NOTWITHSTANDING: 100 Years of Eugenics In Alberta, Stage Left's contribution to Alberta's Centennial celebration; Big Secret Theatre, Calgary (2005)

WELCOME > ABOUT DDMAAC
THE DEAF, DISABILITY & MAD ARTS ALLIANCE OF CANADA
​A STAGE LEFT NETWORK, OF ARTISTS WHO EXPERIENCE DISABLEMENT

Shifting the focus:
From access back to non-normative aesthetics.
What was established twenty years ago as a site of socio-political autonomy, artistic self-determination, 
and collective counter-culturalism...is now a site of inclusion wherein disabled people are dependent
​on the non-disabled for access to the arts. 
​Michele Decottignies,
​Stage Left Productions

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DDMAAC promotes the collective interests of artists whose lived experience of disablement cultivates artistic autonomy, aesthetic non-normativity, cultural affinity and health equity – in and through impairment-informed artistic practices. ​​

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DDMAAC'S PURPOSE

1. Serve as an agent of solidarity, collective impact and disability equity, throughout the professional arts ecology.

2. Provide access to a diversified hub of bottom-up (earned vs learned) dis arts knowledge, resources, services and advocacy opportunities. 

3. Affirm established Deaf/ Disabled/ Mad artists as fully qualified cultural contributors to the professional arts sector.

4. Advocate for increased investment in, and sector resources for, the production of non-normative aesthetics in dis arts. 

5. Claim spaces of artistic autonomy and cultural authority
for artists and art works that represent of the lived experience of disablement.

6. Advance disability justice (decolonization, anti-racism, anti-oppression and non-normalization) within the dis arts domain and throughout the broader arts ecology.

DDMAAC'S PRIORITIES

1. Position dis arts as an artistic practice, not an identity (i.e. put art back into the cultural representation).  

2. Position access as merely the condition for dis arts, not the goal (i.e. disrupt tokenistic cultural inclusion).  

3. Replace access with the legal duty to accommodate, and educate the sector on the social determinants of health.

4. Disrupt the Charitable Model of Disability that is once again on the rise; it is the antithesis of dis arts. 

5. Disrupt the elevation of emerging artists and investment in non-artists (i.e. equalize inclusion). 

6. Engage in cross-cultural solidarity with, and get behind the systemic advocacy of, other equity-seeking arts networks (i. e. get behind others rather than only centre ourselves).

7. Increase the use of accommodating production and presenting models in market access and artistic presentation. ​

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DDMAAC's use of "Dis Arts" is meant to be inclusive of artists who are DDMSTC:
D/deaf/ hard of hearing; Disabled/ person with a disability; Mad, person with a mental illness, survivor of psychiatric incarceration; Sick/ spoonie/ survivor; Traumatized by lived experiences of systemic injustice; Colonized by imperialists....​ But that's way too wordy for way too many of us. So we use "dis arts". 

DDMAAC's framing of "Disablement":
Disablement is a social condition that impairs vulnerable populations. Disablement stems from socially-imposed processes of hegemonic bias, exclusion, inequity and disenfranchisement that results in poorer health outcomes for entire communities. DDMAAC thus takes up Health Equity models. ​

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