This is a transcript of the closed captions from the video conversation.

 

Arlene Malinowski: Hi, my name is Arlene Malinowski. I'm a playwright, actor, and teaching artist who makes solo autobiographical work that explores the intersection of disability culture and the world at large.

I am really excited to be here today with two artists, Auden Granger and Ariella Granados, who recently participated in 3Arts/Bodies of Work residency program. As a fellow alum myself, I'll be leading a conversation with them about their work, their experiences in residency, and the ways they situate themselves within the disability community.

This conversation is part of a series called the Disability Culture Leadership Initiative, led by 3Arts in partnership with Bodies of Work. Special thanks to the Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities, including Commissioner Rachel Arfa and the Central West Community Center here in Chicago, which is operated by the Mayor's Office where we're filming today.

Auden is a paper collage artist and theatrical wardrobe supervisor whose practice explores disability perspectives, cultures of care, and finding art in the everyday. Ariella is a multidisciplinary artist whose work utilizes video, sound, costuming, makeup, and sculpture to explore the liminal spaces between fiction and truth.

Thank you so much for being here. I am really excited to jump into this conversation with you. So to get us started, I'd love to start with you, Ariella, and I'd love to take a moment for you to tell us about your art, the what, but also the why.

Ariella: I like to think of my work as world building. I think I tap into different mediums, whether that be like sculpture or makeup and costume or even creative directing other projects for others or whether that be through my music. I think it's essentially me creating the world that I want to see for myself and reimagining that for myself, because I don't think I've seen many images in media that felt representative to my experience and me being in my body.

Sparklmami - running

And I think I feel driven to, driven and committed to making this work as a means to like, better understand my lived experience.

Arlene: Auden, take a moment and tell us about your work and not only the what, but the why of your work.

Auden: Absolutely. So, I really have two areas of artistic practice, and the first is visual art. I am a paper collage artist who works primarily with found materials. And I work in this paper mosaic style. So I cut paper into strips, take those strips into segments, and create these lines, this texture and color. So I really love working with found materials because I think it brings things into conversation with each other that would otherwise never be engaged. And I love engaging with my community in that way.

And then my other area of practice is related to my work in theater. So I have a project called Wardrobe Justice, which is an activist project and, professional development curriculum for theatrical costume workers, which basically starts from the idea that performance is very vulnerable and we ask a lot of performers to be undressed, to engage with body image. And historically, that vulnerability has not been treated with the care that it deserves. So wardrobe justice addresses this gap that I have seen and seeks to provide tools and training for people working in, in costuming, working with clothes and bodies, to develop some best practices, to respond to problems that might arise and really ensure that we're taking care of everybody who is involved in the vulnerable work of doing theater.

Where Words Fail Me

You know, as a theater maker myself, I really responded to that. And I know that you do work with costuming. And so I think it'll be really interesting to hear the dialog you have about that.

So you were residents of the 3Arts and Bodies of Work program like I was. And just for the audience, it's a really customized program where deaf and disabled artists can design projects, connect with other artists scholars, or conduct creative research to make new work. So I'm going to ask both of you, like, tell me a little bit about your work during the residency, what you got out of it, maybe an aha.

Auden: Yeah. So I worked on a project called, Chroma Key After Me, and it was a project where I recreated my childhood home through ceramics. So I, like, made miniature dioramas and replicated each room in their home. And I'd never had formerly taken on a project with ceramics like that before, so it was definitely a learning curve, for sure. Took me a lot of time, but I also, yeah, really learned a different kind of flow of work. I think I naturally tend to work in a more collaborative setting, and I really appreciated having the designated time to work one on one with the material. I had a mentor, Javier, who helped, me in making the sculptures. But yeah, there was a lot of challenges that came along the way. Just like in having to adapt my body to making the ceramics and, you know, accepting that it would take longer to do those things. But I finished and it was awesome, and I got to present it, gave a talk at the MCA, and yeah, I like, feel really good about the project.

Arlene: What I love about what you just said is that the residency program actually let you explore work that you normally would not have looked into and that's the gift of having a residency. It gives you time and space. So, Auden I would love to know about the work that you did during your residency, some of the things that you learned, maybe an aha?

Auden: Absolutely. Bodies of Work was my first artist residency, so it has been so significant for me and really the start of me approaching art in a more professional setting, so I'm so grateful to the residency for that.

