“Disability Futures in the Arts” is a vibrant project on the disability arts and culture that was sponsored by a prestigious grant awarded by the Canada Council for the Arts. As a component of this three-year, multi-project grant, Special Guest Editor, Prof. Kenny Fries, curated and edited a series of 15 invited essays by disabled artists that were published in Wordgathering in three sections (five essays, each) and sequences (the December 2020 issue, the Winter 2021 issue, and during the Winter 2022 issue). Read more about this groundbreaking initiative with Prof. Fries, in the Syracuse University News story.
The first five essays and accompanying introduction by Prof. Fries were published in the December 2020 issue of Wordgathering, and they are as follows:
- Filling the Empty Chair: An Introduction to “Disability Futures in the Arts” by Kenny Fries
- The Crip Couture Manifesto by Chun-shan (Sandie) Yi
- Refusing Recovery in the “Palace of Disease” by Travis Chi Wing Lau
- Remembering the Now: Documentation and Invention in Queer and Trans Disabled Film by Sandra Alland
- Definition: A Praxis by Jerron Herman
- Aesthetics of Horizontal Access – An Ode to Lying Down in Art Spaces by Noa Winter
The second five essays and accompanying introduction by Prof. Fries were published in the Winter 2021 issue of Wordgathering, and they are as follows:
- Against Being Disappeared: On Disability Culture, “Inclusion,” and Community
Introduction to the Second Cohort of “Disability Futures in the Arts” by Kenny Fries - Rotations: Crips and Care During Covid-19 by Penelakeke Brown
- A Hole in Waiting: Delineating Embodiment into Performance by Calvin Seretle Ratladi
- Working for Exposure: The Dangerous Costs of Memoir Writing by Elsa Sjunneson
- Performance. Disability. Art.: Public Celebrations of Love, Creativity, and Disability by Syrus Marcus Ware
- Unfit to Print: Refusing the Page in Deaf Poetics, by Meg Day
The third and final five essays and accompanying introduction by Prof. Fries were published in the Winter 2022 issue of Wordgathering, and they are as follows:
- In Which Our Names Do Appear: Our Disabled Bodies and the Body’s World: Introduction to the Third Cohort of “Disability Futures in the Arts” by Kenny Fries
- Love Letter to London by Emilie L. Gossiaux
- Bipolar Artist Reflections by TJ Cuthand
- PROSTHETIC EXISTENCES: Disability and Art as a Resistance Practice by Carolina Teixeira
- More Human: Mental Health and Art in Indonesia and Beyond by Hana Madness
- Souls above Water: Building a Scene for Disabled Musicians in Chicago by Stephanie Alma and Tommy Carroll
Each of the essays in “Disability Futures in the Arts” is accompanied by an audio recording. Prof. Meg Day’s essay is also accompanied by a video recording of an American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation of the work–with our thanks to ASL interpreter, Emily Phipps, NIC, and to Prof. Day. As with all other visual content that is published in Wordgathering, image descriptions / descriptive captions are provided wherever images appear within the essays.
“Disability Futures in the Arts” is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts/Conseil des arts du Canada.
