This panel is the third in York University’s acclaimed series titled “Insights: A speaker series on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion,” organized by the President’s Advisory Council on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) and hosted by Professor Sheila Cote-Meek, York University’s vice-president of equity, people and culture.
Four scholars from critical disability studies, visual arts, and cinema and media arts will participate in a dynamic panel discussion exploring the intersection of disability with the arts, taking place Sept. 28 starting at 12 p.m.
Created to inspire University community members to take action, provoke thought and conversation about issues related to equity, diversity and inclusion, the Sept. 28 panellists will share their success stories and lessons learned from their research and experiences. This event is free and will be presented using Zoom webinar technology. All are welcome; however, registration is required and can be completed online by visiting yorku.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_IvLCsGvAQYeIto7qW22jBw.
The panel will be moderated by Jenifer Papararo, director and curator of the Art Gallery of York University. Participating in the panel from York University are Mary Bunch, assistant professor of cinema and media arts in the School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design (AMPD), and Rachel da Silveira Gorman, associate professor and graduate program director of the Critical Disabilities Studies program in the School of Health Policy and Management in the Faculty of Health. Joining them on the panel will be Eliza Chandler, assistant professor in the School of Disability Studies at Ryerson University, and York PhD candidate Syrus Marcus Ware, who is an assistant professor in the School of the Arts at McMaster University.
Meet the panel participants
Jenifer Papararo (moderator) joined York University from the Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art on the campus of the University of Winnipeg, where she has held the position of executive director for the past five years. At Plug In, she provided leadership for its mandate of research and education, fostering new artistic works, expanding audiences and conducting strategic planning. Her initiatives include the STAGES biennial, a public art exhibition throughout Winnipeg; the Interpreting Youth program; and several other community-based lectures, screenings and performances. Prior to her appointment at Plug In, she served as curator of the Contemporary Art Gallery in Vancouver from 2004 to 2014. She has been engaged in the contemporary art field in a range of roles for more than 15 years as a curator, writer, institutional director, and member of the service-oriented curatorial and artist collective Instant Coffee. Throughout her positions, she has undertaken production and distribution of contemporary art, partnership building, publishing, and promotion of interdisciplinary approaches and interactions. Papararo holds a master’s degree in art history from Western University. She is a frequent presenter and moderator for a variety of audiences in and beyond universities, and has published several exhibition-related catalogues, an anthology of collected writing and two artist book works.
A Tier II Canada Research Chair in Vision, Disability and the Arts, as well as an assistant professor in cinema and media arts in AMPD, Mary Bunch is also affiliated with theatre studies and Vision: Science to Applications (VISTA) at York University. Bunch’s teaching and research interests include interdisciplinary and collaborative critical disability, feminist and queer studies, critical theory and research creation. She works at the intersection of the political imagination and its visual/sensory expressions. Her current project on ecstatic freedom engages theoretical, activist and arts epistemologies as these re-envision the forms that democratic participation, political belonging and justice take. She has published articles in the Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies; Feminist Theory; Culture, Theory and Critique; and the Canadian Journal of Human Rights. Bunch has taught at McGill University, the University of Toronto and Western University. She holds a PhD in theory and criticism from Western University.
Rachel da Silveira Gorman is an associate professor and the graduate program director in the Critical Disability Studies program at York University, and an artist working in dance theatre, performance and curating. Da Silveira Gorman’s research engages theory and method from fine arts, humanities and sciences. Her writing has appeared in Auto|Biography Studies, American Quarterly, Somatechnics, thirdspace, and the Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies. Da Silveira Gorman has created and choreographed 14 dance-theatre and site-specific productions, 10 of which have been remounted or screened at festivals. Since 2009, she has been on the curatorial committee at A Space Gallery in Toronto, where she has curated four exhibitions. In 2017, she received a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts for a performance-based research-creation project called “Year Five of the Revolution.” She spent the 1990s working in social services and as a feminist and union organizer, and the aughties in anti-occupation organizing and in disability and queer arts scenes.
Earning her PhD in social justice and education from the University of Toronto in 2014, Eliza Chandler leads a research program that centres disability arts. This research interest came into focus when, from 2014 to 2016, she was the artistic director of Tangled Art + Disability, an organization in Toronto dedicated to showcasing disability arts and advancing accessible curatorial practice. Chandler is currently an assistant professor in the School of Disability Studies at Ryerson University, where she teaches and researches in the areas of disability arts, critical access studies, social movements and crip necropolitics. Chandler participates in a number of research projects, including co-directing “Bodies in Translation: Activist Art, Technology, and Access to Life,” a partnership project funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), and leading the SSHRC-funded insight development project “Accessing the Arts: Centring Disability Politics in Critical Access Design.” Chandler regularly gives lectures on disability arts, accessible curatorial practices and disability politics in Canada. She is also a member of the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists.
Syrus Marcus Ware is a Vanier Scholar, a visual artist, community activist, researcher, youth advocate and educator. For 12 years, he was the co-ordinator of the Art Gallery of Ontario Youth Program. Ware is currently a facilitator/designer for the Cultural Leaders Lab (Toronto Arts Council and the Banff Centre). He was the inaugural artist-in-residence for Daniels Spectrum (2016-17) and is also a core team member of Black Lives Matter Toronto. As a visual artist, Ware works within the mediums of painting, installation and performance to challenge systemic oppression. His work explores the spaces between and around identities, acting as provocations to our understandings of gender, sexuality and race, and has been exhibited at the Toronto Biennial of Art (2019), the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Art Gallery of Windsor, the University of Lethbridge Art Gallery, the Art Gallery of York University, the Gladstone Hotel, ASpace Gallery, Harbourfront Centre, SPIN Gallery and other galleries across Canada. His work has been reproduced in FUSE Magazine, the Globe and Mail, THIS Magazine, and Blackness and Sexualities, among others. His work has also been included in several academic journals, including Small Axe (Duke University), and Women and Environment International. Ware holds degrees in art history and visual studies, and a master’s in sociology and equity studies from the University of Toronto. He is a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change at York University.