NEWS
Happy Birthday, Fannie Lou Hamer
This civil rights icon was born in Mississippi on Oct. 6, 1917. As Rebekah Barber has recently written for The 19th, and as Dr. Keisha N. Blain emphasizes in her 2021 biography, Hamer’s experiences with disability had an indelible impact on her life and contributed to her central role in the struggle for voting rights. She survived polio as a child, and, in her 1964 testimony at the Democratic National Convention that Pres. Johnson tried to cut off, she described the disabilities she acquired from being brutally attacked for attempting to register to vote. She joined the ancestors in 1977. She is buried on land that had once been home to her local co-op, Freedom Farm. And the inscription on her tombstone reads: “I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.”
Federal U.S. Politics
The national political stage holds a lot of disability news recently:
The Dept. of Labor announced it is starting a comprehensive review of the federal policies that allow some companies to pay disabled people sub-minimum wages.
At the recent Disabled Marriage Equality Now rally in D.C., about 20 disabled couples were married in a nonlegal ceremony that drew activists together in solidarity to demand an end to the financial traps for those who receive Social Security benefits.
This week, the Supreme Court will hear Acheson Hotels, LLC v. Laufer, a case that seeks to limit the role of ADA “testers”: disabled people who review the accessibility and compliance of places like hotels.
Democrats in both houses introduced legislation that seeks to protect federal student loan borrowers from having their Social Security benefits garnished if they can’t afford the repayments that begin this month.
The National Institutes of Health, the largest single public funder of biomedical research in the world, has finally declared people with disabilities a “health disparity population,” a move that will dramatically expand access to funding and resources for studying and helping disabled people.
New Works
Sylvia Sadzinski’s essay “Letting the ‘Freak Flag Fly’: Queering and Cripping Within Artistic Exhibition Practices” was published in the edited collection Queer Exhibition Histories.
Yidan Zeng and Yo-Yo Lin’s limited edition zine, “Distance Rituals,” features 4 movement scores “as a pathway for being together while we found ourselves apart.”
Andrew Leland’s memoir The Country of the Blind is out now from Penguin Random House. Rachel Kolb interviews Leland about it in The Nation. And this Wednesday, he’ll be in conversation with Gideon Lewis-Kraus at NYU.
In Art in America, Emily Watlington writes about Yvonne Rainer’s legacy and her emergent focus “as a progenitor of disability art.”
New Mobility recently asked its readers to submit disability artistry generated with AI tools like DALL-E and Midjourney.
For Defector Magazine’s “Histories of Transition” series, A. Andrew writes "How I Transitioned with Complex Disability.”
Beyond the Visual: Blindness and Expanded Sculpture has been awarded £250,000 from the U.K.’s Arts and Humanities Research Council. The project is a collaboration between University of the Arts London researchers Ken Wilder and Aaron McPeake, Clare O’Dowd from the Henry Moore Institute, and the disability-led arts organization Shape Arts to enhance blind people’s experience of art museums.
Anne Borden King considers how the new film Ezra, about an 11-year-old autistic kid played by an autistic actor, might be changing how Hollywood treats autism.
10 of Australia’s most well-known brands recently collaborated on an “Unignorable Adbreak,” swapping out key scenes from their usual advertising to include a person with a disability.
CALLS
heidi andrea restrepo rhodes is seeking submissions of poems and poetic prose/creative nonfiction for a new column with ANMLY/Anomaly Press. More here.
Perennial Hug is an annual open call and guest juried exhibition organized by Arts of Life to be shown at Circle Contemporary North Shore in Chicago from Jan. 25 - March 15, 2024. “Through the deployment of various formal and material strategies the work selected for Perennial Hug functions as an assembly of outstretched arms awaiting the warm embrace of the viewer.” The deadline to submit is Nov. 26th. More here.
The Century Foundation’s Disability Economic Justice Team is seeking submissions for its Voices of Disability Economic Justice series. More here.
Rachel Repinz is looking for an American Sign Language/Black American Sign Language Artist/Interpreter and an audio describer to join a dance-based performance project being produced by the 2024 EstroGenius Festival this coming spring. Rehearsals are held on Saturdays from 10:30 AM to 12:30 PM in Midwood, Brooklyn. Email rachelrepinz@gmail.com for more and include your rate(s).
EVENTS
New York Public Library’s Accessible Technology Conference 2023
Saturday, Oct. 21 – Sunday, Oct. 22, in-person at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library (NYC) and on Zoom
A free and inclusive conference focused on the impact, affordances, and evolution of accessible technologies used by Blind, low-vision, and print-disabled people. We launched this conference to discuss technology in our daily lives and imagine a more equitable, sustainable, and inclusive future for accessible technology. The sessions will focus on maker/DIY culture, human and intersectional factors in adopting accessible technology, new-to-market and affordable technologies, and hands-on learning.
Anti-Carceral & Abolitionist Approaches to Suicide
Saturday, Oct. 7 & Saturday, Oct. 14, on Zoom
Project LETS is organizing a virtual series exploring anti-carceral and abolitionist approaches to suicide, with 2 events remaining: one for healers and mental health workers and a memorial/day of healing.
The Remote Film Club
First Thursday of every month, beginning Oct. 5, at 6pm GMT, on Zoom
Each month we will choose a film, blending short films with feature length depending on demand, made by crip, sick and/or disabled filmmakers. You can watch the film in your own time and then, on the first Thursday of each month, we will come together on zoom to discuss. Each session will last roughly one and a half hours with two short breaks. There are auto-generated captions and you are welcome to keep your camera off, to communicate via voice or chat, or just sit back and listen!