Directory

The Arts and Activism Directory (AAD) is co-produced by Bodies in Translation and Tangled Art + Disability. AAD is meant to recognize, commemorate, and document activism in the arts. The purpose is to highlight and profile artists who are exploring activism and social, cultural and political resistance in their practice.

We use the term “activist art” to refer to Disability art, d/Deaf art, Mad art, aging and e/Elder art, fat art, and Indigenous art. This directory can be used as a resource tool for artists, curators, programmers, researchers and the general public to discover, connect with and directly engage with artists and their work.

If you’d like to have a profile in the Arts and Activism Directory, please fill out this form.

 

Head and shoulder shot of a woman dressed in a black polo neck sweater and wearing a black wig over her face against a black background. Only her neck and chin are visible.

Alexa Wright

Alexa Wright is a visual artist based in London, UK. Her practice spans a range of media, including photography, video, sound, interactive installation and book

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Allyson Mitchell

Allyson Mitchell is a maximalist artist working in sculpture, performance, installation and film. Her practice melds feminism and pop culture to investigate contemporary ideas about

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Two people reach out to touch Big Softie’s guts, which are soft and dimpled and made from stuffed knee socks and nylon stockings, and examine the Unidentified Remains that are scattered amongst them. At the centre of it all lies Big Softie’s heart, a red patchwork soft sculpture with tendrils extending outward.

Birdie

Birdie creates “soft body horror” – a mythology of monsters that live on the “Body Farm.” Using mixed media images and sculpture, Birdie pieces together

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The artist stands to the right side of the frame, looking at a wall full of 200 8"x10" portraits. The colours are brilliant.

Bruce Horak

Legally Blind performer/creator for over 25 years, Bruce Horak was born in Calgary, Alberta and has exhibited his work across Canada and abroad. He lost

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Carly Riegger

Carly Riegger is a chronically ill female from Ann Arbor, Michigan. She took a strong interest in ceramics in high school. She is currently working

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A cropped photo of a white woman with her mouth slightly open which fills most of the frame. She is holding a plastic dental flosser in her mouth with one hand. There is a pale blue background.

Carrie Perreault

Working primarily in sculpture and performance, Carrie Perreault balances resistance and restraint in onerous actions that recount long-term precarity. In making her work, she expends

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Chris ‘Bucko’ Binkowski

Chris ‘Bucko’ Binkowski currently lives and works in Ottawa, ON. Bucko is an emerging multidisciplinary artist working primarily in electronic music performance and abstract paintings.

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Chris Dodd performing Deafy at the SummerWorks Performance Festival. Chris wears a white shirt, tan vest and blue tie and is signing animatedly to the audience. Surtitles displayed behind him read "He told me it's true. His friend, Josh, took the driver's test."

Chris Dodd

Chris Dodd is an Edmonton-based Deaf performing artist, playwright, accessibility advocate and Governor General Innovation Award finalist. He is the founder and artistic director of

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Christine Negus

Christine Negus is a multidisciplinary artist and writer who received the National Film Board of Canada’s Best Emerging Canadian Video/Filmmaker award through Images Festival in

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Claire Cunningham

Claire Cunningham is a performer and creator of multi-disciplinary performance based in Glasgow, Scotland.  A recent Factory Artist with Tanzhaus NRW Düsseldorf, Germany she is also

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Connor Yuzwenko-Martin

Connor Yuzwenko-Martin is descended from settlers, and recognizes and strives every day to honour and act upon the fact that his work and accomplishments take

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A photo of David Bobier.

David Bobier

As a hard of hearing and disabled media artist David Bobier’s creative practice is centred on researching and expanding vibrotactile technology and multi-sensory artistic modalities

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Still image taken from a video. A person is reclined in front of a large glass display filled with gems and minerals.

Diane Borsato

Diane Borsato (BFA York University, MFA Concordia University, MA Performance Studies, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University) was awarded the Victor Martyn-Lynch Staunton

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Eli Clare, sporting a buzz cut and wearing a dark shirt, stands at a microphone, reading. His arms are outstretched. Behind him are projected words from the CART captions. To the right is a quote from Alice Sheppard that reads, "Eli Clare makes new worlds out of raw truths and transcendent beauty, inviting us to imagine."

Eli Clare

White, disabled, and genderqueer, Eli Clare lives near Lake Champlain in occupied Abenaki territory (currently known as Vermont) where he writes and proudly claims a

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Elizabeth Sweeney

Elizabeth Sweeney is a visual artist, arts researcher and curator. She is also a neurodivergent queer of Acadian settler decent, who grew up in rural

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Headshot of Emily. She has long blonde hair, and is wearing a black blazer and smiling.

Emily Gillespie

Emily Gillespie is an author, activist and daydreamer. She has an MA in Disability Studies. Dancing with Ghosts (2017) is her first novel. She is

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A photo of Erin hanging upside down in the air on a single rope that is suspended from the ceiling.

Erin Ball

Erin Ball is a Mad, Disabled circus artist and coach based in Kingston, Ontario. She runs and owns Kingston Circus Arts; a circus space created

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A photo of Gaitrie wearing a blue wig and blue lipstick. She is wearing a metallic bodysuit and signing.

