Presenters: Dominic Amorin, Carissa Burkett, Sonya Hamilton, Madeline Sorenson
Organized by Carissa Burkett, Public Annex
Selected via Open Call
As a politically engaged group of professional Artists/Makers all along the ability spectrum in Portland, OR, Public Annex will share about how they are using art and urban farming as a means to evoke systemic change that promotes inclusion of people with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (I/DD). Public Annex provides professional development and advancement opportunities to artists with I/DD through an Artist Residencies program, exhibitions and through weekly inclusive art and urban farming sessions that use a non-hierarchical model of learning-sharing-creating. This presentation will share Public Annex’s pedagogy that questions the progressive studio model* as an institution that continues to create separation between this population of makers from the greater community. They aim to encourage art communities to critically think about the ways that they engage with disabled artists and challenge the systems that create exclusion and separation.
*a communal studio where disabled artists share space and are assisted in creating artwork
Read the Session Notes here.