EventsDisruptions 05: Elwood Jimmy on Imagining Wiser Futures Through the Senses
November 12, 2020
1:00 pm - 2:30 pm
Making space for different ways of understanding accessibility.
CUAG invites you to join in a participatory workshop led by Toronto-based artist and activist Elwood Jimmy. Admission is free and everyone is welcome!
This is the fifth event in CUAG’s “Disruptions: Dialogues on Disability Art” series, curated by Michael Orsini to generate dialogue about contemporary art as a force for challenging ableism.
We’ll convene on Zoom. You can register here.
The workshop will consist of a 30-minute talk by Jimmy, a break that includes an independent exercise and a 45-minute wrap-up and discussion.
In this workshop, Jimmy expands his notion of “acces(sens)ibility.”
He proposes a way to move from being unconsciously immersed in the naturalized violences of separability — accessibility as privileging modern-colonial ways of being and knowing that elevate individuality — toward consciously making space for different, unintelligible sensibilities.
Jimmy will gesture toward ways of interrupting and decluttering harmful and unsustainable desires, which prevent us from imagining wiser futures and relationships with each other and the Earth. We will consider strategies around care that are rooted in Indigenous and disability community teachings.
As Jimmy writes, “When relationality is based on the primary sense of entanglement with all other beings, other senses and sensibilities are activated.”
Disruptions 05 is generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Reesa Greenberg Digital Initiatives Fund, Office of the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, School for Studies in Art and Culture, The Pauline Jewett Institute of Women’s and Gender Studies, Institute for Comparative Studies in Literature, Art and Culture, READ Initiative, Carleton Disability Awareness Centre, Graduate Students Association and Carleton University Students Association.
Access
This event is held on Zoom. Live captioning and ASL interpretation will be available.
Disability accommodations
Should you have any disability-related requirements, please contact Victoria by 2 November at victoria.mcglinchey@carleton.ca.
Participants
Elwood Jimmy (Thunderchild First Nation, Nêhiyaw; born in Saskatoon; lives in Toronto) is a learner, collaborator, writer, artist, cultural translator and facilitator, and gardener. For almost 20 years, he has played a leadership role in several art projects, collectives and organizations, nationally and abroad. He has employed photography, film, video, storytelling, language, text, textiles, natural materials, performance, and personal and community narratives as the foundation for collaborative projects.
Michael Orsini is Professor in the Institute of Feminist and Gender Studies and the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa. He is co-editor (with Christine Kelly) of Mobilizing Metaphor: Art, Culture and Disability Activism in Canada (UBC Press, 2016). He is currently part of a SSHRC-funded Partnership Grant, “Bodies in Translation: Activist Art, Technology and Access to Life,” which explores how activist art can be mobilized to promote social justice and an appreciation for diverse minds and bodies.