The Critical + Creative Social Justice Studies Cluster
The Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory at UBC and Live! Biennial
are pleased to present a two-day workshop on OTHER BODIES, addressing the intersection of gender, race, sexuality and disability:
a screening and lecture by performance artist Itō Tāri, on 4 October, and a panel on critical approaches to art and disability on 5 October.
Both events are free and open to the public.
Itō Tāri: Screening + Artist Talk
4 October, 3 PM
Audain Art Centre #1002
Itō Tāri (イトー・ターリ ; Tokyo, b. 1951) is a feminist activist and one of the most internationally renowned performance artists from Japan. In groundbreaking works such as “Distant Skinship (1995) and “Self-Portrait” (1997) , Itō explored how the skin, as enveloping sensory organ, mediates between internal and external worlds, identity and memory. More recently, her series “One Response” (2009) and “I guess it’s better that radiation doesn’t have a colour” (2011) have dealt with the body and the traces of historical memory.
Eight years ago, Itō was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy, a degenerative neuromotor condition from where she has begun developing her new art practice. This forms the base of the performance she will be presenting as part of Live! Biennial.
A neuromotor disease atrophies my muscles. I’m alarmed at how I can no longer do something I was able to do but a month ago. Yet I must use any movement I can today, because without moving I cannot live. In my changing body, countless contour lines appear. Perhaps these lines are “memory”. These lines come close and stick to my body; as I lay on the ground, I wrap myself up in the lines of “memory”.
Itō will screen video footage of her earlier and more recent work. She will then discuss the development of her practice in a talk and Q&A.
Itō Tāri’s performance for Live! will take place 2 October at the Western Front.
Art, the Body, and Disability
5 October (Saturday), 2 PM
Audain Art Centre #1002
Please join us for an informal afternoon panel addressing critical approaches to disability and the body in art.
Panel 1: Critical disability studies and art, 2 PM
Shota Iwasaki (PhD candidate, Department of Asian Studies, UBC)
Stefan Honisch, PhD (Banting Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Theatre & Film, UBC)
Coffee Break, 3 PM
Panel 2: Disability and critical art practice, 3:30 PM
Justine Chambers and Lee Su-Feh (The Talking, Thinking, Dancing Body)
Followed by a discussion with the public.
RSVP to ignacio.adriasola@ubc.ca (subject line: PANEL).
