Accessible Arts Disability Training Day

Yesterday courtesy of the Big Fag (thanks guys!), I attended a course on disability training at Accessible Arts run by Amanda Tink.

This was instigated by my project with John Demos, who's been doing a residency with our Press, funded by Arts NSW and administered by Accessible Arts.

There were quite a few things I learnt that I didn't know before. I generally treat everyone around me with respect, but when it comes a person with a disability, it's important to understand life from their perspective and make sure you know what phrases to use and how to approach them.

The section on stereotypes was one I was already very familiar with, but the section on communication was an important one for me. The difference, for example, between saying to a person who uses a wheelchair "do you need some help?" and "would you like some help?" is a good example because the idea of need perhaps takes away a little of their feelings of independence. That said, a person with a disability is not necessarily always in need of help - and they probably get asked that question about 10 times a day.

There's also many disabilities that are invisible. In fact, 1 in 5 Australians identify with having a disability, but the most prominent kinds of disabilities are psychological or health related. These people may find it difficult in work places as to whether or not to disclose their disability. Disclosure may mean they for example, would not prevail in a job interview. However should they not disclose, their disability may cause them difficulty at work.

Amanda played us this amazing video from the UK Disability Rights Commission: (you can find the second part on YouTube)

Language was also a key factor of the training session. Personally, I would never use words like spastic or retard, but I wasn't aware that perhaps a word like "handicapped" might cause offence. The best way to refer to people with impairments is to first regard them as a person, and to not assume anything about their life. So for example, you should say a "person with cerebral palsy" not "he suffers from cerebral palsy". You should not say "the deaf man", you should say "person who is deaf/ hearing impaired". And generally, it's better to find out a person's name! Also never talk about them as if they are not present, obviously. There's also things like being honest if you haven't understood what a person has said, and knowing the difference between simple language and moderate speed as opposed to talking to someone as if they were a child.

One thing that came up was how some people who are deaf sometimes don't consider themselves to have an impairment at all. Rather, that their ability to use sign language simply places them in a separate linguistic culture, one which has been extensively developed. I didn't know that before.

50 years ago being left handed was considered something of a disability. 20 years ago being gay meant you had a psychiatric condition. It's the society and world that shifts. It was interesting to look at how society has treated the issue of disability over time, beginning with a religious perspective that a person with an impairment must be so because he had sinned, or his family had sinned. Then from a medical perspective we would do the best for a person we could medically, and then they would just have to do the best they could to try and integrate within their family and get by.

The current model stemmed from the UK in the 70's where we think of people who have an impairment as not them being disabled, but rather than society itself is disabling them because of all the barriers they face, taking a wheelchair up stairs, or trying to find a cinema session that has audio captions.

Not many organisations have Disability Action Plans - only about 40% of arts organisations in Australia. It's important to understand that it's not a matter of building a ramp and hanging some audio tour headphones on the walls, it's about creating an environment that is entirely welcoming and not hostile through a range of means, both physical and emotional, and then, making the community of people with disabilities aware of those changes.

Anyway, I learnt a lot at the training session and I'm sure it will help me in my many current endeavours!

John Demos' Accessible Arts Residency at the Big Fag

John Demos. Photo Louise Anderson

John Demos working at the Big Fag Press, Photo Louise Anderson

John Demos with his original work "Antitoxicus" Photo Louise Anderson

For about 3 months we've had John Demos down at Firstdraft Depot working on some prints on the Big Fag as part of his residency mentorship program thanks to his Amplify Your Art grant. John has been coming in one day a week to create his beautiful works and experience the process of making those works into prints on our offset proofing press.

I've been mostly managing this project solo, and it's been an amazing experience for me. Art is the way John experiences his life, and his works are an exploration of belonging and home, and the words and images that mean those things to him. When he's not practising, John is browsing countless Sydney galleries where the attendants all know him by name. This is a kind of passion I feel is rare in just about any field.

