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!

Life of Pi

[image from Google Images]

I had to do a post about Life of Pi. I hadn't read the book and didn't even know much about the film when I saw it - other than there was a tiger, and I'd vaguely heard that the book was amazing.

Well, I just have to commend both the author Yann Martell and the film produced for bringing me this masterpiece that had me laughing, in hysterical tears, and feeling thoroughly enlightened at the end. I'm an atheist but I loved that this little boy was so adventurous and sought knowledge of all these religions as a way of explaining his reality.

The end of the story made perfect sense to my beliefs. The two stories of his shipwreck survival was that the phatasmagorical tale which included lands he'd never seen, and a mercurial relationship with this tiger was the story he preferred, the story many preferred over the distressing version where he saw his mother die. The way I interpreted it was that god was his survival in the ocean - and he brought him this magical world to explore and this tiger that somehow kept him company, as well as alive. He prefers this story, as he prefers to believe in god because this belief is what got him through it. But he realises that perhaps reality doesn't exactly work that way.

As an atheist, this is pretty much my belief. God exists to those who believe in him, and I am glad he does, I know many people to whom god is an unrelenting power of strength. To me, god does not exist, I find my beliefs in other places like nature, science and love.

On another note, after I saw the film, I learnt from my usual googling of how well the film industry treats its animal actors, that surprisingly, many of the animal scenes were computer rendered. No endangered Bengal Tiger needed to be on set for this film - a few photographs were sufficient to computer generate the animal scenes in the entire movie. And frankly I couldn't tell, the animal scenes were so real, there wasn't a moment I thought through my tears "this poor dying tiger looks a little photoshopped". Now, I can be a master of photoshop when I need to be, but the idea of "photoshopping" for filmscreen seems like an unfathomable amount of great technology coupled with great talent.

I know The Hobbit too used some computer generated animal scenes. But I am still disappointed for those 27 animals that died due to lack of sufficient care, on a budget that could have easily guaranteed their safety and comfort.

And here is a movie all about animals with far fewer dollars to spend who managed to get it right - and still win its prizes and accolades. Very well deserved. I'm now reading the book.

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.

Ann-Sofie Back

So, part of my dissertation was looking at the way we use fashion to hide or conceal parts of our identities, and one of my case studies was the work of designer Ann-Sofie Back.


Here is an excerpt of my current dissertation draft:

 ___________________________

A case study relevant to this argument, is the work of Ann-Sofie Back, which blurs the line between art and fashion, looking at concepts of masking oneself with clothing, and as Beck states “drawing inspiration from mine and other women’s failures at achieving perfection and beauty” (in Granata 2007, p394).

There is a general consensus that Back is considered as an avant-garde designer, at least in the first few years of her work, because rather than focusing on fashion as a commodity, she broke certain practical fashion rules in order to expose ironies present in fashion systems, and the superficiality of fashion which she felt she grew up with (Granata 2007). Her interest in fashion was spurred by ideas like Goffman’s that “the individual... intentionally conveys misinformation[s]” (1959, p2). While many theorists have explored fashion as an indicator of identity, essentially clothing being the construction of a personal cultural expression (Wilson & de la Haye 1999, p1), Beck’s work expresses the notion of fashion as a disguise or mask, “rather than its alleged ‘authenticity’” (Granata 2007). Back’s work surrounds the idea that every aspect of fashion is “a perfect lie, watertight, nothing left to chance” an example of which is her “faux wasp-waist garments” which have a fake belt attached to the front which can be tightened to give a visual sense of thin-ness (in Granata 2007).

The concepts present in Back’s work are not news, in fact society has a general understanding and awareness of “the power [fashion] wields in defining and communicating our identity” (Arnold 1999, p490), and that clothing acts as a “superficial gloss” (Craik 1997 p1). Individuals use fashion deliberately to disguise and flatter aspects of their identity, one example of which we are all familiar with is the thought process we go through when selecting what to wear for a job interview (Goffman 1959, p47).  

