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| Image courtesy Sue Austin website... |
Multimedia, performance and installation
artist Sue Austin challenges our notions of what disability is. Sue is
the founder and artistic director of Freewheeling, an initiative aiming
to further the genre of Disability Arts.
Sue states: "My studio practice has, for sometime,
centred around finding ways to understand and represent my embodied experience
as a wheelchair user, opening up profound issues about methods of self-representation
and the power of self-narration in challenging the nexus of power and control
that created the ‘disabled’ as other."
When Sue got a powered wheelchair more than sixteen years
ago, she felt a tremendous sense of freedom. However, others looked at her as
though she had lost something precious―her ability to walk and move about
freely. On the other hand, for Sue Austin, the power chair gave her precisely
that ability. By adding modifications and additions to her chair, Sue is able
to create art, and just as importantly, travel and explore the world in ways
that almost defy the imagination.
This talk, filmed at TEDxWomen 2012 includes stunning
footage of Sue as she dons an oxygen tank and breathing apparatus, and turns
her powered wheelchair into an underwater vessel that propels her across vast
ocean floors, and amongst schools of multi-coloured fish. In doing so, Sue
Austin reshapes how we think about disability, and proves once again, that
where there is a will, there is always a way.
More Information
Freewheeling...
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