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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Sam Theriault, who helped us formulate the original ideas and questions for this special issue and whose voice is also present in this introduction.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
About the guest editors
Syrus Marcus Ware is a Vanier Scholar, visual artist, activist, curator and educator. He is an assistant professor in the School of the Arts at McMaster University. Syrus uses drawing, installation and performance to explore social justice frameworks and black activist culture. His work has been shown widely, including in a forthcoming solo show at the New Gallery (Calgary, 2021), a solo show at Grunt Gallery, Vancouver (2068:Touch Change) and new work commissioned for the both the 2019 and 2022 Toronto Biennial of Art and the Ryerson Image Centre (Antarctica and Ancestors, Do You Read Us? (Dispatches from the Future)) and in group shows at the Art Gallery of Ontario, the University of Lethbridge Art Gallery, Art Gallery of York University, the Art Gallery of Windsor and as part of the curated content at Nuit Blanche 2017 (The Stolen People; Wont Back Down). His performance works have been part of festivals across Canada, including at Cripping The Stage (Harbourfront Centre, 2016, 2019), Complex Social Change (University of Lethbridge Art Gallery, 2015) and Decolonizing and Decriminalizing Trans Genres (University of Winnipeg, 2015). He is part of the PDA (Performance Disability Art) Collective and co-programmed Crip Your World: An Intergalactic Queer/POC Sick and Disabled Extravaganza as part of Mayworks 2014. Syrus’ recent curatorial projects include That’s So Gay (Gladstone Hotel, 2016-2019), Re:Purpose (Robert McLaughlin Gallery, 2014) and The Church Street Mural Project (Church-Wellesley Village, 2013). Syrus is also co-curator of The Cycle, a two-year disability arts performance initiative of the National Arts Centre. Syrus is a co-founder of Black Lives Matter- Canada and Wildseed Centre for Art and Activism. He is on the board of the Tegan and Sara Foundation. Syrus is a co-curator of Blackness Yes!/Blockorama. Syrus has won several awards, including the TD Diversity Award in 2017. Syrus was voted “Best Queer Activist” by NOW Magazine (2005) and was awarded the Steinert and Ferreiro Award (2012). Syrus holds a PhD from York University in the Faculty of Environmental Studies.
Kate Zankowicz (she/her/hers) is a museum education practitioner who has created community-driven, inclusive programming in museums in Canada and the U.S. for almost twenty years. Her practice has centered around creating collaborative programming with, not for, communities. As a museum educator with a disability, Zankowicz’s museum education pedagogy and philosophy are grounded in her lived experience. She has served as an accessibility consultant within various arts organizations, and she has been part of multiple accessibility projects within museums, including creating accessible exhibits and displays, writing verbal description audio tours, and developing multisensory tours. She has also developed and implemented training programs for museum staff about disability, accessibility, and inclusion. Zankowicz holds a PhD in Education from the University of Toronto (OISE). Zankowicz currently serves as the Manager of Youth, Family and Community Engagement at The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens.
Sarah Sims (she/her/hers) is the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Programs Coordinator for the Botanical Society of America. Her experience spans museum education; classroom teaching; teacher, staff, and volunteer professional development; trauma-informed practices; and diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion programming and training.
Notes
1 Shannon Finnegan, personal communication with guest editors.
2 The words Mad and Mad Pride are terms from the mass movement of psychiatric survivors and folks labeled with, or self-identifying with, psychiatric diagnoses, the users of mental health services, former users, and their allies. Mad activists seek to reclaim terms such as ‘Mad’ and to re-educate the general public on such subjects Mad justice, psychiatric survivorhood, the experiences of those using the mental health system, and systemic saneism. People who identify as Mad may or may not also identify as having a disability.
3 Young, “Inspiration Porn and the Objectification of Disability.”
4 Other models have also been proposed; see for example AJ Withers’ radical model in Disability Politics and Theory..
5 Taken from Grandin’s book Different, Not Less.
6 Silberman, Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism.
7 Lewis, from Withers et al. “Radical Disability Politics,” 187.
8 Berne, “Disability Justice.”
9 Crip theory views disability as an identity that should be understood through an intersectional lens with all other identities, especially those that have historically been excluded or oppressed within disability culture itself. See the following source for more on Crip theory: McRuer. Crip Theory: Cultural Signs.
10 World Health Organization “Disability and Health.”
11 “Focus on the Disabled” and “Focus on the Disabled Museum Visitor.”