowledge the military/corporate origins of most technology, without rejecting our technological selves. Rebel cyborgs are not the electric sheep of technocracy.

"Disabled people have been among the first to embrace new technologies and the benefits which these offer, but they also have greater awareness of the problematic nature of that technology."
Ju Gosling, My Not-So-Secret Life as a Cyborg

Ok, hold on. For some of us, it's not sci-fi, and it's not all that metaphorical either. We have plastic hips, teflon hearts. Or we put on a machine to walk, to talk. Or pharmaceutical technology interfaces with our brain chemistry (with and without our consent). Or implants in our ears make us simultaneously more Normal and more cyborg. (And who defines Normal, anyway, and why should we aspire to it?)

Cyborg theory talks about the pleasures of technology, but also about our anxiety and dread. We create the cyborg as Monster to embody our fears of technology. A flip through pop culture also shows us the Hunchback of Notre Dame, Frankenstein's monster and a thousand psycho-killers – Monsters fabricated from able-bodied fears of disability. Maybe we can turn that around and ask: Are disabled people embracing cybernetics in order to become Non-Monsters, and/or are we embracing and reclaiming Monsterdom on our own terms?

What is the tension between the world wide web, where you can be anything you tell people you are, and the physical world of freaky bodies and medical/scientific "fixes"?

If we can reclaim the stereotype of Monster, what about the cyborg as Hero? Would it be possible/desirable to reinvent our disability cyborgalia in much the same way that geeks were transformed from thick glasses outcasts into a semi-heroic form, as technology engulfed our everyday lives? SuperCrip, running down Crime in her electric wheelchair?

How do we, as artists with disabilities, fit into/explore/critique/expand cyborg theory? These are the questions raised by The Cyborg Project – the field in which the visual artists are invited to play.

If this is a fit for you and you are an artist with a disability living in Canada, give us a call or send us an email to discuss your proposal. If you live outside of Canada we are open to proposals for submission in our on-site virtual gallery. We need to hear from you before February 28.

Contact Persimmon Blackbridge at <station7@island.net> 250-335-0508. or Elizabeth Shefrin at <simaeliz@smartt.com> 604-734-9395.

Handbook and Video Package Deal Still Available

S4DAC present two New Resources

Art Smarts handbook for artists with disabilities
(100+ pages, available in print or audio; French and English)
Contains Chapters on:
Inspiration
Art, Identity & the Disability Movement
Training & Development
Technique & Adaptability
The Business of Being an Artist
Plus:
Plain Language Summary of All Chapters
Profiles of 12 Canadian Artists with Disabilities
Resources for Artists

kickstART! A Celebration
13 minute video captures the excitement of the 2001 kickstART! Celebration of Disability Arts
& Culture
$35 package deal for individuals!

To order or for institutional prices:
phone 604.685.3368
email info@s4dac.org

Support S4DAC and Reap the Benefits

You can REALLY help S4DAC by becoming a member or making a donation!

Individual Member- $25
Organizational Member- $50
Fixed Income, Student and Under employed- $10
Reduced admissions
Access to resource library
A subscription to our newsletter
Invitations to events

Sustaining Donor- $100-$499

Super Donor- $500-$999

Patron- $1000+
All of the above PLUS
Canadian Charitable Tax receipt for all donations over $25.

Each individual and representative of the organizations in good standing will have one vote at general meetings of the Society for Disability Arts and Culture.

Free Movement/ Dance Workshop Series!

Mixed Ability Movement/Dance Workshop with Helen Walkley

Six Thursdays, March 6 - April 13
6:30 - 8:30 pm in the G.F. Strong Rehabilitation Centre gymnasium
Admission free

For further information contact: Jan Vetter 604.737.6266
Helen Walkley is an independent performer, choreographer, improviser and teacher based in Vancouver, BC. Currently she is an Artist in Residence at the Dance Centre. Her somatic approach is based in Laban Movement Analysis, the Bartenieff Fundamentals and the Developmental Movement Patterns from Body Mind Centering. Helen has performed and taught extensively throughout the Canada, Europe and the US.

This program is made possible by the Dance Centre in collaboration with G.F. Strong Rehabilitation Centre.

Connectra There For Artists Too!

CONNECTRA is a non-profit society that works in partnership with people who have disabilities to reduce the barriers that may limit them in the contribution of their skills and abilities to the community and in their access to earning income.

Our goal is to connect people with disabilities to the community at large on a number of levels. Individuals and businesses get involved to encourage and support our participants with opportunities that help them to pursue interests and realize ambitions.

CONNECTRA starts out by matching participants with a volunteer writer who develops a profile, or 'storyboard' for them. It consists of a description of the individual, a bit of their personal history, as well as their goals, interests, skills and how their disability impacts their life. Having a unique, personal depiction of each individual enables CONNECTRA and our contacts to facilitate opportunities on behalf of participants.

CONNECTRA and our volunteers put storyboards to work in a variety of creative ways to make connections on participants' behalf, whether it's for work, volunteering, or personal and social connections. For participants seeking to generate income through self-employed pursuits, such as art, CONNECTRA has established the Abilities Business Co-op. ABC is a member-driven business cooperative where members offer a variety of valuable products and services to businesses and individuals within the community.

ABC assists members to earn income by supporting them in their efforts to identify potential customers who need their products and services, establish relationships, and complete the required tasks, either individually or in teams. The co-op supplies members with a variety of forms of support, materials and resources, and helps to ensure that their work provides value and satisfies customers.

Our objective is to facilitate self-employment for our members, at the same time offering the community at large the opportunity to involve and support a group of individuals with significant contributions to make. For more information, please visit the CONNECTRA website, at www.connectra.org.

770 Pacific Boulevard Phone: 604.688.6464 ext. 128
Plaza of Nations, Box 27 Fax: 604.688.6463
Vancouver, BC V6B 5E7 connectra@disabilityfoundation.org