In the summer of 2017 I was invited to participate in MIXER, the 3rd edition of Crip Interiors, produced by Project Creative Users. The Installation was publicly displayed at Tangled Art Gallery in Toronto August 10th-12th, 2017.
Crip Interiors was designed as an opportunity to engage and create artwork within constructed interior spaces (referenced as boxes), speaking to the lack of accessible spaces for artists to show their work. The exhibit was intended as multiple smaller “galleries” within a larger gallery space. Read Full essay and see more pictures here
Collective Artist Statement on ‘Crip Interiors’
Artists: Wy Joung Kou, Kanika Gupta, Anique Jordan, Melisse Watson and Najla Nubyanluv.
“Our process has focused on making visible the invisible, listening to the unheard, and acknowledging presence in the absence. There is no single word to describe our ‘interiors’. Our interiors spill into the exterior.
Our crip is not ‘crip’.
Yet — although we don’t relate to ‘crip’ — there is no single word to replace it because our languages and selves are constantly shifting.
We are complex. We cannot be separated into boxes or neatly express ourselves within them; without room outside the walls we would lack space, physical or intellectual, to think, imagine, invent and experiment with the possibilities of our existence. We create to ensure our presence in a context which would otherwise be content with our absence.
We present this offering into the future, a building of artifacts, tools, history, truths and identities that allow for us as Black, Indigenous, and POC folks within all our intersections to be acknowledged as whole.
Step into a world
where our existence is a complement,
a glimpse into the limitless magic we possess.”
Exhibition Statement on ‘MIXER’
Curators: Syrus Marcus Ware and Barak adé Soleil
Through MIXER, subtleties, nuances and complexities became awakened. This distinct mix of artists from within the disability identified Black, Indigenous and people of colour communities bring their truths. They bring their intersections. They bring their quiet selves. They bring their thoughtful selves. The bring their laughter. They bring their sorrows. And We gather.
In this mix, we find ourselves lying on cushions, asking crucial questions that move us towards deepening a collective knowing. We eat. The food nourishes both the individual and the communal. We imagine. An imagination that brings us closer together and furthers our desire to co-exist without the gaze that often subjects us to feeling othered. We are far from being “the other” in this mix. We are in community with each other.
MIXER continues to evolve each moment we come together and shape the space we desire to be in. A cultivated space of communal process and stimulating dialog. Where new collaborations are thoughtfully explored. A space where we don’t have to always ask for the things that we need in order to thrive. In this vibrant space we crafted a new set of interiors [boxes] co-designed to address our unique ways of being in the world.
Crip Interiors was designed as an opportunity to engage and create artwork within constructed interior spaces (referenced as boxes), speaking to the lack of accessible spaces for artists to show their work. The exhibit was intended as multiple smaller “galleries” within a larger gallery space. Read Full essay and see more pictures here
Collective Artist Statement on ‘Crip Interiors’
Artists: Wy Joung Kou, Kanika Gupta, Anique Jordan, Melisse Watson and Najla Nubyanluv.
“Our process has focused on making visible the invisible, listening to the unheard, and acknowledging presence in the absence. There is no single word to describe our ‘interiors’. Our interiors spill into the exterior.
Our crip is not ‘crip’.
Yet — although we don’t relate to ‘crip’ — there is no single word to replace it because our languages and selves are constantly shifting.
We are complex. We cannot be separated into boxes or neatly express ourselves within them; without room outside the walls we would lack space, physical or intellectual, to think, imagine, invent and experiment with the possibilities of our existence. We create to ensure our presence in a context which would otherwise be content with our absence.
We present this offering into the future, a building of artifacts, tools, history, truths and identities that allow for us as Black, Indigenous, and POC folks within all our intersections to be acknowledged as whole.
Step into a world
where our existence is a complement,
a glimpse into the limitless magic we possess.”
Exhibition Statement on ‘MIXER’
Curators: Syrus Marcus Ware and Barak adé Soleil
Through MIXER, subtleties, nuances and complexities became awakened. This distinct mix of artists from within the disability identified Black, Indigenous and people of colour communities bring their truths. They bring their intersections. They bring their quiet selves. They bring their thoughtful selves. The bring their laughter. They bring their sorrows. And We gather.
In this mix, we find ourselves lying on cushions, asking crucial questions that move us towards deepening a collective knowing. We eat. The food nourishes both the individual and the communal. We imagine. An imagination that brings us closer together and furthers our desire to co-exist without the gaze that often subjects us to feeling othered. We are far from being “the other” in this mix. We are in community with each other.
MIXER continues to evolve each moment we come together and shape the space we desire to be in. A cultivated space of communal process and stimulating dialog. Where new collaborations are thoughtfully explored. A space where we don’t have to always ask for the things that we need in order to thrive. In this vibrant space we crafted a new set of interiors [boxes] co-designed to address our unique ways of being in the world.
