Disability, Art, Agency: Participation and the Revision of the Senses

Research Seminar

  • Online event via Zoom
  • Date: Jun 22, 2021
  • Time: 05:00 PM - 07:00 PM (Local Time Germany)
  • Speaker: Amanda Cachia
  • Contact: freiberg@biblhertz.it
Disability, Art, Agency: Participation and the Revision of the Senses
The talk claims that work by contemporary artists who deploy variable disability topoi (deafness, blindness, sight, mobility) make audiences more sensitive to ways in which bodies take in information and process stimuli.

Through this work, audiences can experience alternative sensory modes as a process of re-sensitization to stimuli than they currently diminish or neglect. This makes disability embodiment agential rather than passively waiting for supports to navigate the world as able-bodied people do. Cachia applies the theoretical framework of disability materialism offered by disability studies scholars David T. Mitchell and Sharon L. Snyder, along with the work of modernist designer, typographer and architect Herbert Bayer and his exhibition design principles dedicated to expanding human fields of vision.

Amanda Cachia is an independent curator and critic from Sydney, Australia. She lectures in art history, visual culture, and curatorial studies at Otis College of Art and Design, California Institute of the Arts, California State University Long Beach, and California State University San Marcos. Her research focuses on modern and contemporary art; curatorial studies and activism; exhibition design and access; decolonizing the museum; and the politics of disability in visual culture.


Participation possible via Zoom, you will find the link HERE.

Scientific organization by Bibliotheca Hertziana and Universität Zürich: Virgina Marano, Charlotte Matter, Laura Valterio

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