Crip Queer Aid I
Project developed at the residency Common Grounds at Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons (March – May 2021)
My experience around disability (chronic pain and autism) has become very different and changed […] yet it is odd how your attitude towards it, the stories from it, change with time […] since two years, at times I started to understand and accommodate my varying needs, instead of just insisting, or forcing it, or working more.
That is why I applied with this project for this residency, because I wanted to consider to place this at the level of the institution.
I proposed this residency to consider how to work within disability, and Crip time, Queer time […] and in which ways I can create an accessible studio.
So I have also been creating the braces and casts for stability that I have to use, and the systems to maintain myself, so I started to put the bed here, and also create a sort of side table, so I can easily access the stuff that I need, allowing me to work, and nap.
The mattress, in the beginning, was a very utilitarian thing, but started to become a very symbolic element.
[...] I also brought elements that became very important to me in the last year that are noise-reduction, sound-canceling headphones – and some fidget things that I have at home that I use a lot – and papers, because I work a lot with reading and making connections with the material.
Right now, I am more interested in the intersection of temporality, activisms and Crip time, because time runs differently when you have some sort of disability.
So I started to consider queering the archive, changing the approach to archives and storytelling. I am still kind of working within temporality, but I am interested in how working within Crip and Queer time is so very anti-capitalist. Due to this incapacity, I am constantly reminded of this idea, that you have to be very productive, and thus become healthy very quick, because your job is to actually work, and not to heal, not to live.
- text from interview with Luke Cohlen (April 2021)
Thank you to:
Esther Kuijper, Staci Bu Shea, Marianna Takou, Leana Boven, Harriet Rose Morley, Katja Prins, M. C. Julie Yu, Lux Sauer, Ariadne Sergoulopoulo, Annebelle Binnerts, Chaïm Dijkstra, Erik-Jan van der Scheer, Marian Jongerius, Liv Rendi, Luke Cohlen, KubikGallery.
for the various forms of support during these 2 months! :)