Disabled Legacies, Crip Futures: Disability in Art, History, and Dreaming

CGCC is excited to announce Disabled Legacies, Crip Futures: Disability in Art, History, and Dreaming, an exhibit that centers disability history and student art that embodies lived experience with disability.

Opening Ceremony: April 30th
CGCC Library, Building 1, The Dalles Campus
 

Join us as we celebrate disability history, disability culture, and disability justice. Learn about crip reclamation and disability futurism, celebrate the perspectives and creative talents of disabled student writers and artists from the Gorge, and share your thoughts about disability inclusion.

Can't make it in person but still want to attend? Join us on Zoom at https://cgcc.zoom.us/j/82325066858

Disabled Legacies, Crip Futures: Disability in Art, History, and Dreaming will be in the CGCC Library from April 28-May 9. 

For more information about disability, disability culture, disability justice, and crip reclamation, visit:
https://www.cgcc.edu/daan

Questions? Contact ICAP Career Coach Fen Kacin at fkacin@cgcc.edu.

Virtual version of PCC's Disability History Exhibit

It’s Taking Over It's all taking over again. The chronic illnesses. The anxiety. The depression. The eating disorders. It's all taking over. Taking over my life. Taking over the world I once had. When you have an eating disorder and chronic illnesses, you have to let the chronic illnesses breathe. Because if you let your chronic illnesses breathe, then maybe you're allowed to eat. And if you don't eat, the chronic illnesses get worse. And if the chronic illnesses get worse, so does the depression. And if the depression gets worse, eating disorders get worse. Then the depression is making the eating disorders get worse. Then the chronic illnesses get worse. And with all of these things happening, you get anxiety. When you have anxiety and a chronic illness does not work out. Nothing ever works out. When you have so many mental illnesses, you can't breathe properly. Everything takes over your mind. You have no space to breathe. You have no space to think. You have nothing. You wish for relief. But there's no way you can get it. And when you can't get it, all of these things cycle and cycle and cycle. Until you're not able to breathe anymore. And when you can't breathe, you panic. And when you panic, you have anxiety. When you have anxiety, it comes with depression. With depression comes eating disorders. And eating disorders come with Chronic illness flare-ups. And then all of it takes over. It takes over your mind, your body, your heart, everything. Until you have nothing left in you. Just the skin and bones that were once full with joy. Because of these cycles. It just takes over until there is nothing left. ~AB✓
Anonymous, It's Taking Over

The author, who chooses to remain anonymous, is a Junior at The Dalles High School. In their free time, the author loves playing with cats, writing poetry, relaxing, listening to music, and helping people. She writes poetry as an escape from their real world and uses her writing to cope and regulate strong emotions. They struggle with chronic illnesses such as POTs, EDS, and Chronic pain and wish to further educate anyone interested in learning more about these topics.
 
A door in a dark room is opening up to a world full of bright pastel colors.
Nina Mace, Rainbow of Invisibility

Nina Mace is a college student of multiple years with the end goals of being able to help people, whether it be through healthcare, special education, or art and musical expression.

Disability Advocate Quotes

Discussion Questions

  1. When you think of disability, what comes to your mind? 

    Do those things come from the experiences of people with disabilities, or from disability stereotypes perpetuated by able-bodied people? 

  2. What’s one thing you found surprising or interesting from the disability history exhibit?

    Do you recognize any of this information? Why do you think these stories have been left out?

  3. What would it look like to build a world with disability at the center and with access as a collective, shared value shaping our classrooms, dorms, workplaces, and other environments?


 

  1. What resonated with you about the student’s shared perspectives or the presentation? Have you or someone you know personally experienced disability stigmatization? 

  2. “To crip something is to bend, compress, twist, subvert, and imbue disabled wisdom into systems, institutions, and cultures.” - Alice Wong 
    What feelings came up for you when you saw the word “crip” associated with this event? Why do you think those feelings came up? Now that you know more about crip reclamation, talk with your group about the reclamation of derogatory words. 

  3. How would it feel to embrace disability as a part of being human?

  4. “What might happen if we were to accept, claim, embrace our brokenness? I am curious too. I am curious what might happen if I, and we, experimented with living beyond the dichotomy of fixed or failed. If we let ourselves know that our good, complex, messy, and at times painful lives are successes.”― Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice
    What would it be like to consider disabilities not as detrimental but as an everyday aspect of life? What if we organized life around disability needs, rather than trying to force bodies and minds to fit within systems that may not work?

  5. List three things you could do in your life to destigmatize disability, create more inclusive and accessible spaces, or consider disability in your daily words and actions. 

  6. We commit to spaces where ____________. 

  7. Imagine a world where accessibility is designed for joy. What does it look like? What do I see as the “next step” to create liberation for disabled people?

“There is no one disabled future. But in mine, there is guaranteed income, housing, access, food, water, and education for all—or money has been abolished. I get paid to write from my bed. The births of disabled, Autistic, Mad, Neurodivergent, Deaf, and sick kids are celebrated, and there are memorials and healing and reparation sites on every psych ward, institution, nursing home, youth lockup, and ‘autistic treatment center’ where our people have been locked up and abused. Anyone who needs care gets it, with respect and autonomy, not abuse. Caregivers are paid well for the work we do and are often disabled ourselves. Disabled folks are the ones teaching medical school students about our bodies. Schools have been taken apart and remade so that there’s not one idea of ‘smart’ and ‘stupid,’ but many ways of learning. There is a disability justice section in every bookstore and a million examples of sick and disabled and Deaf and autistic and Mad folks thriving. I have a really sick lipstick-red spiral ramp curving around my house. Because it’s beautiful. Because I want it. Because I get to live free.”

— Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, The Future Is Disabled: Prophecies, Love Notes, and Mourning Songs

Click on one of the images below for a downloadable and printable copy.