Whilst down at the Press, I introduced John and his liaison Kristina Tito to Jo Holder from The Cross Art Projects gallery. He's been offered the opportunity to exhibit his work at the end of our mentorship there in October/ November. This is such a great opportunity for him to make contacts, show his work and most importantly give a voice to artists like himself who benefit so much from Supported Studio Networks.

We're just in the printing phase now, and the entire project is taking shape. I organised some paper sponsorship from K.W. Doggett, which has been great for John to experiment on. He loves discovering new kinds of paper and mediums to work with, and asks endless questions about ink mixing, how the press works and what kind of things we've printed on before.

We've made up ten metal plates of John's work separated into different colours, and he'll end up with a series of about 4 works, plus a few others where he will experiment with layering different works on top of each other, and then using them as a basis for more hand- rendered work.

Josh Charles has been making a short documentary of the entire project.

Spending any time at all with John has shown me that he has a little story about everything. It's really important to give John a platform from which to tell those stories - through his art, but also his practice, which can potentially, as he says, "influence other people towards art".

Review of Justin Shoulder & Collaborators: The River Eats

A couple of weeks ago Diego Bonetto printed Justin Shoulder's Poster for the River Eats on our Big Fag Press machine. The poster itself is amazing - one of the most intricate, visually engaging prints we've done.

As a thank you, Justin got Diego and I a couple of seats at the preview show at Performance Space a couple of weeks ago.

Poster for the River Eats, design by Matt Stegh, printed on the Big Fag Press

The River Eats is Justin Shoulder and collaborator's phantasmagorical performance which flabbergasts the audience with its somewhat trippy tale of a creature called Pinky who transforms from a histrionic self-obsessed attention whore into a mesmerising butterfly.

The scintillating performance is an overwhelming sensual experience - hypnotic light movements and dramatic music hold you spellbound while Pinky prances around in exquisite costumes undergoing her (its?) identity metamorphosis.

The audience sits disillusioned in a way that cannot quite be described in words, unsure of whether to laugh or clap, and half feeling like they may have fallen into a psychedelic dream or unknowingly consumed some illegal substance.

The River Eats was a confronting experience. The one word that came to my mind whilst watching was akrasia - the concept of acting against one's better judgement, despite conscious knowledge and prescience of events to come. This is a phenomenon which I think is present in many a mind's decision in the modern world. When this psychological conflict is applied to identity, we have people are caught in a constant battle between who they are, who they think they should be, and who society sees them to be.

Pinky is caught in this battle, and frolics from one spotlight to the next until (s)he is confronted by her equal and opposite identity, exorcises yearning for fame and fiction, and is eventually reborn into the character Oo - a beautiful black and pink butterfly whose force is derived from the river, from nature.

Justin Shoulder has created a plethora of strange creatures like Pinky, often inspired by various cultural traditions, fables, myths, stories and masquerade, and all with the intent to deconstruct how we emotionally relate to our reality.

Pinky specifically was derived from the idea in Taoism that identities have a sort of Yin and Yang, that every energy force has an equal opposite. Shoulder was also inspired by a visit to the Brazilian Amazon, which for him embodied notions of life and death, rebirth and decay.

The River Eats Trailer from Justin Shoulder on Vimeo.

SurveyMonkey thoughts

I've been reading through my 44 SurveyMonkey responses. Some of the answers have been really thought-provoking. About 80% of people who answered my survey described themselves in general as "informed consumers", which is great - that's pretty much the target market I was looking for. In retrospect I would have not titled the survey as "fashion", because I think a few people answered "no" as they are not informed consumers of fashion.

Consumers feel strongly about topics across a wide spectrum of issues - political, environmental, religious, culture, technological and social. Some specific issues brought up were: gender equality, gay rights, fair trade, design authenticity, poverty, health, secularism of ethics, "slow" design, renewable resources, sustainable town planning & city building, the banning of smoking in public, support of local & organic produce, anti-animal testing, anti- mass productions, and waste/ landfill ethics. The most prominent issue for my survey responders was environmental sustainability and fair trade. 7% of my responders did not answer the question.

