April-May 2018 Artist Residency at the Santa Fe Art Institute, New Mexico, USA
Title : " Norma or the Tyranny of the norm", 2017
The 2018 theme of the Santa Fe Art Institute : "Equal Justice"
Title: "HUMAN BEING IN A DISABLED VERSION"
Project : There are two aspects to my project that are in constant interaction. The first aspect is relative to the norm that freezes people in there differences.
How can a person with a disability define his/her identity and blend into our societies, while, in most of the world, we still consider it to be below the social norm ?
My pictural representation of this fact is a central painting with multiple small paintings that revolve around and speak of the tyranny of the norm. Some disabled artists from the North Fourth Art Center, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, have joined me and are exhibiting a series of artworks on the same theme.
The second aspect is an installation that demonstrates the unenviable situation of people with disabilities in Montreal, in Quebec inCanada in connection with the lack of regulation that leads to a lack of universal accessibility and to being forty years behind the United States. Of course, many people with disabilities experience the same difficulties in different countries around the world even though the Convention on the Rights of people with disabilities is an international human rights treaty of the United Nations intended to protect the rights and dignity of the people with disabilities. Parties to the Convention are required to promote, protect, and ensure the full enjoyment of Human Rights by people with disabilities and ensure that they enjoy full equality under the law. New York : United Nations, December 13th 2006.
A fifteen-minutes-video presenting the different points of view of activists with disabilities from Montreal helps to understand the current state of the situation in Montreal, Quebec, Canada in 2018. Also, the activists talk about the Capacitism ( Ableism) :
In February 2014, the Faculty Association of Arts Students ( AFÉA ) of the UQAM ( University of Quebec in Montreal ) took a stand against capacitism:
"Capacitism is a form of discrimination or unfavorable judgment against people with disabilities. The Capacitian system of values, strongly influenced by the field of medicine, places the person capable, without disability, as the social norm. People who do not comply with this standard should attempt to comply. In this system of values, disability is an error, a lack, a failure, and not a consequence of diversity within humanity."
These elements are all integrated to the exhibition.