Yellowknife Dene First Nations in Yellowknife; decolonizing mental wellness, through Stage Left's applied Theatre of the Oppressed practice (2019).
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DDMAAC > Disability justice network
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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.
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). |
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.
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.