I think my favorite thing that I did over the course of Bodies of Work was a workshop that I presented called Ill At Ease, which was entirely virtual. Participants were provided with materials kits so that they could engage in this collaborative art making process, working with found materials - paper collage from home.

Ill at Ease

So my artistic process with paper collage has really been so informed by the pandemic, by my experiences of being chronically ill, by being sort of stuck in my home feeling so isolated, and so to be able to create that collaborative experience, to talk about how found materials for me is a way of engaging with community, that was such a fantastic experience and the workshop is now available online forever.

Arlene: In disability and the Bodies of Work Residency, it also goes beyond the parameters of I am going to present in a classroom or a gallery space, using online spaces that meet the needs of a disability community is so valuable. You and I all know that the residency program helps artists learn about, contribute to the idea of disability aesthetics. Ariella, what form did that take for you? And how do you situate your art form within the disability aesthetics world? Whether it's content, form, maybe creative process?

Ariella: Yeah, I think that was something I was maybe at times struggling with or felt a bit conflicted about because I think I might have set my own expectations in feeling like I had to produce a certain kind of work, or the work always had to be about my disability, and I felt that through making this body of work, it really allowed for me to just sit with the fact that like my very lived experience is disability aesthetics in itself, through and through. Like that's it.

Arlene: So what about you, Auden? How do you situate yourself within the disability aesthetic? Content, form, creative process?

Auden: Absolutely. I think all of my work, just as you were saying it, it is informed by disability in every way because I am informed by disability. So even where my art doesn't focus on disability concepts, it isn't necessarily evident in the final piece. I feel like my visual art, the process to create it requires going slow, it requires deliberation, and valuing that slowness is such an aspect of disability culture. Disability culture recognizes really the the artistry and the necessity of moving slow, of adapting to your circumstance, to the world around you, to the requirements of your body. And really celebrates those adaptations, celebrates working with what you have. So those are all things that are critical to my art. And then the Wardrobe Justice project is really built around disability politics, so disability justice is the primary framework that Wardrobe Justice is built off of. Especially the principle of leadership of the most impacted. So obviously, wardrobe justice is looking at marginalized identities on making supportive and safe spaces for people with a wide variety of lived experience. But it also really seeks to prioritize and center technicians and people who are in those lower positions on the workplace hierarchy. So really emphasizing that technicians, the people who are there every day, have a real stake and have a real capacity to make change in building these workplaces, really comes from disability justice and that idea of building from the bottom up, of prioritizing the people who have those experiences of, of the most marginalization of, leadership from the bottom up. Yes, yes.

Wardrobe Justice Principles

Arlene: Right!

Ariella: It doesn't have to be about anything but, I don't know, it's just it's me simply just sharing my ideas and sharing my lived experience and how I have to navigate through the world. I think that was like a huge moment of like, I think that was like my aha moment.

Arlene: Being an artist in a world, being a disabled artist in a world, is a militant act unto itself, isn't it?

Ariella: It really is.

Arlene: And just by the nature of you being an artist in the world.

Ariella: Yeah, so it's like, anything I make is disabled because I made it and like that's it, and you perceive the world through that way.

Arlene: Exactly. So what about you, Auden? How do you situate yourself within the disability aesthetic? Content, form, creative process?

Auden: Absolutely. I think all of my work, just as you were saying it, it is informed by disability in every way because I am informed by disability. So even where my art doesn't focus on disability concepts, it isn't necessarily evident in the final piece.

I feel like my visual art, the process to create it requires going slow, it requires deliberation, and valuing that slowness is such an aspect of disability culture. Disability culture recognizes really the artistry and the necessity of moving slow, of adapting to your circumstance, to the world around you, to the requirements of your body. And really celebrates those adaptations, celebrates working with what you have. So those are all things that are critical to my art.

And then the Wardrobe Justice project is really built around disability politics, so disability justice is the primary framework that Wardrobe Justice is built off of. Especially the principle of leadership of the most impacted. So obviously, wardrobe justice is looking at marginalized identities on making supportive and safe spaces for people with a wide variety of lived experience. But it also really seeks to prioritize and center technicians and people who are in those lower positions on the workplace hierarchy.

So really emphasizing that technicians, the people who are there every day, have a real stake and have a real capacity to make change in building these workplaces, really comes from disability justice and that idea of building from the bottom up, of prioritizing the people who have those experiences of, of the most marginalization of, leadership from the bottom up.

Arlene: Yes, yes. Ariella, I want you to talk to me about what is it meant for you to be part of Chicago's disability arts, culture in our community here?

