#2 Happy to Listen

Reflecting on texts written by Disabled artists during the pandemic, NEVE Mazique, Noa Winter and Kim Simpson will share thoughts on what Anti-Ableist Futures might look and feel like and what we can do to invite them.

NEVE Mazique is a Disabled multigender femme fop mixed-race Black African Choreographer/Dancer, Composer/Singer, Writer/Actor, Painter/Model, Hoodoo Voodoo Magician, and Performance Artist. They are a 2020 Pina Bausch Fellow, and one of the first two Americans to receive the award.

Working from her base in Glasgow under the name Blood and Bone, Kim Simpson is an independent curator, producer, facilitator and coach. Drawing from her lived experience of disability in her work she is drawn to the “connective tissue” of arts and society and is less concerned with what we do than with how we do it. She is a Clore Leadership Fellow.

Noa Winter is a queer, disabled, chronically ill curator and dramaturg, who currently works as a coordinator for the project Making a Difference, which supports disabled choreographers and dancers in Berlin. They facilitate workshops on ableism and accessibility as well as symposia such as Exploded Times, Mad Spaces - Disability Arts & Crip Spacetime.

Reading list

Speaker NEVE writes about Disabled queer witches at the end of this world.

https://southseattleemerald.com/2020/03/23/disabled-queer-witches-at-the-end-of-this-world/?fbclid=IwAR0NporEtAZHw6WLkdADuNpZt5DYg1ztif3qrg4l9rhtOU27u-GOgUHcIs

Artist Raju Rage describes their desire to find more meaningful ‘access intimacy’ for people marginalised by arts institutions, acknowledging this might need to be outside of existing frameworks.

https://disabilityarts.online/magazine/opinion/access-intimacy-and-institutional-ableism-raju-rage-on-the-problem-with-inclusion/

Writer Imani Barbarin quick-fire easy-read headings about disability related things we should know by now.

https://crutchesandspice.com/2019/12/29/2020-is-the-year-everyone-in-the-disability-community-should-come-correct/

Alexandrina Hemsley reworks and reflects on previous writing about care, at a time when institutions are asking artists to be creative at a time of upheaval and tragedy.

https://www.somersethouse.org.uk/blog/together-we-cast-long-shadows-letter-alexandrina-hemsley-part-I

Artist Chiara Bersani reflects on Covid-19 as a disabled person, and the opportunities missed.

https://www.disabilityartsinternational.org/resources/italian-artist-chiara-bersani-on-covid-19-and-disabled/?fbclid=IwAR0OotblILSfS_Wj4O0g75W_fhdeHkH2yiTrVu3ffe0-H2kd1gnmi3rmrD8

A moving piece by Scotland based artist Amy Rosa which shares her experience of isolation during Covid. 

https://amyrosaliveart.com/Isolation-Thoughts

Also mentioned by Noa and NEVE  - Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice (Book) by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38402046-care-work