Animals, ableism, activism

STATEMENT/ABSTRACT

My work explores two prominent visual discourses of disability—freakshow imagery and medical photography. These visual narratives see disability as sensational, horrifying, tragic and in need of cure. I interrupt these stereotypical narratives in order to present disability as something else—a political issue. My disability work, which includes large and small scale banners and prints, sits at the intersection of disability studies, medical intervention, sideshow history and animality in both a humorous and subversive manner, challenging the dominant ways disability has historically been viewed and interpreted in American culture.

Animals and animality are central themes in my work. In my series of paintings of animals in factory farms I paint animals who are not seen as individuals but simply as products. These paintings transform images usually dismissed as animal ethics propaganda into memorials. They are works of portraiture.

My practice often reveals the interconnections between the oppression of animals and the oppression of disabled people. I am interested in how ableism affects non-human animals, and in turn, how the oppression of animals perpetuates ableism. I explore these issues in much of my work, including in Animals With Arthrogryposis (a self-portrait with farmed animals who also have my disability).

KEYWORDS:

• animality
• ableism
• disability
• animal ethics