What happens if when speaking of disability, we shift our emphasis from an assumed “lack” of the body to that of accessibility (political, cultural, economic)? What happens if we take the intrinsic characteristics of the disabling experience as a writing practice? That is its dynamism, its relational dimension with respect to environments, contexts and care givers. Its eccentric nature, that is, its ability to explode borders, categories and problematize the concept of norm. Can these traits become a political and expressive strategy? Can they generate a desubjectivizing, deviant and deliberately deviated writing?
The meeting with artists from the Al.Di.Qua Artist Association offers itself as a transformative practice that aims to overcome the barrier of the norm in order to welcome plural imaginative worlds of bodies and spaces.
A round table, within the framework of Anticipation of the Night, which wants to open a public space for comparison and discussion on the theme of disability in artistic contexts, inviting cultural and social operators, artists, studios, representatives of institutions and spectators to listen, share experiences and reflections and to break up the discursive and operative universe based on the hegemonic model of the able-bodied white man.
We recommend reading Dalila D’Amico, Lost in translation. Disabilities on stage, Bulzoni Editore, Rome 2021.
The event uses LIS interpreting.
+ presentation of the VIDEO MANIFESTO, an audiovisual work that translates concepts related to accessibility into a poetic writing, because art is the language of those who created it, and their claimed existences are political. Produced with the contribution of Oriente Occidente and EBA – Europe Beyond Access
with the support of Fondazione Alta Mane Italia
Al.Di.Qua. Artists (Alternative Disability Quality Artists) is the first Italian association of workers in the entertainment industry for disabled bodies. Born in 2020, after artists from different disciplines and disabilities came together to reason ideas out and make suggestions regarding the accessibility in the world of artistic work.
The main objectives of the association are:
- to guarantee a disabled person full accessibility both in terms of artistic fruition and autonomous production;
- to guarantee to a disabled person who wants to study an artistic discipline full access to study and possible employment;
- questioning the imagery usually identifying disabled people – and therefore also the use made of them – in “abled” productions.
Al.Di.Qua. Artistst: Chiara Bersani, Aristide Rontini, Diana Anselmo, Dalila D’Amico, Giuseppe Comuiello, Claudio Gaetani and Camilla Guarino.
ph. Annamaria Benedetto