The 1st International Conference on Disability Studies, Arts, and Education
Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Hämeentie 135 C, Helsinki, Finland
September 28th and 29th, 2017
The conference brings together researchers, students, artists, art educators and members of the disability and crip art communities who share an interest in, or whose work addresses, the intersections and interplay between critical disability studies, arts, and education. The scope of the conference comprises various art forms, such as visual arts, performing arts, dance, and film, as well as different contexts of education, such as primary education, higher education, professional artists’ education and public pedagogy. The members of the organizing committee are: Mira Kallio-Tavin, John Derby, and Mikko Koivisto.
The conference is open to everybody, and there is no admission fee. However, we kindly ask all participants—both presenters and audience members—to register through this online form by September 10th.
The conference has three keynote speakers: Curator and scholar Amanda Cachia (Australia, USA), art education and disability studies scholar Jennifer (Eisenhauer) Richardson (USA), and comics artist Kaisa Leka (Finland).
More information about our keynote speakers, full conference programme and the presentor listing and presentation abstracts can be found below.
Keynote Speakers
Amanda Cachia received her PhD in Art History, Theory & Criticism at the University of California, San Diego in Spring, 2017, and is an independent curator and critic from Sydney, Australia. She is also the first full-time Assistant Professor of Art History at Moreno Valley College in the Riverside Community College District in Southern California. Her research focuses on modern and contemporary art; curatorial studies; disability studies; performance, choreography and politics; activist art and museum access; feminist and queer theory; and phenomenology. Her dissertation, “Raw Sense: Choreography, Disability, Politics,” analyzes the work of eight contemporary artists who create radical interventions in public space by virtue of non-normative body actions, and traces a genealogy for this work through avant-garde art movements from the 1960s and 1970s to offer an expanded narrative on performance, minimalism and Fluxus from a disabled perspective. She was a 2016 Yale University Sarah Pettit Doctoral Fellow and was the recipient of the Irving K. Zola Award for Emerging Scholars in Disability Studies, issued by the Society for Disability Studies (SDS) in 2014.
Jennifer (Eisenhauer) Richardson is an Associate Professor in Arts Administraon, Educaon, and Policy at The Ohio State University and an affiliated faculty member with the Disability Studies program. Her research explores, through social and cultural theory and philosophy, the representaons of disability in visual culture and parcularly the cultural and visual construcon of understandings of mental disability within both historical and contemporary representaons. She has published in journals including Studies in Art Education, Disability Studies Quarterly, Visual Arts Research, Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies, International Review of Qualitative Research, and Art Education . Dr. Richardson also writes creave nonficon and poetry and was nominated for a Puschart prize for an essay appearing in South Loop Review.
“You know, you could also look normal if you’d just wear pants!”
This is a question I’ve actually been asked. Several times. And always as a compliment. But I’m not normal, and it isn’t something I aspire to be. Normality is confining. It’s static. But most of all it’s boring. Why anyone in their right mind would want to be normal is beyond my comprehension.
I’m a comics artist and I publish autobiographical books about the nature of being together with my partner Christoffer Leka. When I’m not drawing I’m usually exploring the world on a bike, but the two aren’t mutually exclusive.
I have been awarded the Finnish Comics Society's prestigious Puupäähattu prize and several of our books have received design prizes such as Grafia’s Gold Award. I also regularly contribute comics to several different Finnish magazines, covering topics such as feminism, disability and animal rights.
“Kaisa Leka can be considered a member of the growing international disability arts and culture movement. Across the globe, disabled people are recognizing that their unique bodies are vital sources of creative generation and knowledge, not to be hidden away under lap blankets or put away in institutions. Leka’s autobiographical graphic novel, I Am Not These Feet, is a complicated entry in the growing collection of work by disabled artists whose stories of claiming disability reject and complicate the tired, simplistic tales of ‘overcoming,’ ‘inspiration,’ or ‘tragedy.’”
