‘Disabling’ the Museum: Curator as Infrastructural Activist

Authors

  • Amanda Cachia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15353/cjds.v2i4.110

Abstract

This paper will explore how I attempt to ‘disable’ the museum through curating my third exhibition containing disability-related content, that I consider to be part of my work as a radical, infrastructural activist: Cripping Cyberspace: A Contemporary Virtual Art Exhibition (2013) hosted by and in conjunction with the Common Pulse Intersecting Abilities Art Festival and Symposium and the Canadian Journal of Disability Studies. The space for this exhibition offers a new experimental virtual platform hosted by an online journal. I argue that part of the decolonizing work of disability studies is to offer opportunities to both curators and artists where their work can be displayed within unconventional gallery settings (such as the virtual platform) in order to ‘crip’ art history and contemporary art practice.

Author Biography

Amanda Cachia

Amanda Cachia is an independent curator from Sydney, Australia and is currently completing her PhD in Art History, Theory & Criticism at the University of California, San Diego. Her dissertation will focus on the intersection of disability and contemporary art. Cachia completed her second Masters degree in Visual & Critical Studies at the California College of the Arts (CCA) in San Francisco in spring, 2012. Cachia received her first Masters in Creative Curating from Goldsmiths College, University of London in 2001. She held the position Director/Curator of the Dunlop Art Gallery in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada from 2007-2010, and has curated approximately 30 exhibitions over the last ten years in various cities across the USA, England, Australia and Canada. Her writing has been published in numerous exhibition catalogues, Canadian Art magazine, and peer-reviewed academic journals such as Canadian Journal of Disability Studies, and Disability Studies Quarterly. She has lectured and participated in panels at conferences widely, within the USA, Canada, Australia and Europe. Cachia is a dwarf activist and has been the Chair of the Dwarf Artists Coalition for the Little People of America since 2007.

A wheelchair symbol coloured mottled green with a human face inside a television, floating in space

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How to Cite

Cachia, A. (2013). ‘Disabling’ the Museum: Curator as Infrastructural Activist. Canadian Journal of Disability Studies, 2(4), 1–39. https://doi.org/10.15353/cjds.v2i4.110

Issue

Vol. 2 No. 4 (2013): Cripping Cyberspace: A Contemporary Virtual Art Exhibition Curated by Amanda Cachia

Section

Articles

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