Event report: Jessenia attended this great evening at the Lesbians Who Tech & Allies :: Queer. Inclusive. Badass. Mixer!! It’s always a good time when you’re surrounded by awesome people!! 🌈
Claudia Alick had the pleasure of speaking with Emerge July 2023 Hybrid Disability Studies Workshop for Disabled Activists, Artists, Cultural Producers, Filmmakers, and Academics. The fellows are developing deeply exciting projects on topics of access, sex work, colonialism, anti-Blackness, Anti-fatness, cross-movement work and more. They are working in a variety of modalities producing documentaries, zines, and live performance. Claudia discussed their artistic practice, the messy spots they encounter and their tactics for working through them. They also discussed strategies for implementing disability justice in both your work and their organizational culture and what scholar-activism means to them. There was so much love and energy and excitement. It was accessible, disability centered and full of awesome people doing awesome things.
Claudia Alick held an empowering talk about disability identity with the BACKBONES Youth Summer Program. BACKBONES connects people with spinal cord injuries and their families with events and one on one meet-ups. The ten youth participants shared their stories about how they entered the disability community. Claudia shared history of disability movement, disability justice concepts, and accessibility vocabulary that allowed the group to talk about disability identity and their world. We closed with a conversation inspired by The Justice Producers Collaborative about how our disabled identities inform our work in the world and make us uniquely qualified. It was awesome to end reflecting on disabled innovation, resialance, perseverance, creativity, and advocacy. It’s a cool accessible program and we were honored to participate.
As Shakespeare said, All the World’s a Stage and we are all players on that stage. In the metaphorical theater of life, we each take on roles, navigating through the stages set for us. As we interact with the world, we encounter various scripts – some are written and explicit, while others are unwritten and implicit. These scripts define societal norms, expectations, and structures that can either facilitate or hinder access for individuals from diverse backgrounds and abilities. Just as actors collaborate to devise a performance, society must come together to devise access.
crip doula: a term created by disability justice organizer Stacey Park Milbern to describe the ways disabled people support/mentor newly disabled people in learning disabled skills (how to live on very low spoons, drive a wheelchair, have sex/redefine sexuality, etc.) A doula supports someone doing the work of childbirth; a crip doula is a dis-abled person supporting another disabled person as they do the work of becoming disabled, or differently disabled, of dreaming a new dis-abled life/world into being.
Claudia Alick attended Vision Quilt’s student exhibition where youth address gun violence through art math and humanities studies. Founder Cathy Deforest introduced Claudia to teachers who helped design the curriculum and students showed off their art. She also introduced Claudia to Kenny Johnson an award winning athlete, victim of gun violence, and disabled community member.
This is a mutual aid call from practice member Ry Holiday. They are working with a friend to raise funds for a wheelchair for someone in Honduras. We discussed this project in our Open Development meeting and helped RY choose design and text. Give directly to https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/robbyh22 or Venmo: @robbyh23
Calling Up Justice explores funding opportunities for artists, social justice practitioners, and entrepreneurs in our Open Development meeting. This post is highlighting funders who are supporting work that is alignment with our values. Read more about THE COMMON APP below.
A collaboration between Authentic Arts and Media and Kenneth Rainin Foundation, are bringing in experts to answer your questions and dive deep into equity-related topics. This pilot is a new series that aims to demystify arts funding and grant making. Panel featuring Artists: Claudia Alick, Antoine Hunter, Laurel Lawson, Judith Smith AND Funders: Lane Harwell, Esther Grisham Grimm
The absence of accessible toilets is a subtle yet potent tool of social control that restricts the inclusion of disabled individuals and mirrors historical tactics used to marginalize certain groups. Similar to how women were once kept from certain spaces by denying them restroom access, the lack of accessible toilets limits the participation of disabled individuals in public life, enforcing inequality. Furthermore, this issue extends to homeless individuals who lack restroom facilities, deepening their invisibility and perpetuating their hardships. Ultimately, the dearth of accessible toilets undermines societal inclusivity and hinders the potential contributions of diverse individuals, emphasizing the significance of universal accessibility for a fair and compassionate society.
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