I Am True to My Oscillations (2022)

Photographer credit: Cleber Bonato

Thesis/Artist/Exhibition Statement:

In the process of discovering my disability justice politics and coming into my own identity as a disabled and neurodivergent queer trans person of color scholar-activist-artist-designer, I designed a series of installations that reflect the sensory and playful aspects of my lived experience, as an act of joyful resistance. I designed restful lyric games in the form of over-sized paper scrolls, a neon sign declaring my truth, a board game that shows the wildness of losing access to communication, three shelves of kinetic sand about stimming and its wonders, and interactive fiction zines about the end of sleep.
 
These installations give rise to new knowledge articulated through alignment with crip technoscience, which prioritizes disabled people as, “knowers and makers” to produce forms of access otherwise unavailable, who actively world-build and redesign the world to better fit the needs of disabled people and communities. Ultimately, through using my own experiences as a site of inquiry and design practice, I want to center a world that celebrates disabled queer trans people of color and their differences in sensory, cognitive, and physical needs, and creates invigorating possibilities instead of alienation. 
 
Each installation incorporates a collaborative alt-text image description and QR Code by myself and two disabled queer scholars, Sarah Cavar (they/them/theirs) and Hannah Sullivan Facknitz (they/them/theirs). The alt-text image descriptions makes it clear that disabled people belong in museums, and our collaboration exemplifies what Alison Kafer describes as the ‘political relational model of disability’ and its emphasis on interdependence and mutual aid. In the exhibition, each QR code can be scanned for additional alt-text about the installations.