Yellowknife Dene First Nations in Yellowknife decolonzing mental wellness, through Stage Left's applied Theatre of the Oppressed practice.
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DDMAAC > A "BIPOC" CaucusChanging the DDMSTC* Arts Framework:
from Access to Justice to Decolonization Disability Justice has the power to not only challenge our thinking about access, but to fundamentally change the way we understand organizing and how we fight for social change. (Mia Mingus) Leaving Evidence: Transformative Justice | Disability Justice |
VISION: DDMAAC cultivates conduits of cultural affinity, artistic autonomy and disability justice in Canada's Deaf/ Disability/ Mad Arts domain,
and promotes the collective interests of artists whose lived experience of disablement advances artistic and aesthetic non-normativity.
and promotes the collective interests of artists whose lived experience of disablement advances artistic and aesthetic non-normativity.
CULTURAL sovereigntyThe Disability Justice Network is an autonomous caucus** within the national DDMAAC network that exclusively attends to the diverse contributors to the DDMSTC Arts domain, especially those who remain excluded from positions of DDMSTC* Arts influence: I2BTQAOC*** who also live with some form of impairment.
Core members of the Disability Justice Network are currently focused on Black Lives Matter and on decolonizing urban-centric approaches to DDMSTC Arts advocacy, western constructs of impairment, and normative notions of artistic excellence. **Caucus: A group within a larger political body, which meets independently to organize autonomous strategy and actions. ***Fully inclusive, it's: FNMIIA2BAQTAOC: First Nation, Metis, Inuit; Indigenous, Aboriginal; 2-Spirited; Black, African diaspora; Queer; Transgendered; Artists of Colour. This is our adaptation of the American anti-oppressive practice framing of BIPOC; made out of respect for the Original Peoples in Canada, to honour Truth & Reconciliation, and to align our advocacy approach with Canadian Human Rights laws. |
Operational autonomyThe Disability Justice Network takes a position of cultural sovereignty, and thus operates autonomously from, Stage Left's national DDMAAC network.
However, DDMAAC and the Disability Justice Network work in solidarity to achieve a shared goal of cultivating disability justice in the DDMSTC* Arts domain: The prioritization of anti-racism, decolonization, and non-normalization in social justice organizing among folx who live with any/ all forms of impairment – innate, acquired, social/ relational... Stage Left provides fees for the Disability Justice Network's labour, whenever resources exist to do so, and pathways to autonomous funding for its continued arts-based advocacy for decolonization and anti-racism (without any financial return to Stage Left). |
*DDMSTC Arts: D/deaf/ hard of hearing; Disabled/ person with a disability; Sick/ spoonie/ survivor; Traumatized; Colonized....
