Study in Action 2010 -- Life Lines as an Anti-Oppression, Anti-Ableism Activist Project

 Study in Action is an undergraduate conference at Concordia University that focuses on relating students and academics  to the activist community in Montreal. I proposed Life Lines because it's the kind of activism (intense, personal, creative, one-on-one) that I prefer to engage in. Don't get me wrong -- I like the big stuff (protests, petitions, marching down Ste. Catherine's Street -- like we did the other night: www.missingjustice.ca) but I think my psychotherapy training has given me better tools in working through some of the big issues on a micro, more personal scale.






Proposal:


I am a Montréal-based visual artist working with issues of bodily self-determination and body image. The project that I would like to present at Study in Action 2010 is called Life Lines and can be found at http://www.onlinelifelines.blogspot.com . In it, I photograph people's scars and document their narratives of having acquired these scars, as well as what personal meaning their scars carry, and what meanings the participant believes the outside world gives to them. Since I began to exhibit the project online in 2006, I have also received submissions from around the world -- people who have photographed themselves and who wish to share their own stories/images. While my work explicitly focuses on a 'taboo' or 'unsightly' subject area, it is a body-positive, anti-ableist project. In essence, this presentation would have three aims: a) to address the oppression felt by people whose physical appearance marks them as 'other'. b) to encourage a safe (anonymous) exchange of stories and images about personal struggles to overcome illness, disease, accident, violent attack, surgerical procedures, etc. and finally, c) to encourage viewers to reconsider their ideas about their own bodies, as well as the bodies of others.