70% of my responders avoid shopping at specific stores or buying specific products because of moral/ ethical issues. Stores include: Max Brenner, Fast Fashion Chains, McDonalds, BP, Woolworths/ Coles, Nike, Starbucks, Gloria Jeans, Cotton On, Nestle, Proctor & Gamble, Zara, Bayer Pharmaceuticals, Shell, City Beach, Mossimo, YD, Amazon and Portmans. Products include: Non-organic skin/ beauty products, products made in China, non-organic foods, non-Australian made products, products which use palm oil, cheap fashion, fur products, products tested on animals, caged eggs, large coffee chains, "adult" products.

Responders said they shop at a huge variety of stores. There were responses rangeing from discount stores like hot dollar, zara, topshop, kmart & supre, chain stores like sportsgirl, portmans, jay jays, witchery and general pants, designerwear like gorman, sass& bide, allanah hill, miu miu, mimco, and some higher fashion stores like chanel, prada and bally. There was also a number of people who said they shopped at local boutiques, and well as online stores like etsy.

Magazines of responders included Frankie, Cleo, Russh, W, Numero, Oyster, Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, Lula, Dazed & Confused, OK, Grazia, Shop Til You Drop, Wallpaper, ID and Madison. Other publications: SMH, Daily Telegraph, BBC online, ABC online, the Australian, Monocle, the Guardian, New York Times online, New Scientist, Reddit, MX, and Sunday magazine. Blogs include: TheyAllHateUS, amandpalmer, showstudio, and design milk blog.

I then tried to gain an understanding of my consumers by looking at the way they make decisions. I separated answers into 4 categories: "humanist", "indecisive", "safe" and "personal". So, for example buying a present for a friend, giftcard would be the "indecisive" option, jewellery would be the "safe" option, something at the oxfam store would be "humanist" and taking her out to lunch would be "personal". In retrospect, I'm not sure these answers worked the way I wanted them to. The response for my movie choice one, for example "A Comedy because there's an actor in it who was funny in some other movie so you think it'll probably be okay" was my "safe" option, but I'm not sure it really determined attitudes, people may have simply chosen it because they like comedies.


I think the most interesting answers came from my question about definitions of beauty and weather society's ideals match what people's ideals are. Every single person who answered the question (34 responses) said they largely disagreed with societal/ media repsresentations of beauty, or that they were influenced by them and wish they weren't. There were many responses who said they recognised beauty in confidence and personality: "inner beauty", and beauty in people who were unique and different. It is therefore so surprising that media strays so far from consumer demands. It is possible, also, that some people shaped their responses based on social desirability, ie what they "should" say in reponse to such a question. But I think that largely the reponses were truthful.


45% of reponders said they did consider or strongly consider a product to have more monetary value if it is ethical/ sustainable/ fair trade/ funding charities/ protesting against malpractice/ etc. 56% said it did sometimes, and only 7% said it didn't. Examples of products people pay more for are: local food produce, fair trade coffee, free range eggs, oxfam toys, underwear made in Australia, organic products, hand made clothing, lush cosmetics, Trilogy products, organic materials & cotton, authenticity of design, vintage clothes, charity products, and non-mass produced products.

Primary Research

I was thinking about the Rally for Marriage Equality, and how mostly everyone took it as an opportunity to dress up and show their "true colours" in the company of people who also shared their views. I began thinking - what would we wear if we had no fear of judgement?

I asked a few people to describe for me what they would wear in an environment where they had zero inhibitions, zero fears of judgement and zero desire to fit in with social norms. Here are some visual representations of the answers I got:

 

Interestingly I feel like I got two variants of responses - those who would simply not bother with clothing or wear pyjamas and baggy shirts, or those who would be wearing traditional clothing from different eras, or extravagant styles or clothes worn by famous historical icons. Few people said they would wear things in between the two extremes - nobody said they would simply want to wear a t-shirt and jeans. So if our desire lies in the two extremes, why does the general population end up somewhere in the middle?

I asked this too, and most people seem concerned with social conventions, dressing in what makes their body look good, the expense of extravagant clothing, or lack of practicality. It seems we're not seeing people's true nature through their clothing.

*All images sourced from Google.