Gaitrie Persaud

Deaf artist, model, actress, Deaf Interpreter, ASL coach and infamous dynamic personality, Gaitrie “Natasha” Persaud, was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario. Her family lineage

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A headshot photo of a woman in a red hijab and black shirt with her hands over her face against a white background with lines of alternating black and red text consisting of various labels used to describe mentally ill folks (such as mad, insane, psycho). The labels are also overlaid on the woman’s face, body, hands, and shirt.

Hanan Hazime

Hanan Hazime is a multidisciplinary artist, creative writer, community arts educator, and writing instructor living in Tkaranto/Toronto. She also identifies as a Lebanese-Canadian Muslimah Feminist

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Screenshot from video of "The Gift" performance. Linnea Gwiazda and Maxine Segalowitz are pictured.

Ingrid Bachmann

Ingrid Bachmann is a Montreal artist who works in multiple formats including kinetic and interactive sculptures and installations, drawing, sound and video. She works with

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Jeff Thomas

Jeff Thomas is an independent curator and photographer who deals, in examination of his own history and identity, with issues of aboriginality that have arisen

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Jeff thomas

Tribal affiliation: Onondaga of the Six Nations of the Grand River Year Jeff Thomas (b. 1956, Buffalo, New York) is an urban-based Iroquois, self-taught photo-based

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A photo of Jessica standing beside and touching her artwork in a gallery. A tactile rug in shades of pink, blue, purple, and yellow hangs on the wall. Jessica is wearing all black and smiling. She has long hair and glasses.

Jessica Watkin

Jessica Watkin is a PhD Candidate and artist living in Toronto. She is Blind and Disabled, and uses this to fuel her work. She is

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Kaleigh smiles against a white backdrop. She is white, has long blonde hair, and is wearing silver earrings.

Kaleigh Trace

Kaleigh Trace is a disabled, white femme who talks a lot. For many years Kaleigh travelled North America talking about sex. She led sex education

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katherine sherwood

Katherine Sherwood’s acclaimed mixed-media paintings gracefully investigate the point at which the essential aspects of art, medicine, and disability intersect. Her works juxtapose abstracted medical

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A photo of one of Lev's abstract resin paintings. It primarily has shades of green, blue, and yellow.

Lev Levner

I just started painting over a year ago. Now I am using pouring techniques and resin art. Recent workSince August 2019 have been exhibiting at

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A black and white photo of a performer dressed as the Ubermarionette wearing a morph suit -which covers all visible skin.They are sitting casually leaning back on a flight of stairs. They are wearing light coloured overalls, a black beret and holding a Super8 video camera to their right eye.

Lisa Anita Wegner

Lisa Anita Wegner is a filmmaker, performer, curator, producer and instructor at the haus of dada. She is the creative producer of Mighty Brave Productions,

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Professional photo of artist M.C Cruz, circa July 2019.

M. C Cruz

M.C Cruz a.k.a Chris is a child of Chilean immigrants. Who was born, raised and currently based in Toronto but has also lived in in

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A black and white selfie of Max Ferguson.

Max Ferguson

Max (formerly Sarah) Ferguson has been a practicing artist since 1996 and received his BFA from the University of Regina in 2001. He graduated with an

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An oval-shaped copperleaf that is green with white jagged edges. Printed in the leaf's chlorophyll, in pale green, is a self-portrait of Megan, who is looking off to the side.

Megan Bent

Megan Bent is a New England-based artist and teaching artist. She received her MFA and Graduate Certificate in Disability Studies from the University of Hawai‘i

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Michel Dumont

Michel Dumont is a queer Métis two spirited artist who enjoys breathing new life into discarded vintage tile by making mosaic pieces. Working with shattered

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A photo of Natasha.

Natasha BaccHus

I am Natasha Cecily Bacchus. I am an athlete and artist, passionate about mental health, deaf advocacy, fitness and physical expression. Throughout my life, I

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Light blue embroidery on a brown textile with sketches of plants, birds, lights, arrows, and cooking supplies. A cream coloured embroidery hoop frames the work.

Regan Shrumm

Regan Shrumm is a queer and disabled artist, writer, and curator. Shrumm has lived as an uninvited settler on the traditional and unceded Lekwungen and

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Sage is smirking and sitting in front of their laptop. Behind them, there is a hint of a crescent moon. They are wearing a mesh top with a blue/purple crystal necklace. Their reddish brown hair is in two ponytails.

Sage Lovell

Mx Sage Lovell is a queer nonbinary femme artist, educator, and writer. They attended Gallaudet University where their experiences made them realize that Deaf Accessibility

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salima punjani

Salima Punjani is an Access Activator, M.S.W. and Multisensory Artist based in Montreal, Canada. She is particularly interested in how biological data can be transformed

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Todd herman

Todd Edward Herman’s films and photographs deal with themes of the body and transience, representational taboos and spectatorship, difference and the historic consequences of othering.

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A photo of Tony Heaton

tony heaton

I am concerned with my own existence and my interaction with both the material and non-material world.In my interaction with other humans I am almost

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Photo of commissioned artwork "All You Can Hold." It is a wide oval shaped mosaic against a white wall.

Wy Joung Kou

Wy Joung Kou is a queer, chronically ill, multi-disciplinary artist based in Toronto. With a body of work spanning mosaic art, poetry, sound, movement, performance,

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A self-portrait of Ysabelle done in watercolor.

Ysabelle Vautour

Acadian artist and art teacher Ysabelle Vautour started out working in the mental health and disability support sector. She began painting two years ago when

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