Centering Disability: Art, Representation, and Disability Gain

Thursday, February 9, 2023

6—7 pm

$10 General Admission, $8 for JAC Members

“The human variations that we think of as disabilities in the broadest sense occur in every life and family and are a theme in all art and culture. Because these variances endure in human lived experience, we’ve recorded them as a set of stories that we receive, make, and remake over time and across place throughout human history.”

–Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, 2022

As has been said by many, disability is all around us, all the time. It is a matter of knowing where and how to find it. In this talk, Conor Moynihan highlights the ways disability has been represented in the arts and why representation–and who is making that representation–matters.

Moynihan will introduce concepts formulated by disability activists and scholars, such as the Social Model of Disability, and build a set of examples that illustrate the history of disability in art history. Through a discussion of different types of representations, Moynihan considers what is gained when we center disability in art. Artist Bob Dilworth will be moderating and leading the Q & A portion of the talk.