Self Esteem - Narcissistic?

I read this article on the push for body image equality last week.

The way I read it, the author seemed to be saying that total body image equality as being pushed by the feminist society, is equal to narcissism. This concept outraged me - firstly self esteem is not necessarily just a feminist ideal - it's a human right. Self esteem is a huge part of a person's mental well being, and every single person has that right.

Obviously a person who is well outside the range of "health" is not going be conventionally beautiful. But beauty is, or at least, theoretically SHOULD BE a subjective term. Healthy is an objective term - it can be brought down to numbers and medical researched opinions, but beauty is not objective. The author seems to be saying that telling someone who is very overweight they're beautiful is wrong because they should be trying to change the fact that they're overweight. Okay, but generally people need to have self esteem in order to better themselves. Someone who is already overweight in all likelihood has self esteem issues already stopping them from helping themselves. Generally, someone who feels beautiful on the inside, as a whole, is going to be able to try harder to make themselves healthy (and thereby conventionally beautiful) on the outside.

Also, the above only relates to weight in terms of unhealthiness. A person with certain illnesses or disabilities with which they were born, which put them outside the ideal of conventional beauty, technically cannot seek to better themselves. Should we really be excluding them from the ability to feel beautiful? I really think not - in fact that probably borders on discrimination.

Lastly, we're assuming that beauty is merely a physical attribute, when it is certainly not.

I think my point is that there are things people think, things that pass through everyone's head, that should never be said outloud. Okay, so we're constantly fed images of what it beauutiful and what is not, and you pass someone in the street who plainly does not fit those characteristics. It's fine to think that, it's not fine to say it. And I think this author is pushing that boundary.

Bodies Talk

[Image sourced from AllWalks]

 I recently read an article called Bodies Talk by Caryn Franklin, the founder of All Walks Beyond The Catwalk which I'd grabbed from i-D magazine 2010, The head, the shoulders, knees and toes issue, pages 130- 131.

All Walks is a fascinating initiative, that I will dig deeper into for a separate blog post, but I just wanted to share some of what I perceived as 'truths' that spoke to me from this particular piece of writing.

This article, written during London Fashion Week 2012, targets how the fashion industry is an indicator of social change and dialogue with innovative designs and forward thinking, yet has such a retrograde representation of the human body.

Interestingly the ideals of modern society have this attraction to what is essentially an unhealthy weight for a woman, directly opposes subconcious biological genetic processes in the male brain for the purposes of evolution to choose a healthy female partner.

The article critiques the industry as "The Authority On The Way Clothes Look Best" for knowingly having a huge psychological impact on women, yet doing little to influence positive body image ideals and self esteem.

According to the article, whether the consumer is an intelligent self actualised woman or pre-teen (i.e intelligence, age, etc) has little relevance on the ability to think logically. When presented with fashion advertisments, the visuals impact the psyche on a subconscious level and the consumer cannot make a separation between the clothes and the body. This brings up a concept I have already spoken about in this blog about the goal of advertising in general being to make the consumer desire the product by feeling their own lifestyle to be inferior or as Caryn puts it "rectifying a Hopelessly Imperfect Existence with unnecessary purchases". There is little ability for us to think critically of images 'Gee, I wish I looked like her, maybe I should get that dress - hang on, even she doesn't look like that!', because "institutionalised body dysmorphia is a default setting for all of us".

Another issue I've spoken about before - airbrushing, is touched on in this article too. It basically says that the result of the manipulation of images means what is achieved is all the tiny things that make one body unique to another one are gone, and therefore we have "a repetition of the same unachieveable thing over and over and while we become more disoriented and miserable, the large corporate benefits." What happaed to beauty in the individual, the difference, the 'otherness'?

And this is not limited to the size of models. The scarcity of varying ethnic models on catwalk and fashion visuals could explain why Caucasion women suffer lower levels of self esteem than darker skinned women - as a white woman we're constantly being presented with images of what we "should" look like.

