Artists with Disabilities Are Coming Into Their Own

It’s an exciting time for artists who self-identify as people with disabilities, with a burgeoning global disability arts and culture movement providing more opportunities to produce and present their work.

The Bowen Island Arts Council and Vancouver’s Society for Disability Arts and Culture (S4DAC) are pleased to be collaborating on one such occasion, presenting a group exhibit of nine artists with various disabilities at The Gallery @ Artisan Square on Bowen Island, from February 14 to March 8, 2003.

The exhibit, titled “Outside the Lines II”, includes visual art in a range of media and styles. It is largely a regrouping of artists who participated in Outside the Lines, an exhibit at Canada’s first international festival of disability arts and culture, kickstART!, in Vancouver in 2001.

S4DAC, organizers of kickstART!, are convinced that pursuing equality and inclusion is as much a cultural task as a political one. Artists have a powerful role in changing public attitudes, reaching people on deeply personal levels, helping to create a collective identity among people with disabilities.

“Whether or not they choose to place their work within that context”, says Geoff McMurchy, S4DAC’s Artistic Director and the curator for Outside the Lines II, “the fact is artists with disabilities are producing amazing and powerful work.

Artist Julie Milano with her paintings

Exhibited will be work by emerging painters Julie Milano, Margaret Van der Pant, Jordan Lige and Nick Supina, along with drawings by Doug Hand and photographs by Rob Ferguson. A lino-printed fabric piece by David Low, an assemblage by well-known artist Claire Kujundzic and photographic work by Shaira Holman are also included.

Gallery hours are Fridays through Sundays from noon to 4 pm. There will be an opening reception on Sunday, February 16 from 1 to 3 pm. Phone The Gallery @ Artisan Square at 604.947.2454, or S4DAC at 604.685.3368 for information. The exhibit is produced with support from Celebration 2010, a three-week, province-wide festival of the arts supporting the Vancouver/Whistler bid to host the 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Contact:Geoff McMurchy
Artistic Director, Society for Disability Arts and Culture
director@s4dac.org
604.685.3368

visual artists