Blog Task 1: Disability (Inclusive Practices Unit)

“I love creating feedback, it’s one of my favourite sounds.” – this simple statement by Kim forces us to question what a “sound” is and what it means to hear or feel a “sound”. 

I have never considered the ownership of sound before and the film by Christine Sun Kim provoked me to think about it. I have considered sound as a space before, after hearing the artist Alvin Lucier perform “I Am Sitting in a Room”. Artist Christine Sun Kim provokes you to interpret and experience sound in a completely new way. It made me question the normality of sound perception – who said we should experience sound in this way or that way? I would love to use this filmic resource as a provocation for my students to interrogate the accessibility of their own work – who is their work for, what levels does it communicate on and for whom? In my own practice I have just had a audio description track made for a short documentary. I realised that in order to make my work more accessible, breaks in between dialogue are helpful in order for the audio describer to illustrate the scene, and the more visually layered and creative the scene is (with minimal dialogue) the more exciting the audio description is. Watching the Christine Sun Kim film also made me reflect on our privilege and power as lecturers – I am the person who can either share this reference with my students, of a pioneering artist and young woman, or use Picasso as an example. The students then go out into the world with a tool kit containing all the references we shared with them. Beyond using this film as a reference within a pre-existing workshop or lecture, I could use it to incorporate accessibility into the briefing process, and design a brief around the ownership of sound, or a sound you can feel not hear. 

I was encouraged to complete something called the “Do-IT Profiler” at Falmouth University by my fellow lecturers there, to understand how students can get support and what the support looks like. Through this I discovered I have traits linked to ADHD and ADD, as well as dyspraxia. This then prompted me as a ‘lecturer/learner’ or ‘student/lecturer’ to do a “Specific Learning Differences (SpLD)” Screening at UAL, the result of which has now led to me being assessed in the coming weeks, however this process has already taken around 3 weeks and I still do not have a tangible outcome. Throughout this process the support team and people I interacted with were lovely, however I had a feeling in the pit of my stomach that I was now “on the record” for “reaching out for help” regarding learning differences; it seems I myself harbour stigma surrounding learning difficulties and worry about how I might be perceived by others for having them. This discomfort, the Do-It profiler, and the UAL Disability Service webpages link to a reading from the extended reading list that I did recently about disability and personhood – being seen as less-than a person by others, and how our sense of ‘personhood’ is simultaneously impacted by, created by and reflected in how others perceive and treat us, i.e. sticks and stones does not apply, peoples’ behaviour and language builds a creation of self (Ikäheimo, 2009, 79). 

This is all contrary to my recent experience of teaching where students have felt comfortable to openly state their learning differences to me and their needs as a result of these. Having a better understanding and more tangible understanding of the disability services will enable me to best support the students and direct them to the most useful services for them – it has also made me consider how being more honest and visible about my positionality or background with the students could make them also feel more confident about their own backgrounds and learning differences. This is something I specifically remember from one of your sessions on this module where Aisha said “I am neurodivergent”, and my mind began to wonder, and she followed up by saying she was dyslexic, this felt empowering and important. Diversity of staff creates a positive learning environment and space for students (Richards and Finnigan, 2015, 4). Another thought that crossed my mind as a result of all this, is whether enabling every student access to the learning differences services could be worthwhile; they could benefit from understanding these processes more, to encourage respect, empathy and understanding for others, as well as opportunity for self introspection and understanding their own coping strategies or specific learning needs. 

We should strive to create situations where no one is lacking when participating or interacting – this includes tasks, lectures and spaces where ‘lacking’ does not occur. However Ikäheimo states, when philosophically reflecting on interpersonal personhood and the recognition and contribution of ‘we’, that ‘lacking anything can be called being ‘excluded’ from it’ (2009, 85), but then comments that this simplistic concept is not useful and still quite vague. However they conclude that identifying ‘lacking’ can be a helpful tool to provoke political and social change, and this change can only be achieved when we continue to ‘point out loudly and clearly the radical ways that people will remain socially excluded simply because of lack of adequate recognitive response by relevant other people in their social environments’, only then when ‘exclusion becomes an explicit part of the public imagination’ can ‘effective remedies’ be expected (Ikäheimo, 2009, 88). 

The article, ‘Confronting the Whitewashing Of Disability: Interview with #DisabilityTooWhite Creator Vilissa Thompson’, reminded me of the documentary Black Panthers (1968) by Agnes Varda and ‘The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975’ (2011) both of which had interviews with black women, including Angela Davis, who at times did not feel included by or represented by the Black Panthers as they became aware it was a movement focused on Black rights and neglected womens’ rights. Intersectionality is complex and important, and not recognised enough in the academic institution – these resources are going some way to deepening my own knowledge of this subject. This particular article relates directly to my artefact which is primarily centred around a self-care workshop, and where a lot of my references around disability and mental health were written by white disabled women. I am now striving to find self-care references written by disabled non-white women. 

Below are some of the quotes from this article I found particular impactful: 

‘So for me the hashtag really speaks to all of those things that we have failed to do as a community to be inclusive and accepting, and to have those conversations about disability and what it means to be of colour and disabled, and some of the disparities surrounding that.’