The article asks of fashion, "what if the entire industry lead the way in acknowedging what a powerful force it in in communicating to woman about their bodies, more powerful than music, sport, art and film put together, and Actually Did Something About It?" Obviously because of profit loss, established companies cannot afford to change their images now without risking a loss, so, as the article points out, it has to start within Fashion Educational Institutions, so that the next generation of designers/ creative directors/ stylists/ photographers/ etc are hell bent on promoting a revolutionary change in the industry and in the world of body image mental health.

Not to criticise my design degree, because I understand that we have a limited amount of resources within this degree. But the Womenswear fashion major students were told to aim to a size 9 model, because size 8 is a little on the underweight side and that's not what UTS wants to promote, and the models in the Graduate Show will be turned away if they are underweight. Well, firstly, I was at last year's fashion graduate show, and I did think there were a fair few unhealthy models included in the catwalk. Plus, we're constantly being told "Don't design for yourself, design for the market that's out there". I think the average Australian Woman is a size 12-14, so there is a certain irony to catering to the market by only creating clothes that look good on people who already look good. Using a size 9-10 model probably keeps you in the realm of a fairly healthy body, but we're still going for the thinnest possible ideal in the healthy range, which is not really a representation of the real world.

The industry may think that advertising their clothing on the most beautiful models they can find, is promoting their clothes in the best light. Well, studies show people would be more likely to buy clothes if they see them on a person who vaguely resembles them - age, size, ethnicity. Only, if they tried say, using a model for a photoshoot who's a size 14, they might discover that after grading to the size and essentially trying to fit that design to a larger person, well it distorts the original intention of the garment. So maybe we should have designers who start draping on size 12 or 14 mannequins - why should someone within the range of a healthy weight have to go to "plus size" stores to find clothing specifically designed for their body shape?

I liked this article. And I find myself constantly being highly critical of everything the fashion industry stands for. Well, also in our lecture this morning we were told industry members were excited about designers with ideas that could change their industry. Maybe I'm not as lost as I think I am.

 [Image sourced from AllWalks]

Street Photography

I took Photography 1 as an elective a few summers ago even before the year I spent in France. I just took a look at one of my assignments from that subject and discovered that I've been interested in the ideas of individuality and "masks" for quite some time.


"In the many odd experiences I had in photographing strangers on the streets of Sydney, I realised
that each person, whoever they may be; has a mask or masks which they essentially show the
world. My desire to break down the masks was difficult. I soon realized that my best photos were
the ones where built up a small rapport with my subjects and got them to trust me enough to work
with me in showing what I wanted to portray. And whether or not they intended to, this meant
that in some way, they were posing for me even if they were pretending not to."

I was inspired very much by Weegee and Mary Ellen Mark, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Robert Doisneau who seeked to, through their photographs and using varying photography philosophies, tell truths about events or people or things.

Here are some images that tell me some truths or stories:
*Images taken from respective photographers' published work or websites.

 

I must also mention the inspiration that came from my photography teacher Jon Lewis, inspiring not just through his own photography but through his enthusiasm, passion and humour, not to mention his activism in anti-whaling, promoting the detrimental effects of climate change, and of course being one of the founders of Greenpeace Australia. A big cheers and thanks to Jon Lewis.

My love of portraiture led me to taking photos of the homeless and buskers on the streets of Sydney. I would talk to these people, bring them cupcakes, give them some change, and tell them about my projects, and in return I got their stories, some hugs and smiles, and the chance to take their portraits.
*Photographs are mine.

I went to high tea at the QVB a few months ago. At the end of the occasion I took some left over little cakes and tarts with me in a box for a homeless man on Pitt st I'd seen while walking to the QVB that morning. The people I was with reacted in a way that admired this act, as if it would have been difficult for one of them to do it, even if they had wanted to. I guess maybe, I just don't see any boundaries. Nothing about handing a box of delicasies to a homeless man frightens me. But I guess people (even kind people) do feel a certain amount of apprehension. Which is maybe why I like talking to these people. Taking their pictures. I don't see a whole lot of difference between them and me, just possibly a series of unlucky circumstances. And I think everyone has a desire to "tell their story". To feel heard is one of few fundamental human needs along with food and shelter. I hope my photography helps tell their story.

