(Thesis) Modeling Disability: Softly Making the Invisible Visible, 2020, Evan

Dolphin · May 26, 2020

https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1075&context=bfa
The thesis contains some photographs.

Washington University in St. Louis
Washington University
Open Scholarship

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers College of Art Spring 5-1-2020

Modeling Disability: Softly Making the Invisible Visible

Libby Evan
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Abstract

“I am not asking for pity. I am telling you about my disability.” -Eli Clare1

In the following Bachelor of Fine Arts thesis statement, you will not find someone overcoming their disability. You will not find a tale of inspiration. You will not find a cure for ableism. You 2 simply will find an individual's experience of disability— my experience of disability.

My invisible disability puts the medical model and social model of disability in constant tension as I navigate everyday life living with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and severe arthritis. Both models seek to find blame for disability, whether in searching for a medical cure for illness or putting blame on society at large for creating barriers. Instead of abiding by these limiting models, I cope with disability in my own way. I embrace the contradictory notion of having significant physical limitations while giving into the pressures of our capitalist society to physically produce. I make my own models through accepting my identity and embracing the human-like, huggability of soft sculpture. As a sculptor, I do not need to find blame through theoretical models of disability. Instead, I make literal models representing my lived experience. I turn my invisible, private experiences into visible, public ones. 1
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