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Working against traditional narratives of inclusion and accessibility, crip technoscience centres the pivotal role of disabled people and communities in driving technological change.

Moderated by Aimi Hamraie, a co-author of the Crip Technoscience Manifesto (2019), this event explores Black, Indigenous, and Crip technoscience and how intersectional disability justice lends itself to transformative modes of thinking and being in new media art and beyond.

ABOUT THE PANELIST/S

Amanda Amour Lynx (they/she/nekm) is a Two Spirit, neurodivergent, mixed urban L’nu (Mi’kmaw) interdisciplinary artist and facilitator currently living in Guelph, Ontario. Lynx was born and grew up in Tiohtià:ke (Montreal) and is a member of Wagmatcook FN. Their art making is a hybridity of traditional l’nuk approaches with new media and digital arts, guided by the Mi’kmaq principles netukulimk (sustainability) and etuaptmumk (two-eyed seeing). Lynx’s artistic practice discusses land and relationality, environmental issues, navigating systems and societal structures, cultural and gender identity, (L’nui’smk) language resurgence, quantum and spiritual multiplicities. Their facilitation work focuses on designing community spaces committed to creating healthy Indigenous futurities, guided by lateral love, accessibility and world-building.

Bobby Joe Smith III is a Black and Lakota (Hunkpapa and Oohenumpa) graphic designer and media artist. Design, computation, performance, writing, and lens-based image-making are mediums of expression and inquiry he turns to often. His creative practice is rooted in the ongoing decolonial and abolitionist movements led by Indigenous communities on Turtle Island and across the Black diaspora. His research draws from the decolonial, abolitionist, and post-apocalyptic strategies of Black and Indigenous people to construct a poetic vernacular of “unsettling grammars” — gestures, methodologies, and utterances that deviate, disrupt, and dismantle settler-colonial systems. By rearticulating these “unsettling grammars” through the disciplines of media art and design, Bobby Joe seeks to reveal vectors leading toward decolonial futures and generate work that resonates with the people and movements that comprise his community. He holds an MFA in Media Arts from UCLA, an MFA in Graphic Design from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), a Post-Baccalaureate degree in Graphic Design from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), and a B.A. in Philosophy and Political Science from Middlebury College. His work is available at www.bobbyjoesmith.com.

Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley (she/her/hers) works in animation, sound, performance, and video games. Her practice records the lives of Black Trans people, intertwining reality and fiction to create participatory work. In 2021 Brathwaite-Shirley was a resident artist at Wysing Arts Centre in South Cambridgeshire, UK. Her work has been shown at Science Gallery London, UK (2020); David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2020); and arebyte Gallery, London, UK (2021), among many others.

Nat Decker (they/them) is a Chicago born Los Angeles based artist interpreting the intimacies of queer and disabled lived experience as provocation toward collective care and liberation. Creating between digital and material mediums, they identify the computer as an assistive tool affording a more accessible practice. Often from bed, they use digital 3D software to trace serpentine connections between the body and technology, reimagining fantastical mobility devices as cultural celebration and agitation of conventional desirability politics. This cyclically informs their work with sculpture, creating non-functional mobility devices as aesthetic scrutiny and frictional commentary on designations of usefulness. Nat is also an access worker, consulting on accessibility for organizations such as p5.js, New Art City, Creative Growth, the LA Spoonie Collective, and for various projects at the University of California, Los Angeles. In June 2022 they graduated from UCLA with a degree in Design/Media Arts and Disability Studies. Their work is available at http://natdecker.com

MODERATOR

Aimi Hamraie (they/them) is an associate professor of Medicine, Health, & Society at Vanderbilt University and directs the Critical Design Lab, a multidisciplinary and international collaborative of disabled artists, designers, and design researchers. They are a 2022 United States Artists Fellow and host of the Contra* podcast on disability design justice. With Cassandra Hartblay and Jarah Moesch, Hamraie co-curated #CripRitual, a multi-site exhibition of twenty-five disabled artists at the Tangled Arts and Disability and Doris McCarthy Galleries in Toronto. Hamraie’s creative practice spans social practice and design (wood, leather, textiles, architecture, and landscapes). Their intellectual and creative work is funded by the National Science Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, the Smithsonian Institution, the Mellon Foundation, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Arts, and the National Humanities Alliance.

This event is co-presented by BlackFlash Magazine and InterAccess as part of two overlapping programs: Terra Firma and BlackFlash Expanded.

BlackFlash Expanded provides web-exclusive content that parallels and expands the magazine’s current publishing practice. With responsive articles, critically engaged reviews, panel discussions, workshops, and artist projects, BlackFlash Expanded strives to be a space that responds to urgent issues, fosters critical reflection, and showcases exceptional practices. The 2023 edition of BlackFlash Expanded continues on the 2022 inaugurating issue, which was supported by EQ Bank and the CCA Digital Now Funding Initiative.

Terra Firma (TF) is a project dedicated to strengthening the technologically mediated relationships between arts organizations and Black, Indigenous, and Disability Justice (BIDJ)-centred communities. It seeks to support, amplify, and learn from the stated communities' techno-cultural knowledge stewardship, accessibility, and harm reduction models. It aims to apply such learnings by prototyping and implementing organizational tools in close consultation and collaboration with the stated communities, distributing resources and sharing knowledge throughout artistic, cultural, and technological ecosystems on Turtle Island and beyond.

BlackFlash Expanded is made possible through the support of EQ Bank. InterAccess acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.