Ariella: I think it's been very impactful for me. In the sense that, you know, I didn't really claim my disability identity until like, 2020. I didn't have the language to communicate what I was going through and it was through residency that I did with DCASE and the Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities that I really got to, like, hone in and build disabled community.

Green Screen After Me

And I did programing for like nine months, and yeah, like that was just deeply impactful and just healing, and to know that like, I wasn't you know, I wasn't alone in my experience. And yeah, I think Chicago has a very strong disability community, and we get together when we can.

Arlene: You know, I feel the same way you did not having the language around disability, arts and culture, puts us at a disadvantage, but having that is so empowering. And so Auden, how has it what's, what is it meant for you to be part of Chicago's disability arts community?

Auden: Yeah, I mean, Chicago is such a center for so many kinds of important work. It's a center for disability arts and culture, it's a center for theater, it's also a center for theater activism, for creating better work environments. Stuff like the Not in Our House Project, Chicago Theater Standards, so seeing all of those different, different ways of existing, different ways of engaging with experiences of marginalization and oppression, of creating art, of taking care of each other while we create art, all of those things are so significant for me. They, I agree, make me feel like I'm not alone in that process, give me people to rely on mentorship, a community. All those things are so significant and present in so many different ways in this city.

Arlene: So Ariella, I'm going to shift gears a little bit and ask you, what are some of the challenges you've had as a disabled artist with access, funding, maybe training in your art field? Because I think our needs are different.

Ariella: Yeah, I think a big one is just like adapting to time and just like in the fact that things take me longer to do when it comes to, like, physical things. That's been a really big challenge. And I think I've felt challenged and accepting the fact that I cannot do everything by myself. And I've, you know, in the past have just been really conditioned to do everything on my own. So it's called for me to lean into my community.

Arlene: So, Auden what challenges have you had with funding? With access or training in your art field?

Auden: Yeah, I've had a lot of difficulty. I mean, I think that there is such a great disability arts and culture community, but connecting with disability, aesthetics, disability culture and art outside of that sphere can still be very difficult. The mainstream arts organizations are not necessarily looking for work that tackles disability or work by disabled artists, unless it fits in this very specific mold. A narrow, narrow bandwidth. Yeah, a very narrow field. So and I have also found that as I have further embraced my disability identity and focused more on disability, that can sometimes impede my ability to get work that isn't related to disability. So working in theater, the fact that I have disability and disability studies on my resume can sometimes be a hindrance because of that ableist attitude, because of misconceptions about what that might mean and the idea that I would therefore not be able to do the job that I am applying for.

Arlene: Is there anything else that you'd like to talk about? Some of the barriers or challenges you've had with gaining access, or funding, or training in your particular art field?

Ariella: Well, you have many because you are multi-disciplinary person I think having access to like space sometimes or, you know, places saying they're like ADA Accessible, but they're not. not having like accessibility button at the front door that'll automatically open the door for you or a ramp when I'm carrying things inside of a building. That can be very frustrating. Or, you know, if maybe there's, like, an elevator that's out of service, it's actually, like, really crucial for me to use if I have material that I'm like, loading and has been, yeah, a really big challenge and very frustrating because I think those are just like bare minimum requirements that should be, you know, thought about.

Arlene: So, Ariella, What would you like to ask Auden about their practice, their work, their philosophical underpinnings? Yeah. Boy, I got, I got really deep there fast. [laughter]

Ariella: I, you know, really think a lot about just, like, costume in relation to my own practice, specifically through, like, my music practice and when I perform, I'm usually, like, wearing gloves, or maybe I'm wearing a morph suit, but it's to me, I see it as like an alter ego. And while it is, like, imaginative and, you know, yeah, it's imaginative, but it's also because, like, I still feel shy and you know, just like putting myself out there and just like in my disability or you know, within my body. So I'm just curious to know if I don't know what your ideas around costuming are, just your approach to that.

Auden: I think costuming is such a fantastic way to to embody a character, to embody a world. You are talking about your art really being a process of world building and costuming can be so critical to that. At the same time, it can be something that that introduces that vulnerability, self-consciousness in the performer. Because even if we're building this separate world, that kind of utopia, we're still engaging with the the body image standards of the world we live in now, of these notions of conventional sizing, that they're that you have to fit into a size eight and there's a size eight person, and if you don't fit every aspect of that, then you have failed in some way. And any time where we're wearing clothes or looking at each other, we're engaging with those ideas and that can't really be separated. So I think it is a situation where there's a lot of balance and really needs to be a lot of care, whatever it is that you end up deciding to do, however you end up approaching costumes, whether you are using it more to hide something about yourself or to bring something forward. However it is, it still requires a lot of attention that maybe is not always present.

