Month: May 2022

An incredibly moving story about an artist/performer suffering from chronic pain. This example could be used to illustrate how disabilities can be completely invisible and how my students as art-directors needs to be aware of the people they choose to collaborate with; be sensitive to the locations chosen to create performative works.

This is also a great conversation starting to get students to talk about any ‘hidden’ disabilities they might have so everyone in the class is aware; not in a finger-pointing way, but so that students are not just assuming their peers are all able-bodied.

I am unsure how practically I can integrate this thread of research into the film-making aspect of the unit I run. Perhaps it’s an option for the students to read upon rather than strongly implement into the teachings.

>> BIG PS. Upon reflecting on this, I realize I suffer from back pain but it’s just something I am dealing with in the background of everyday life. At this moment is not enough to significantly alter my daily activities nevertheless I have had to spend money on physiotherapy over the years to make sure it’s nothing serious. Also, trying every stretching exercise under the sun to help with the pain.

This idea of pain tolerance is something I am building up and perhaps in similar ways, the pain suffered by Khairani in this article can be reduced if the artist/designer and especially the performance community; can recognize everyone doesn’t have to build up a tolerance for pain but rather frameworks in place to alleviate pain instead.

The insightful origins of a viral hashtag demonstrate the power of social media and much influence it has. Creating awareness of an issue that is overlooked is needed for our society to be more inclusive, Vilissa is clever in using a contemporary medium to initiate conversations.

It is interesting to see also the backlash of this initiative as it’s inevitable as the internet is a breeding ground for all sorts of opinions. I wonder if she had/has engaged with the negative responses and has initiated conversations to bridge the gap.

Hypothetically, I can use this case study as an example of how students can utilise the power of the right hashtags to gain momentum and create an awareness campaign to start meaningful and inclusive conversations.

I mean obviously, UAL’s policies on being inclusive to students with disabilities and dyslexia are extensive and do provide a whole wealth of information for potential and existing. However, at first glance, I will perhaps digest and consolidate the info first before referring these pages to students in need purely because there is SO MUCH text. I can imagine for a dyslexic student, this can overwhelming. The illustrations used should be much more functional than being ‘pretty’. Also, the animation is too abstract rather than functional and perhaps doesn’t empathize with a partially visually impaired audience. (also should be subtitled for students with hearing impairment too)

Does feel like there’s a missed opportunity here to create a much more dynamic and interactive landing page with a simplified graphic palette with ‘hover points’ which trigger sounds for students who might require audio descriptive assistance.

To reflect this back to the question prompts for the blogging tasks, here are some of the answers given:

• How could you apply the resources to your own teaching practice?

We as a cohort already integrated all the disabilities and learning support information into our unit guides and make sure every student is aware of these services during briefings. Also, we are adhering to inclusive design guidelines to make our lecture and workshop slide much more partially visually impaired friendly.

• How could you integrate the research/work your students do on this subject into your teaching/professional practice?

There could be a possibility to ask students to work on a brief that involves creating projects specifically for the disabled and dyslexic demographic. Here is a relevant Ted talk by Elise Roy about designing for the disabled:

What a start to the unit as I was definitely thrown into the deep end in the most positive way by writing a positionality statement. Not sure if I did do it right nevertheless it was refreshing to look at myself objectively to recognize where I stood socially so far. This is what I wrote…

“As a Chinese man who grew up in a post-colonial Hong Kong, I  have certain prejudices against the white capitalist discriminatory perspectives of the British. Even though my own economical privileges are acknowledged, I still feel as though my ethnicity and cultural back background are treated as an oppressed minority and seen as an antagonizing trigger in discussions about social and political issues. 

Nevertheless, my hetero-normative views have helped my professional career; in terms of jobs, reputation, creative freedom, and acceptance of opinions in the ever problematic patriarchal society. My income, fluency in English, privately educated history and British citizenship have provided me with the advantage of choosing how to live my life and provide for my family. Through the conservative views of my family, I have inherited some problematic views about marginalized groups who are unable to express their identities. So since living and working in the UK, I want to surrender my prejudices and develop a more mature empathetic perspective when comes to teaching in a classroom.  

I want to learn more about how different cultural behaviours and attitudes towards work in a multi-cultural classroom. A true understanding of what ‘inclusivity’ and ‘queerness’ really means from an educator’s perspective is something that will help me to develop my critical thinking through teaching practices.”

I mean all of this stuff is in there when I go about my everyday life and it will be insightful how laying all this on the table will help and affect my teaching practices.

Task 2 had us watch a ‘vintage’ film on ‘critical pedagogy’ and give comments about it. At first glance, I thought this is something we already think about daily as teaching practitioners and artists/designers nevertheless it was interesting to see its origins. Mostly the academics were from privileged backgrounds which beg to emphasizes the notion of ‘choice’. Of course, if survival wasn’t the priority of the household/children, then criticality is a choice. But if survival is at the gore of a family being, then you do rather than ask no matter. This also has triggered another thought about the role of highways in American poverty and how Biden is attempting to create a much more inclusive country by restructuring its infrastructre.

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/03/role-of-highways-in-american-poverty/474282/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-58106414

The third task was perhaps a problematic task? Still unsure how to digest it. So we were asked to assign perceived intersectional identities to a list of images of people, all of them I have not seen before. Categories such as; age, disability, race, class, religion, gender, pronouns, sexual orientation, marriage, pregnancy, nationality, schooling, and highest educational status. My thoughts after the task were…

1. Why are we here to pre-judge people’s pictures? = Not entirely sure how productive it is even though I understand the point of recognizing our own preconceived ideas based on the visual. I mean was it supposed to highlight that we all pre-judge even if we might feel we don’t? But then it’s only encouraged because it’s a “task”….hmmm…
2. Why were they all adults and not students? = As teaching staff, we encounter students more than adults. So if the exercise is based on unconscious bias, be useful to have us look at a much younger demographic.
3. Is this task even relevant to the unit? = Again I understand the purpose however can it be the simpler task of learning HOW to ask questions if we need to know about or address a partiuclar trait of a person. Personally, the majority of the time is figuring out how to structure questions in a non-violent manner to acquire information about the person in question; through causal conversational and empathetic tone.

Unfortunately, I had to leave before task 4 to pick up my child from the nursery. I will go back over the task and reflect on this at a later date.