To reiterate, I want people to be exposed to and potentially fall in love with the understanding that Inclusion is a multi-dimensional approach to building a vibrant society where social and economic benefits accrue from garnering the gifts of diversity.
The room lends itself neatly to the paradigm of structuring inclusive support that I used to call Harmonizing the Four Things Worth Doing – the paradigm that formed much of the basis of the 1991 book: “What’s Really Worth Doing and How to Do It”, still available through Inclusion Press. It looks like this:
Harmonizing the Four Things Worth Doing
The regular path that visitors who are merely going through the room with no intention of staying will be clearly marked as “The Normal Path – Do Not Stop or Look Around”. All along it will be enticements to step aside and stay awhile, learn something and stay awhile.
In addition, the room will be conceptually divided into three layers. The middle layer will be for language, including talking videos, text and more realistic paintings. The floor to about 3 ½ feet up will be for playful, interactive and colourful objects and paintings. Six feet up will be for projections, both colourful and those statements and photographs captured and recorded by visitors.
The groupings of videos, pictures and photographs on the central panel will focus on dreaming. The rest of the display space will focus on place, people and resources, indicating how different communities in my life have shaped my expressions of inclusion. Finally the “dead” space between the “Normal Road” and the fourth wall will be reserved for statements about barriers, such as hanging my first framed painting where my tracker was an art therapist who claimed that my work wasn’t art.
I will find ways to include other artists such as Felicia G. and Irena K. The intention is to show, first, that I am not unique among artists as a person who does not sit easily with being labelled disabled, and secondly, that I have influenced such artists.
Preliminary thoughts! More soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment