In January we were joined by Christopher Samuel for an Artist Talk & Q&A.
Christopher is a multi-disciplinary artist whose practice is rooted in identity and disability politics, often echoing the many facets of his own lived experience. Seeking to interrogate his personal understanding of identity as a disabled person impacted by inequality and marginalisation, Christopher responds with urgency, humour, and poetic subversiveness within his work.
Christopher works in lots of different mediums - from illustrations, to installation, to print, to video – all ways where he can take agency over the disabled or marginalised experience. He utilises redaction a lot in his work - the idea of revealing and concealing things by removing or blocking out certain information, to suggest a different narrative. Christopher makes work which opens a dialogue about a lived experience which many people may not directly identify with, and that highlights a wider spectrum of the human experience.
The slides from Christopher's talk can be seen below and beyond that there is a conversational video between myself and Christopher exploring themes of identity, disability, gender & race, a transcript of the dialogue can also be downloaded.
Thank you to Christopher for taking the time to talk to us and to the OCASA for posting the recording (along with the transcript). As a person who has become increasingly disabled over time, many of the access issues he discusses here strongly resonated with me. I always had a number of friends who had disabilities however when you join the disability 'tribe' for yourself it is incredibly eye-opening. I can say that the OCA staff have been very exceptional at helping me troubleshoot or make adaptations as my health declines and needs change however, like Christopher, my experience of 'bricks and mortar' institutions was not always the best! Having to access the library via a back route past overflowing…