 

 Arnold, Rebecca 1999, ‘The Brutalized Body’, Fashion Theory, Vol. 3 Iss. 4, pp. 487-502

Craik, Jennifer 1993, The Face of Fashion: Cultural Studies in Fashion, Routledge, London, New York

De la Haye, Amy & Wilson, Elizabeth 1999, “Introduction” in De la Haye, Amy and Wilson, Elizabeth ed., Defining Dress: Dress as Object, Meaning and Identity, Manchester University Press, Manchester

Goffman, Erving 1959, Representations of Self in Everyday Life, Anchor Books, USA

Granata, Francesca 2007, ‘Subverting Assumptions of Female Beauty: An Interview with Ann-Sofie Back’, Fashion Theory, Vol. 11, Iss. 4, pp. 391-402

____________________________

 I looked further into Ann-Sofie Back's work and I liked how her design work is driven by concepts in society she wishes to comment on or disagree with. Her concepts have included the way men look at porography, mental illness, and the idea of God. I think these concepts lead her to some very interesting places.

 

Porn:

 Porn 2:

   God:

God 2:

 *Images linked from Ann-Sofie Back

I suppose I'm looking at ways a fashion shoot could be made into something that can be interpreted as semi-satire, and I think anything as concept rich and opinionated as this could really work.

Islamic fashion

I saw a report a few weeks ago on SBS news about young Muslim women making blogs surrounding their niche fashion world inspired by Islamic Fashion Week.

Now, just from the comments, it doesn't take a genius to see there's definitely been a lot of controversy in the last 10 years or so on the topic of the headscarf and burqa - Do they repress women? Should we make them conform in our country? Is it a security issue? What is the value in one's freedom to wear what they want? Should we not push for secularism in schools in the name of equality?

Personally, I probably come down on the side of the individual's right to choose how they dress. But then again, I'm not an expert on the topic, and actually I have a few friends who are strongly against letting what they feel to be an oppression of women continue. But I've never actually got to ask a Muslim woman what they think of the matter. So I would say that my opinion isn't exactly valid once it's totally formed.

I don't like the idea of uneducated women in third world countries doing exactly what they're told because showing their hair and neck may be an excuse for being raped. But I think the idea that educated Muslim women are still choosing the modesty and cultural traditions of their people and putting a spin on it by seeking out the latest fashion trends to almost bring out the subculture and make it a valid way of dressing in the view of the fashion world, sends a strong message that these women are not feeling repressed, or forced to do these things. I had an acquaintance in France who once told me she wore the headscarf simply because she said she'd feel naked without it. And my thoughts were, well, I'm glad you didn't grow up in France because that may have meant a choice between you going to school feeling naked or having to pay a lot of money for a special school.

I also had a Moroccan friend who said that his sisters and many of the young women in Morocco now just choose not to wear the headscarf at all - they don't feel the pressure to. Perhaps some of the superficial parts of the Islamic religion have relaxed in Morocco as opposed to some other parts of the continent. In the same way that some of the "rules" of Catholicism and Christianity have relaxed just to fit into the modern world.

And similarly on the other hand, I imagine the older generations of Islamic women would feel confronted by the nature of this "commercialisation" of their religious dress.

A polemic issue, to say the least. And I can only come at it from the point of view of an atheist. But I thought it was interesting, what it says about clothes in general and how you get used to wearing something so much that you feel naked without it, regardless of the reasons you began to wear it and if you even continue to agree with those reasons. I know if I'm missing one of the rings I usually wear or I go out without a handbag or even with bare legs at the beginning of summer, I get a similar sort of sensation. Nothing of course, that can make me understand this huge issue, but maybe the next time I see a young lady in a headscarf, I'll ask.

Here are some blogs on the topic I've been following:
TrendyMelbourne
Muslim Street Fashion
Hijabi and the City
MyazFashionSpot
We Love Hijab
Hijabi Style

And lastly some images from Hijab House, a Sydney based store with desgins inspired by the online Islamic community.

 [All images sourced from the Hijab House website]