Artfully Addressing Disability Justice

On May 19th, I was captivated by the vibrant and jam-packed illustration that transformed Google’s logo. Known as a “Google Doodle,” the daily typographic representation of an iconic figure (or event) featured Stacey Park Milbern on what would have been her thirty-fifth birthday.

Milbern was an activist who made an instrumental impact advocating for disabled communities of all backgrounds. Milbern began working to support marginalized communities at the age of sixteen. Her focus was addressing overall quality of life issues within the disabled community, while honing in on providing specific care for underrepresented groups within the disability justice movement such as LBGTQ+ individuals and people of color. At twenty-four, Milbern served as Director of Programs at the Center of Independent Living in Berkeley, California. She was appointed to President Barack Obama’s Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities in 2014.

For over a decade, Milbern raised awareness for the differentiated experiences of disabled individuals and communities and the need for a multifaceted dialogue around disability rights. She reflected, “I want to leave a legacy of disabled people knowing we are powerful and beautiful because of who we are, not despite of it,” which is evidently what she has done.

Milbern’s own intersectionality is repletely rendered in the artwork created by artist and illustrator, Art Twink. The drawing features symbols and signs of her identity as Korean-American (the Mugunghwa flower, citrus trees and tiger), queer (the LGBTQ+ flag) and a person with disabilities (her portrait with a tracheostomy tube at the base of her neck).

Thanks to hardworking activists across various disciplines, there are a number of accessible ways to learn about Stacey Park Milbern and the progressive work around disability justice across our collective culture. In addition to the educational resources provided on Google’s Doodles archive and Arts & Culture platform, there are several art-centered initiatives such as Art Beyond Sight’s Art and Disability Institute (ABI).

The ABI provides resources and professional development opportunities, “to give visual artists, curators, art historians and critics who self-identify as having disabilities or whose work engages with disability themes the tools to articulate, contextualize and actively develop ideas and remove barriers in order to reach their full creative and professional potential.” ABI also facilitates a multidisciplinary educational program in collaboration with public schools, which utilizes an arts-centered framework designed by teachers and therapists that differentiates curricula to account for the needs and limitations of students with disabilities.

I have frequently written about how and why the arts should be made accessible to everyone (see: Artfully Universal Communication, Artful Asylum and Seeing is Feeling – Art & Experience for Visually Impaired Individuals). In addition to these prior posts, the following resources represent a spectrum of ideas and methodologies for developing inclusion-based educational settings and curricula:

• What You Need to Know About Inclusive Education in the Art Room by Shannon Lauffer on The Art of Education.
  
  
• Art Lessons for Children with Physical Disabilities on YouTube via the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art and VSA, a program of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
  
  
• A scholarly article titled “Art Education and Disability Studies” by John Derby, published in Disability Studies Quarterly.
  
  
• Reflections on the Disability Arts Movement in the United Kingdom via Shape Arts.