Crip’d Ecologies: Unfurling Expanded Environments
Image Credits: Naomi Ortiz, Resistance is Fertile, oil on canvas
Image description: Painting shows landscape with 6 cacti, 5 dead, one alive. Below ground sprouts dead roots from each seed except for the alive plant. To the side is a disabled arm and hand planting a seed. On the arm the words “It is accessible?” are written. Lower painting shows an underground scene where roots from the living cacti wrap around connecting images of disability activism. A sign says, “we’re here we’re disabled get used to it!” Another is a photo of the threads of resistance quilt from Corbett Otoole showing photos of disabled people of color. A group protests and blocks an inaccessible bus and disabled people crawl up to the steps of the capitol. In the lower left-hand corner of the painting are the words “Resistance is fertile.”
Crip’d Ecologies: Unfurling Expanded Environments
Crip’d Ecologies: Unfurling Expanded Environments is co-curated by moira williams and Jeremiah Barber**
In our current moment with no shortage of grief and resistance, Crip’d Ecologies centers disabled artists across race, gender, class and disability, who are expanding ideas of environmentalism toward a more complex reflection of our feelings of trauma, fear, anger and desire. Crip strategies are dynamic, interdependent, and brilliant. These strategies are expressed throughout the exhibition and Convening, offering new perspectives on landscapes that are personal, shared, participatory, hacked, and imagined. Each of these relational ways of being and thinking include our body-mind-spirits. The works here break away from colonial ableisms of the land and our bodies. They challenge where the idea of “invasive” species comes from, and find joy and ancestral connections by treating the entirety of our surroundings as part of our nature. Multispecies relationships abound, and are echoed in Crip queer and tactile ecologies, imprinting on leaves, bodies filled with flowering branches, memory, sacredness, sorrow, and abundantly colorful depictions of plants, animals and the atmosphere and planets. The environment, increasingly synonymous with “the built world”, is playfully and spaciously reimagined and challenged throughout the exhibition to unfurl Crip’d ecological intimacies.
ARTISTS:
Indira Allegra
Maria BC
Beast Nest
Megan Bent
Elana Cooper
Peter Cordova
Vanessa Cruz
Alexa Dexa
Leeza Doreian
M Eifler
Stephanie Heit
Octavia Rose Hingle
Juliet Johnson
Petra Kuppers
Bonnie Lewkowicz
Cynthia Ling Lee
Darrin Martin
Naomi Ortiz
Tricia Rainwater**
Resting Museum
Jaklin Romine
Maia Scott
A. Sef
Judith Smith
Ruth Tabancay
Anuj Larvaidya
Aura Valdes
Ines Villalobos
** RD Studio Alum
Alongside the exhibition, Crip’d Ecologies: Unfurling Expanded Environments includes a two day convening and offers hybrid, online and in person, programming. This project was made possible with support from California Humanities, a non-profit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Visit calhum.org.
*Disabled includes but is not limited to; Blind, Low Sighted, d/DEAF, HOH, ILL, Chronically ILL, MAD, FAT, Neurodivergent.
Accessibility Notes: Free events, step free entrance, and an ADA accessible first floor and bathrooms that are also gender neutral. Free water, light snacks and masks are available as are multiple kinds of seating. The second floor gallery is accessible via a freight elevator and stairs. The gallery is a low scent space without air filters. The exhibition offers tactile elements and works, participatory works, a Invoking Aqueous Ancestors Chill ‘n’ Stim Tent, Braille booklets, and wall text. All events are soft performances. Masks are required and please arrive scent free.
RSVP to the 2nd Saturday Reception HERE
Alongside this exhibition will be the following programming:
Sunday, November 5, 2023: Access Desires + Affirmations = Desired ACCESSIBILITY (workshop)
Learn More HERE
Saturday, March 9-Sunday, March 10, 2024: Two day convening
Saturday, March 9, 2023:
3pm-4:30pm “Create a Sacred Space Toolkit” workshop with Maia Scott (in person, at the LightHouse with a procession to Root Division)
5pm “Along the Perimeter” performance by Darrin Martin
6pm “Under Earth” performance by Octavia Rose Hingle with Maria BC
8pm “Exhale Static, Inhale Fumes” performance by Vanessa Cruz
Learn More HERE
Sunday, March 10, 2024:
2pm-3pm “crafting + casting a songspell for our resonant bodies” workshop with Alexa Dexa (online and in person, ASL)
3:30pm “Love, Simeon, an Imagined Cinema Workshop” with Anuj Larvaidya and guests (online and in person, ASL)
4:30pm Film screening featuring Stephanie Heit and Charli Brissey, Petra Kuppers, and Cynthia Ling Lee
5:30pm Closing Statement by Cata Gomes of Ramaytush descent and founder of The Muchia Te’ Indigenous Land Trust. The Muchia Te’ Indigenous Land Trust link is HERE.
Learn More HERE
Exhibition Dates
February 1 – March 10, 2024
Second Saturday Reception
February 10, 2024 | 6-8 PM
Convening
Saturday March 9 – Sunday March 10, 2024
Gallery Hours
Wednesday – Saturday* from 2-6 PM
(*weekends appointment only)