Margaret Gorman Critical Disability Studies Prof. Kristin Lindgren Final Project May 10, 2017 Disability Aesthetics: Un-Intact People Making Un-Intact Art CW: injury, ableism, institutionalization, gore, nudity, death, ableist slurs When disabled people, who have been silenced for so long, are given the opportunity to make art, their art typically stands in opposition to the conventions and traditions of art and society that have silenced them. The artwork, like the bodies and minds of the artists, comes out and of what finished pieces of art can and should be “strange twisted,” defying expectations (Kuppers 1). Disabled playwright Charles Mee discusses his personal experience with this phenomenon in his introduction to A Summer Evening in Des Moines: I find, when I write, I to write well-made scenes, narratives that flow, don’t want structures that give a sense of wholeness and balance, plays that feel intact. Intact people should write like a play that feels as if a crystal goblet has been thrown on intact plays…I the floor and shattered, so that its pieces...still describe a whole glass, but the glass itself is in shards. (Kuppers 6) This quality of the art of people with disabilities. It is what “un-intactness” pervades many people describe as The philosophical concept of “disability aesthetics.” “aesthetics” refers to the judgements humans place on the value and beauty of a different stimuli (Siebers 542; of Disability Culture and Community Performance, “Aesthetics”). To Petra Kuppers, author
Margaret Gorman Critical Disability Studies Prof. Kristin Lindgren Final Project May 10, 2017 Disability Aesthetics: Un-Intact People Making Un-Intact Art CW: injury, ableism, institutionalization, gore, nudity, death, ableist slurs When disabled people, who have been silenced for so long, are given the opportunity to make art, their art typically stands in opposition to the conventions and traditions of art and society that have silenced them. The artwork, like the bodies and minds of the artists, comes out “strange and twisted,” defying expectations of what finished pieces of art can and should be (Kuppers 1). Disabled playwright Charles Mee discusses his personal experience with this phenomenon in his introduction to A Summer Evening in Des Moines: I find, when I write, I don’t want to write well-made scenes, narratives that flow, structures that give a sense of wholeness and balance, plays that feel intact. Intact people should write intact plays…I like a play that feels as if a crystal goblet has been thrown on the floor and shattered, so that its pieces...still describe a whole glass, but the glass itself is in shards. (Kuppers 6) This quality of “un-intactness” pervades the art of people with disabilities. It is what many people describe as “disability aesthetics.” The philosophical concept of “aesthetics” refers to the judgements humans place on the value and beauty of a different stimuli (Siebers 542; “Aesthetics”). To Petra Kuppers, author of Disability Culture and Community Performance,