In a similar way, artist Joanne Matuschka uses her body to raise awareness about the issue of breast cancer, as well as the stark reality of medical intervention.
“I remember looking in the mirror and saying, ‘I have such a beautiful body, something bad is going to happen here‘” (quoted in Kirkpatrick, 1998). Continue reading “Matuschka”
“In a bizarre alternative universe kind of way I sort of resemble Superman. . . . [D]espite my skinny physique and frail sensitivities, I possess certain powers and abilities far beyond those of so-called normal human beings. I was born with a genetic illness that I was supposed to succumb to at two, then ten, then twenty, and so on. But I didn’t. And, in a never-ending battle not just to survive but to subdue my stubborn disease, I’ve learned to fight sickness with sickness.” (Bob Flanagan, quoted in Kilpatrick 1998) Continue reading “Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist”
This article is one of the most touching and brave explorations of disability I have read. Kudos to Siebers for having the courage to reveal himself in such an explicit way. Siebers suffered from the effects of polio as a child, resulting in a withered right leg. Continue reading “Tobin Siebers, My Withered Limb”
I found this powerful performance through a link from a disability website. The work was originally created in 2005 for the Venice Biennale’s International Festival of Contemporary Dance. It is a mixture of dance and performance art, exploring the physicality of disability. Continue reading “Marie Chouinard, “bODY_rEMIX / gOLDBERG_vARIATIONS””
All of the potential participants in the project I have met before and made contact with on numerous occasions. This makes the process much easier, since they already know me and I have established a rapport with them. This is probably the most important and time-consuming part of any humanist project, and one that deserves more attention. I have read or heard photographers talk about using their personality, and I really feel that a camera without a personality behind it is not able to get those intimate and captivating shots that so engage viewers. To hell with HCB and the decisive moment; if you’re working with people, you need to have a decent personality to begin with. I always start with the people, just talking to them. I take along a notebook and pencil to the preliminary meeting, but never a camera. I want them to identify with me first as a person, and later as a maker of pictures, in much the same way as I relate to them as people first, and then whatever later – be it artist, musician, actor or person with disability. Without the personal connection there is not much point to the exercise in my opinion. I made a long list and began to meet people from the disability centre ARDI, where we had made initial contact.
The more I look at disability and the issues and discourse brought into focus by disabled artists themselves, the more the project is developing into a need to challenge stereotypes and present my subjects as people who are trying to lead normal existences despite their impairments, and despite societal barriers, rather than what I had first envisaged as a kind of collection of people who are achieving things beyond what the initial diagnosis had predicted for them. This may seem like a slight adjustment, but it is a huge political shift for me.
“Titicut Follies occupies a unique position in American film history: it is the only American film whose use has court-imposed restrictions for reasons other than obscenity or national security.” (Anderson & Benson 1991, p 4) Continue reading “Fred Wiseman, Titicut Follies”
Taken from Documentary Dilemmas: Frederick Wiseman’s Titicut Follies, 1991 Southern Illinois University Press. Fortunately, a large part of the chapter of this book that most interested me was available on Google books. Continue reading “The Politics of Asking and the Myth of Informed Consent, Carolyn Anderson & Thomas W. Benson”
This is Anderson’s earliest article about the Follies case, written for the Journal of University Film Association, and in which she outlines the basic problem of competing first and fourth amendment rights (freedom of speech and privacy respectively), and cites this as a common conundrum that faces documentary filmmakers, but one that usually remains outside the courts. Continue reading “The Conundrum of Competing Rights, Carolyn Anderson”
However, as pointed out in this article for the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, the first and fourth amendments are only really in conflict under the circumstances of privacy tort (when there is an illegal breach of privacy by the press, such as trespass) or in cases where privacy trumps the right to public knowledge (such as the identity of rape victims). Continue reading “The Right of Privacy and Freedom of the Press, Thomas I. Emerson”
Carl Whetham photography 