Access is Love and Love is Complicated

Vanessa Dion Fletcher, Quillwork in twenty-nine Parts, porcupine quill embroidery on paper, 6 x 9 inches. The quills are folded back and forth making a zigzag pattern and the design is raised off of soft paper. The colours of the embroidery are warm reds pinks and browns.

ACCESS IS LOVE and LOVE IS COMPLICATED

Presented by Critical Distance Centre for Curators in partnership with Tangled Art + Disability
Co-curated by Emily Cook and Sean Lee

On view: October 3–December 8, 2019 / Opening reception: Thursday, October 3rd, 6–9 pm

CRITICAL DISTANCE and TANGLED ART + DISABILITY are pleased to present Access is Love and Love is Complicated, an exhibition and event series featuring Vanessa Dion Fletcher, Kat Germain, Wy Joung Kou, Dolleen Tisawii’ashii Manning, Andy Slater, Aislinn Thomas, and Adam Wolfond and Estée Klar. This program is co-curated by CDCC Education and Accessibility Coordinator, Emily Cook, and Tangled Art + Disability Director of Programming, Sean Lee and represents the next level in our ongoing series of programs providing opportunities for curators and artists to consider new and more collaborative aesthetic and conceptual approaches to accessibility within and beyond the gallery context.

Access is Love and Love is Complicated takes inspiration not only from disability activist Mia Mingus’ idea that accessibility should be understood as an act of love, but riffs on a pop cultural understanding that love is complicated—and thus, if we truly wish to move towards an accessible future then we must embrace the frictions of it. A lived experience that is often as political as it is relational, disability is a springboard from which access is entangled in the political alterities of our bodies; how they move, navigate and shape the world.

We–disabled people–are, as Kelly Fritsch notes, effective agents of world building and dismantling towards more just relations. But as we dismantle the world and work towards access as an act of love, we must also recognize that this act is complicated. Crip, Mad, Spoonie, and Deaf people are woven together in a tangled through-line of embodied difference, but more often than not our experience of negotiating access (or lack thereof) is performed alone. This is because our experience of disability has been something we’ve been told is located exclusively in our bodies. As we move towards access as love, and our understandings of disability shift towards relational, social and political frameworks, access, like love, becomes complicated—but in a good way. In the words of Carrie Bradshaw, this kind of love is “ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can’t-live-without-each-other love.”

FALL 2019 EVENT SERIES
Critical Distance and Tangled Art + Disability are pleased to announce the following events in conjunction with Access is Love and Love is Complicated. All events will take place at Artscape Youngplace; exact locations and further details will be provided closer to event dates. Admission to exhibitions is always free; public open events are free, and pre-registered (space-limited) workshops and events are pay-what-you-can.

Indigeneity, Neurodiversity and the Arts
A Conversation with Vanessa Dion Fletcher and Dolleen Tisawii’ashii Manning
Sunday, October 20th at 2 pm

How to Make Your Own Word Scavenger Hunt with Vanessa Dion Fletcher
Monday, October 21st at 6 pm

Dream-Worlding with Dolleen Tisawii’ashii Manning
Saturday, November 2nd at 2 pm

The Culture of Crip Aesthetics
Panel discussion with Sean Lee, Andy Slater, Wy Joung Kou and Aislinn Thomas
Moderated by Emily Cook
Saturday, November 9th at 2 pm

Access is Love and Love is Complicated: A reading group
Thursday, November 14th from 6–9 pm

Experimental Audio and Image Description with Aislinn Thomas and Kat Germain
Saturday, November 16th at 2pm

For full exhibition description and artist bios please visit our website.

ACCESSIBILITY INFORMATION
Critical Distance is an located on the third floor of Artscape Youngplace, a wheelchair accessible building with a ramp at the 180 Shaw Street doors, an elevator servicing every floor, and an accessible washroom on every level. All events will have ASL interpretation and attendant care provided. Childcare may also be available; please inquire. CDCC seeks to facilitate a scent-free environment, and we ask all who attend our events to kindly refrain from using or wearing scented products or materials in advance of and during our events. All of our access measures rely on, and reflect, the goodwill of our team, colleagues, and visitors — thanks to all participants for helping us improve access for all. If your access needs are not addressed in this statement, we will work with you to support your access to the exhibition and events — contact us at info@criticaldistance.ca to inquire.

ABOUT the PRESENTING PARTNERS

Tangled Art + Disability is boldly redefining how the world experiences art and those who create it. We are a not for profit art + disability organization dedicated to connecting professional and emerging artists, the arts community and a diverse public through creative passion and artistic excellence. Our mandate is to support Deaf, Mad and disability-identified artists, to cultivate Deaf, Mad and disability arts in Canada, and to enhance access to the arts for artists and audiences of all abilities. http://tangledarts.org/

Critical Distance is a not-for-profit project space, publisher, and professional network devoted to the support and advancement of curatorial practice and inquiry in Toronto, Canada, and beyond. With a focus on critically engaged, collaborative, and cross-disciplinary practices, underrepresented artists and art forms, and community outreach and education in art and exhibition-making, Critical Distance is an open platform for diverse curatorial perspectives, and a forum for the exchange of ideas on curating and exhibition-making as ways to engage and inform audiences from all walks of life.
www.criticaldistance.ca. You can also find us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

Critical Distance Centre for Curators
No. 302 — Artscape Youngplace
180 Shaw Street, Toronto

Critical Distance is grateful for the support of the Ontario Arts Council in making this exhibition and related events possible.