—Carrie Sandahl
Programme
Daily schedule with abstracts can be found below.
8.30–9.15 |
Registration and coffee, 8th floor |
9:15–9:30 |
Welcoming words: Room 822 |
9:30–11:00 |
Keynote 1: Room 822 Jennifer (Eisenhauer) Richardson: Writing and Creating while on the Schizophrenic Spectrum: An Autotheoretical Encounter with a Pedagogical Dilemma |
11:00–11:30 Coffee |
|
11:30–13:00 |
Keynote 2: Room 822 Kaisa Leka: “You know, you could also look normal if you’d just wear pants!” |
13:00–14:00 Lunch |
|
14:00–15:15 |
Session 1a: Room 822 Panel session: Veronica Hicks, Lauren Stichter, Amanda Newman–Godfery: Voices in Art Education: A Movement Embracing Abilities and Identities of Disability |
14:00–15:15 |
Session 1b, Poster sessions: Gallery Atski Riikka Papunen: Performing with the Other Sarah Swanson: Fostering Resiliency Through Art Education for Children with Severe Physical Disabilities Kate Gugliotta: Oh, The Places You’ll Go! Public Art and Accessibility for All Christina Lukac: Strategies and Adaptations in an Arts Program for Adults with Atypical Communication |
15:15–16:00 |
Session 2 Coffee / Performance: Gallery Atski Andy Best-Dunkley, Sanna Kuusisto, Annika Sarvela, Petri Sämpi: Dance of the Cosmos: a multimedia dance performance by differently-abled young people |
16:00–17:30 |
Keynote 3: Room 822 Amanda Cachia: Disability Aesthetics: A Pedagogy for Teaching A Revisionist Art History |
17:45–19:00 |
Session 3, Movie night: Room 822 (with snacks) Olivia Dreisinger: Disabled! |
Abstracts and presenters
Allen, Alexandra
Best-Dunkley, Andy
Best-Dunkley, Andy, Kuusisto, Sanna, Sarvela, Annika & Sämpi, Petri
Cachia, Amanda
Bjørnaas, Therese Ignacio
Boyle, Kathleen
Chick, Anne
Davenport, Erin
Derby, John
Dip, Kurukhetra
Dreisinger, Olivia
2. Abstract
Edvardsen, Nanna Kathrine
Egermann Eva & Arztmann, Doris
Eisenhauer, Jennifer
Ferreira Zamaro, Ligia Helena & Martins, Sidnei
Gjærum, Rikke Gürgens & Skjold, Tine
Gross, Kelly
Gugliotta, Kate
Haveri, Minna & Lilja, Päivi
Hicks, Veronica, Stichter, Lauren & Newman-Godfery, Amanda
Jaakonaho, Liisa
Johnson, Ashley
Johnson, Ashley & Kelly, Molly
Johnson, Jeremy L. & Johnson, Lisa
Jones, Kelsey M.
Kallio-Tavin, Mira
Kelly, Molly
Koivisto, Maija
Koivisto, Mikko
Kopit, Alison
2. Abstract
Lee, Chi-Jen
Lee, Hanna
Leka, Kaisa
Leote, Rosangella & Celeste, Oliveira Hosana
Lilja, Päivi & Helle, Sami
Lukac, Christina
Lumme, Minna
Marinoudi, Soula
Monbaron, Joana & Ivanov, Alexander
Muehlemann, Nina
Papunen, Riikka
Peck, Charles & Mueller, Carlyn
Rantamo, Eeva
Rosenburg, Karen
Salovaara, Sari
Schmidt, Yvonne
Sdrolia, Maria, Kaimara, Polyxeni, Giannakoulopoulos, Andreas & Deliyannis, Ioannis
Stichter, Lauren, Newman-Godfrey, Amanda & Gugliotta, Kate
Stuhldrehe, Nina
Swanson, Sarah
Tarvainen, Anne
Umer, Hameed & Umer, Saima