Art & Art History
On Crip*: Liza Sylvestre in conversation with Denny Mwaura
Carmen Papalia and Heather Kai Smith
Virtual Via Zoom
Join Crip* curator Liza Sylvestre as she discusses her mission to develop an exhibition focused on disability and access within the contexts of cultural institutions. Moderated by Denny Mwaura, Gallery 400’s Public Programs Manager, the conversation will explore the exhibition’s theoretical foundations, how a social model of disability provides nuanced perspectives, and Sylvestre’s artistic and curatorial career more broadly.
Liza Sylvestre is a multimedia artist. Her work has been shown internationally at venues including the Plains Art Museum (Fargo), Weisman Art Museum (Minneapolis), Roots & Culture (Chicago), Soap Factory (Minneapolis), Soo Visual Arts Center (Minneapolis), John Hansard Gallery (Southampton), ARGOS (Brussels), and MMK (Frankfurt). Sylvestre has been the recipient of both an Artists Initiative and Arts Learning grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, a fellowship through Art(ists) on the Verge, a VSA Jerome Emerging Artist Grant, an Art Works grant from the NEA, a fellowship from the Kate Neal Kinley Foundation and, most recently, she has been named a 2021 Joan Mitchell Fellow. Sylvestre has previously been artist-in-residence at the Weisman Art Museum and the Center for Applied and Translational Sensory Science (CATSS) and is currently Curator of Academic Programs at Krannert Art Museum at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. In 2019 she received a Citizens Advocate Award from the Minnesota Commission of the Deaf, DeafBlind, and Hard of Hearing (MNCDHH). Sylvestre’s work has been written about in Art in America, Mousse Magazine, Ocula Magazine, Art Monthly, and SciArt Magazine.
Access Information: This free event will take place live on Zoom and will be recorded. ASL and real-time captions will be provided. For any access requests, please contact Gallery400@uic.edu or call (312) 996-6114.
On Crip*: Liza Sylvestre in conversation with Denny Mwaura from Art & Art History at UIC on Vimeo.
Suggested Reading:
Anthony Hamilton, “Captioned: An Interview with Liza Sylvestre,” Sixty Inches From Center. September 13, 2019.
Liza Sylvestre and Christopher Robert Jones, “Inaccessibility as Material: an interview with Alison O’Daniel,” Sixty Inches From Center. May 18, 2020.
Robert McRuer and Emma Cassabaum, “Crip Theory,” Oxford Bibliographies, May 26, 2021.
Carrie Sandahl, “QUEERING THE CRIP OR CRIPPING THE QUEER? Intersections of Queer and Crip Identities in Solo Autobiographical Performance,” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies. January 1, 2003.
“Terminology | Critical Disability Studies Collective,” University of Minnesota, Accessed January 26, 2022.
Sarah Buder and Rose Perry, “The Social Model of Disability Explained,” Social Creatures, April 12, 2021.
Elizabeth Guffey, “Design For the Rest of Us: Where Are Design Museums’ Benches?” Design Observer, September 30, 2013.
Jaipreet Virdi, “Black Bars, White Text,” Literature and Medicine, June 25, 2021.