Wynn Newhouse Awards

Statement
Identify as a crip/disabled artist. Prefer not to share diagnosis as I would like to move away from medical diagnosis

I am an queer, disabled, indigenous interdisciplinary artist and writer. My work explores the intersections of disability and S?moan cultural concepts and their overlap. Specifically the S?moan concept of the v?: which explores the relationality of space between each other and the world around us. The v? holds context, histories and relationships. My practice is situated in this in-between and I investigate ideas through scores, text, video, drawing and performance. I’m interested in exploring the relationality between multiple entities including: sites of knowledge hold indigenous knowledge and crip time, relationality between myself and systems and those between disabled artists as a network.

Some of these relationships include language and the spectrum between the identity of “disabled” and “non-disabled.” This relationship is often seen as static, however I don’t think it is. I’m interested in the network created through relationships with other disabled artists and the concepts, writings and methodologies that we share with each other. Most recently I have been exploring how hard it is to even get to the studio and what an accessible residency or studio experience might be. I am always interested in audience experience and ensuring accessibility is embedded in work through creative audio description as well as how audience members might engage with a work. “Raking scissor grip “ assembled assistive tools for audience members to engage with the work of revealing black out poems created using my medical file.

I co-founded Rotations.dance in 2020, a digital platform that is focused on holding space for disabled artists to learn, collaborate and move together, a luxury for many of us. C h a n n e l s, Act 3 explores how I can reach and dance in real time while being in the virtual using drawing and audio description to communicate. enter//return echoes indigenous notions of time and explores what is the smallest movement that you can make, through gesture, sound, and light and asks, how can we witness ourselves and each other?

Ideas and questions that I am interested in:
Where can I find the overlaps and intersections between the v? and crip time?
What are the relationships that are occurring across time and space?
What is the smallest movement that you can make?
How can digital spaces be places for connection for crips?
What does disability leadership mean?
What is the queer, crip, immigrant, indigenous experience?

"disability as spectrum" 2024 digital drawing screen print on colorplan paper edition 1/4 18.5" x 28.195"	“Relational map” 2024 screen print on colorplan paper edition 1/4 18.5" x 28.195”	Installation view of five works from left: “did you go to the studio today?” (sign), (top left) “disability as spectrum” (top right) “you can’t just offer space you need to hold it” (center) “did you make it to the studio today” (furthest right) “relational map” 2024, sign and screen print on colorplan paper, dimensions variable	Installation view “raking scissor grip” 2018- 2024, assistive tools, medical file as source material, print, scratch off paint, dimensions variable
“Channels: Act 3” 2022 performance still, collaboration with Yo-Yo Lin photo credit	“transcend:enter//return” 2022 video still	“glitch: enter//return” 2022 video still	“Crossings: Taem? and Tilafaig?” 2018-2024 digital print dimensions variable