As part of my pozible project, I'm hoping to be able to print some of these on the Big Fag Press.

EXPORT: Graduate Show

I found many things inspiring at EXPORT, the Visual Communication Graduate Show from last year. I thought I'd do a post to collate my inspiration.

*All images taken from the EXPORT Graduate show website unless expressely mentioned.

Karina Lee - The Space Between

This book inspired me both conceptually and visually. It presented a sense of abstract perspective on the world - that just like being able to read between the lines of a page, perhaps we should be looking for "the space between" in life, in the world. The typography, photography and layout work was inspired by a kind of unity between art and science. I believe the inspiration for the work was to discover a kind of beauty and magnificence in science. It made me think of ways to try and re-discover the beauty in what I'm about to undertake this year.

Emmalie Narathipakorn - Basically Happy

Basically happy was interesting to me because it incorporated quotes and opinons of individual people and the perspective of the concept of happiness through their eyes. I liked the psychology behind it - afterall, happiness itself is such a widely misunderstood and stereotyped idea, perhaps people of the modern world only know that they're happy when they're not constantly wondering if they're not.

Joanna Grygierczyk - Hunters and Googlers

I liked Hunters and Googlers because of the truth in the social commentary. And that truth is, when faced with a problem or a question or even a basic instinct, a world with access to the internet has a desire, sometimes beyond one that is rational, to "Google" the problem. I don't think I'm the only one who has, on a bored or lonely night typed the words I see below into Google, and wonder maybe if Google will respond. It made me recall a night maybe a year ago I spent a good half hour talking to Cleverbot, which through an artificial intelligence database of language basically responds to you in Instant Messenger as if it were a real person - mostly quite amusing.

Lindy Napier - Femme Enigmatique

This work mainly inspired me by the way the leaflet was put together - essentially a stack of folded paper circles glued specifically on 2 of the 4 edges. It was beautiful the way it opened out and presented the work in rather an abstract way.

[Photographs of Femme Enigmatique taken by me at the EXPORT exhibition]

Stephanie Hing - In Retrospect

In Retrospect looks at everyday amazing things that perhaps with advancements in technology and lifestyle, one day may be obsolete. I liked the concept and the photography.

Bettina Pham -Vanoir

The minimalistic photography in this project really appealed to me.

Chantelle Lorge - Today

Today is mostly a photography project collated within a book that looks at the transience of what seem to be unimportant events in one's lifetime, yet if for some reason (like Alzheimer's Disease), you would one day forget them, well, the tragedy of those lost tiny bits of beauty in a single moment. The classic lesson - Carpe Diem. 

Dena Taiebet & Kate Disher-Quill - Our Town

I've mentioned Kate Disher-Quill before, she and I collaborated in our Open House project. This is her sequel if you like, to that. She got specific quotes about the feelings of individuals in her city and did a lot of beautiful portraiture work, and then exhibited these pieces of truth on projections in laneways and cliffs. I like the idea of facing the truths about other people and being unafraid to speak them.

It reminds me of this quote I once heard -
"If we knew each other's secrets, what comforts we should find" -  John Churton Collins.

Teresa Tan - Sleep Deprivation and the Joy of Losing Grip

This video can be found on "Tezatron" Teresa Tan's website (which by the way has a lot of other cool photography and stuff). It's about a specific mental atmosphere about emotional 'inertia' and in Teresa's words largely inspired by the concept of "Weltschmerz".

Ashleigh Steel - Everyday, everyday

This here is another project that celebrates the seemingly banal moments of existence, but when you look a little closer at these things, you realise that sometimes the tiny stupid things are worth a thought, a consideration. I love the toothbrushes.

Thomas Fethers - En Masse

En Masse interests me both from an extraordinary visual and typographic element, as well as this witty concept which sees him looking at (and sometimes judging) Social Media as essentially, a faith or religion, which truthfully, sometimes it can feel a bit like that. The whole project is a satire of the contemporary world of facebook, twitter, posts, tags, likes, shares, pokes, etc. It's quite clever.