The Thought Project

Creative Project for my Disability Representation Class. For the purposes of submission I will not have much time to make my post accessible. However, I will be edition this blog during the winter break to address accessibility issues. For all text posts and texts on pictures, I will include audio. (Pardon the image of the young woman in the background, I cannot remove it for some reason).

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Reclaiming my life

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Preface

The writing style of any of my personally written text is analogous to that of any impromptu blog post, on a somewhat personal, Tumblr blog about a topic that has been brewing in my mind for about a month or so. In simple words, this following text does not follow the conventional structure of an essay, however, does connect ideas and thoughts together, to create some stream of consciousness. The art and texts shared in the stream of posts, not all have adequate citations of the original artist. However, they are works that I found through other Tumblr and are usually linked to the original source. These are works that I came across on my Tumblr feed or were the results of the search on the following tags: #accessibility, #disabilityrepresentation, #disabilities, #disabilitydesign, and #ableism.

For some of the posts I provide commentary for some I do not, they are simply examples that I have chosen to share. My main text contributions are linked below. 

https://new349.tumblr.com/tagged/maitri

My primary inspiration for this project comes from Elise Roy, a deaf lawyer, artist, human rights activist who has contributed and speaks on behalf of the social design movement. In her TEDx Video, “When we Design for Disability, We All Benefit” she discusses how if we remove “ablest logic” from our everyday design of infrastructure and objects of daily life, and design with disability in mind, we all benefit. This propelled me to address the various facets of design and disability. 

I also would like to acknowledge my privileges. I am an able-bodied individual, with access to universal healthcare, fluent in English, post-secondary educated, financially fortunate background, and thin privledge. That being said, I do however, recognize with the MAD community, as a woman or colour, “eccentric.” and am on my way to understanding my place in the Crip Community.

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Accessibility of my thought project.

This blog can also be made more accessible simply by challenges the boundaries of its design. 

I would include audio pieces.

Can be zoomed in to enlarge the font. 

With a submission options individuals can share this and use this as an inclusive community.

Free to access, as long as, only limitation is access to technology and the internet. 

There are a variety of texts available. 

Design is examined through the lens of accessibility and discourse about designing out world with disability in mind. 

All posts can also be shared on other social media platforms, which enables accessibility to those, on a larger scale, who are not familiar with Tumblr. 

[awn-network]

The idea of Universal Design is not about kindness, or about compliance with the ADA. It is about common sense. When more people participate, everyone wins because human beings learn from each other. Amy Sequenzia on Ollibean

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Deaf Artist Christine Sun Kim Is Reinventing Sound

For artist Christine Sun Kim, sound is a “ghost.” The multiple-MFA-holding Senior TED Fellow who has had a Whitney Museum residency and exhibited at MoMA, has been profoundly deaf since birth. The sonic hush in which she lives has pushed her towards exploring sound through her work in a varied oeuvre of performance, installation, drawing, and video.

Initially, Kim strove to translate sound into direct visual terms. She experimented with vibrations, placing coated paintbrushes and inked quills on wooden boards atop subwoofers and speakers pulsing with ambient noise. Her process resulted in lovely minimalist paintings, audibles turned objets d'art. But the project felt like translating a text using only half the alphabet. “Low frequency sounds—vibrations—only make up a very small fraction of the sound world,” she explains. When it came to capturing the rich tapestry of Kim’s lived experience with sound, this approach fell short.

Continue

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Weight

Weight was created to portray legs as heavy weights, simulating the difficulty and pain to walk or move when experiencing neuropathy. I used one inch thick steel at the base, causing the boots to w…

https://rosarysolimanto.com/biography/

I met this artist and got to participate in her installation during Nuit Blanche in Toronto, 2016. 

She has a variety of installations that can be found on her website and are some forms of disability representation. 

What stood out for me. A post of the picture of her business car, which has to do with redesigning our universal symbol of disability. She wants to change the wheelchair icon, to one of a blue hand, which also represents the term “handy.” This changes our discourse of individuals with disability from being disabled bodies whom are in constant need of assistance to individuals who can come in “handy” and are useful, contributing members of society. Additionally, the handy sign, encompasses individuals with invisible disabilities as well because it takes away the need for an accessible device to indicate disabilities. 

Rosary herself has multiple-sclerosis. Her disability and its place in “ablest” societies is where she draws almost all of her inspiration. Particularly her work Weights is an installation, where individuals are invited to try on 20 pound steel boots. The weight represents the weight that sometimes MS patients carry around, and how it slows them down in their day to day lives. The boots are quite visible, but no one in their right mind actually walks with boots like these. Although her suffering is invisible, it is analogous to the weight of the boots which holds individuals back and impedes them from their privileged mobility. 