– Vilissa Thompson

‘There’s a lot of room there for representation of disabled people of colour in the media to be more present, to demystify what it means to be of colour and disabled.’

– Vilissa Thompson

‘So that lack of representation really affects one’s self esteem and one’s ability to connect with all of their identities. It affects their ability to feel like they’re not alone and feel included in their disabled identity, in their “of color” identity, in their other identities they have. I think the lack of representation hinders our abilities to feel like we belong, to feel like our lives and our stories are important. We feel isolated and outcast when you don’t see people who look like you, not just racially but disability-wise.’

– Vilissa Thompson

‘I think that they need to understand their privilege, be it white privilege, able-bodied privilege or both, they need to understand that the world that they live in gives the advantage to them versus those who don’t have the same privileges. They need to realize that when people have multiple marginalizations and speak out on their own experiences, they need to listen and not discount their experience. Be respectful when people speak their truths. Also speaking up when you see things that aren’t okay.’

– Vilissa Thompson

‘Now is the time, especially with technology and blogging and disabled experience being more able to have a broader reach, diversity has to occur so that we all feel included in the movement.’

– Vilissa Thompson

The ‘Terms of Reference Journal from Shades of Noir (SoN) around Disability’ is an amazing and in depth resource, which highlights to me the breadth of disabled voices to be heard and people to be seen. I flicked through the whole book, and enjoyed the poems and short stories, but ended up returning to the beginning for my chosen article as I thought the list of questions used in the introduction were an important tool to frame the thinking of the whole journal. It highlights how we must continue interrogating our practices and continually asking questions – I think these questions could be a useful tool to have at the beginning of a brief to provoke alternative and inclusive modes of discussion. 

The above resources I have already discussed together with ‘Deaf Accessibility for Spoonies: Lessons from Touring Eve and Mary Are Having Coffee’ by Khairani Barokka make me realise how important thinking about disability and inclusion in universities from the ground up is. It cannot simply be additional resources on a reading list, it must be a full audit and overhaul of the current courses and modules to interrogate how accessible the briefs, activities, workshops and assessment submittables are (NUS, 2011, 13). Rather than try (and failing) to assimilate disabled and diverse students into a pre-existing ableist system that was never meant for them – through “Specific Learning Differences (SpLD)” screenings, profilers, extenuating circumstances and additional time for assessment – what if the course and assessment itself was accessible in the first place (NUS, 2011, 9) (Richards and Finnigan, 2015, 13)? Both the NUS report on ‘Liberation, Equality, and Diversity in the curriculum’ and ‘Embedding equality and diversity in the curriculum: an art and design practitioner’s guide’ by Richards and Finnigan go into great depth on this subject, discussing tools to build accessible and inclusive courses from the ground up. In terms of my own practice and the courses I teach on, I can take responsibility for making sure the course materials are accessible through different mediums and formats, from text to sound and visuals, to providing learning materials far in advance of the lectures and workshops. I believe the change which could have the greatest impact would be to alter the assessment submittables – including enabling students to submit alternatives for written essays. Drilling down into the learning outcomes and drawing out clear assessment criteria and then applying these to an audio presentation or video essay. The percentage of students studying creative subjects who have disclosed disabilities is higher than the overall number of students in the entire student population with disclosed disabilities (16.7% to 9.5%) (Richards and Finnigan, 2015, 4), therefore it presents an opportunity to lecturers in the creative subjects to lead the way in making the classroom more accessible and inclusive. 

Reference list

Barokka (Okka), K. (2017). Deaf-accessibility for spoonies: Lessons from touring Eve and Mary Are Having Coffee while chronically ill. Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 22(3), pp.387–392. doi:10.1080/13569783.2017.1324778.

Blahovec, S. (2016). Confronting the Whitewashing of Disability: Interview with #DisabilityTooWhite Creator Vilissa Thompson. [online] HuffPost. Available at: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/confronting-the-whitewash_b_10574994?guccounter=1 [Accessed 17 Jul. 2022].

Ikäheimo, H. (2009). Personhood and the social inclusion of people with disabilities: A recognition-theoretical approach. In: K. Kristiansen, T. Shakespeare and S. Vehmas, eds., Arguing about Disability : Philosophical Perspectives. London: Routledge.

Kristiansen, K., Shakespeare, T. and Vehmas, S. eds., (2009). Arguing about Disability : Philosophical Perspectives. London: Routledge.

NOWNESS (2011). ‘Christine Sun Kim’ by Todd Selby. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqJA0SZm9zI.

NUS (2011). Liberation, Equality, and Diversity in the Curriculum. National Union of Students.

Quantum Foam Sounds (2021). Alvin Lucier – I Am Sitting In A Room, 1981. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ho16dPi_WKU [Accessed 17 Jul. 2022].

Richards, A. and Finnigan, T. (2015). Embedding equality and diversity in the curriculum: an art and design practitioner’s guide. The Higher Education Academy.

Shades of Noir (2020). Disabled People: The Voice of Many. [online] Issuu. Available at: https://issuu.com/shadesofnoir/docs/disabled_people.

UAL Disability Service (2020). Disability and Dyslexia. [online] UAL Disability Service. Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/students/student-services/disability-and-dyslexia.