Ariella: I don't know how you, specifically use costuming in your work. Can you just give me a little bit of an example of that?

Auden: You're taking my question! Oh! [laughter] Think of another one. But I'm really curious how you, how you put that into your artistic expression.

Ariella: Yeah. So when I started performing music, I originally started, I dressed up as a character that was. Oh, so my musical alias is Sparklmami. And so, Sparklmami? Yeah [laughter] And so the character originally was in, like, a green morph suit, and I would wear a pink, bright pink wig, and I would wear a suit and this huge knitted hand, and that was the first iteration of Sparklmami. And now, as time has gone by, I've taken off the costume and I now wear these, like, huge gloved hands that were made by a designer named Eda Birthing, and I dyed them like a black color. So, I think that's like become the staple for me now. But I think as time goes on, I like, want to continue making different iterations. So, I'm working on like these, like super long silicone pants that are like realistic looking. So, yeah!

Auden: I would love to hear more about how you engage then with some of those practicalities of, costuming the disabled and racialized body, because it does sound like that's so significant to all of the work you do, whether it's specifically focused on costuming and makeup or not. So do you have any anything else that you would want to share that really brings forward that element in your work?

Earlier I was thinking about how I feel the most safe in costume. Yeah I feel like, I love that! Yeah I do I, I've, I feel elevated, I feel like I can, I don't know just like tap into a side of myself that I don't get to do all the time or just in my day to day, you know, I love that costuming can enable that sense of safety while also encouraging exploration that it can be a comfortable space to return to a comfortable framing for yourself to be seen, while also allowing you to explore so many other elements. Thank you.

So I'm going to ask the my favorite, one of my favorite questions. And that is so Ariella, what are you dreaming about for your own work that's coming up? Or what do you think about the future of the disability arts movement? But I really want to hear what you see for yourself as an artist.

Arlene: So, last question, my favorite question is, what are you dreaming about for your own art practice in the future? Or what do you think about or dream about for the disability arts community?

Ariella: Yeah, what I see for myself is releasing my album. It's titled "In This Body." It's a nine track album, it's inspired by a lot of 70s Brazilian Jazz, Mexican Bolero, a lot of like, yeah, old timey music. And I think the album is essentially just like me exploring my lived experience and like, I think the title of the project and the project in itself is like coming back to my body and, like, reclaiming my body through song.

And yeah, the project is, like experimental, there's like a lot of spoken word, but also melody. Yeah. And I look forward to, like, presenting that to the world, because I've worked really hard on it.

Arlene: How long have you been working on it?

Ariella: Three years.

Ariella: Three years, three long... no I'm kidding! But yeah, and I look forward to performing it, I'm you know, also performance artist. So there's just a lot of, like, theatrical elements that I want to incorporate in the live performances. And, I don't know, just getting very experimental with it through every performance that I do, I usually have like an improv section where it's just whatever comes out, comes out with the band, and so there's a lot of good stuff that usually comes out of that.

Arlene: You know, while I know the work that you're doing is so specific to your lived experience. It the, the topic is also very universal. You know, everyone can respond to inside my body. And good art does that. Yeah. Good art does that. Auden, what's next for you?

Auden: Yeah I'm excited about so many things. I feel like I am right at the edge where I can see so many ways my art can improve, so many places I can go from here. Which is an exciting and also scary place to be.

So I have been working on the process of creating prints of my work, which I have finally succeeded in doing. So, I now have prints available for sale. I'm hoping to continue increasing the quality of that process. Getting better at digital alteration, at documentation, those kinds of elements. And hopefully being able to create better quality prints of more of my pieces.

And then I'm really excited about the Wardrobe Justice project, about bringing that out into the world. So I've been working on making those connections, of finding an audience of people who it will really resonate with. So I'm hoping to bring the Wardrobe Justice curriculum to theater programs, to other theater workers, and bring some of this material out to start having the impact that I think that it can have.

Arlene: I can't wait to see and hear the album. I can't wait for Wardrobe Justice. You bring so much to the table. I am so grateful that you were willing to be open and to share your art with us. And, so nice to meet you.

Auden: Absolutely. So nice to meet you. Thank you.

Ariella: Thank you. Thank you.