I found her work highly inspirational, not only because it is interactive and allows for people to momentarily experience the weight that is added with MS, but also because it speaks on behalf of acknowledging invisible disabilities. 

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Loving Mom Designs Special Harness That Allows Disabled Children to Walk

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When Whole Foods debuted pre-peeled oranges on their shelves, the world responded with mockery and criticism. But advocates on Twitter say pre-peeled fruit are a blessing for people with disabilities.  

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This ‘smart’ wheelchair is made for dancing.

Frank Hull is a dancer. His body is prone to spasms, so he uses a power wheelchair to perform as well as to go about his daily routine. By manipulating the joystick, he can move forwards and backwards and pivot on an axis. The chair is sturdy—heavy-duty enough to plow through snow—and it rolls pretty fast when he lays on the controls.

Developing a dance technique using his utilitarian device has been Hull’s passion for more than 15 years. As he puts it, his craft involves developing “ways of relating to the chair with my body artistically—in essence, creating a movement vocabulary that can be turned into dance.”

So a few years ago, when Hull heard that a Florida-based choreographer named Merry Lynn Morris had invented a power chair with dancers in mind, he had to see it for himself.

“I never thought there would be a chair designed for dance,” says Hull, who’s based in Toronto, Canada. “’Course, I had to get to Florida. Didn’t matter how.”

For Morris, the chair is more than an accessibility device–it’s an opportunity to explore new dance techniques.

[jihoa]

Cursum | Baby Stroller by Sjöblom

‘Believe it or not, there are still large portions of the population that are surprised that people with disabilities have babies. They may even be surprised that wheelchair users who have babies want to go on walks or run errands with their babies with them.’

A design made in conversation with wheelchair users, really intuitive. The stroller can be lifted over curbs and stand alone when needed.

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[Image description: a white mug on a black hanging shelf, held up by a light-skinned hand.]

This post comes to us as a submission from our friend @calanoida!

I found it being sold as a science toy because it works by distributing forces evenly to hold the liquid in place, but this could be so helpful for anyone with shaky hands or mobility impairments.I stumbled across this randomly and ordered one for my boyfriend who has a neuromuscular condition that affects his balance and coordination. This thing is really cool! You just hold it by the loop at the top (he can also hang it off the handle of his walker to go hands free) and no matter how much you shake or stumble it won’t slosh over and spill.

Click through to the site or find it on Amazon :)

Thanks a lot! Accidental accessibility is great–if you can’t quite visualize it, pop over to the linked page, which has a video you can watch.

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This spoon could help a ton of people (x) | follow @the-future-now

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This is an amazing invention. I could definitely see myself as an able-bodied individual who is on the more clumsier side benefiting from this as well. It is a device that enables individuals with the aforementioned disabilities to maintain a certain level of independence. 

The only thing I found concerning about this however, is accessibility. As the last image shares, this device is $195!!! 

Majority of individuals with disability are on limited disability incomes. This is an incredibly expensive device, and unless subsidized, the price could be the barrier to access. 

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This video is quite self-explanatory because Elise Roy does a great job of keeping the discussion simple, while speaking about complex and innovative concepts which combine design and disability.

Her unique experience of the world has helped inform her solution to defeating the “ablest logic,” which is defining with disability in mind.

One thing that stands out for me the most from her talk is that we should be designing for disability first, and not just the norm.

There are innovative solutions that people without disabilities have benefited from. She provides examples of texting, which had dominated popular culture and social media in the last decade or so. For example, texting on cellular devices was originally designed for deaf persons, in order to market cellular phones.

From her I drew my inspiration for this final project.

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I selected this meme to share because it seemed to somewhat fit with the themes of the conversation between 

It reminded me about the social isolation created by the ablest logic when applied to design of our daily lives, social structures and city infrastructure. 

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One of the videos we watched together as a class also discusses how our cities are designed for able-bodies. 

Accessibility is a product of our design. If it embedded it in our physical structures, it permeates into our social structures. Therefore, prioritizing city designs with disability in mind, we all benefit by redefining our normalized movements. As an able-bodied individuals the benefits that I see in this are inclusion of disabled people in the mechanisms of our everyday lives. They have so much to contribute to society, only if given the opportunity. Individuals with disability are forced to think outside our normalized standards and perhaps those are the innovative minds and solutions we need to solve complex urban, infrastructural issues (such as our transit system here in Toronto), which many able-bodies individuals are struggling to solve. 

“Embodiments” 

Socially isolated 

cultural aversion 

Social Model -disability is created by society. 

When they discuss the concept of health I immediately thought about “life hacks” and how there is so much investment by able-bodied people to design objects or tasks to be more efficient for able-bodied individuals. 

“We need each other to address our basic needs.” 

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