Month: May 2022

Blog Task 2 – Faith

Resource One: Religion, Belief and Faith Identities in Learning and Teaching at UAL

Although there are not that many resources on this website, it was interesting to see how much emphasis was put on the intersectionality of faith – where it sits amongst discussions of diversity and social identity. In the ‘About’ section of the website it is one of the stated aims of the community.

“The group will consider the intersection between faith identity and other social identities (e.g. gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, class).”

This focus on faith as a social identity, alongside those mentioned above, makes the website feel relevant and positions discussion around faith in the same space as discussions around diversity and inclusivity – which is obvious now the I’m writing this, but maybe wasn’t something I’d recognised before.

The case studies were interesting and the one titled Pen Portraits feeds into my idea for my artefact which will be about designing an ice breaking exercise that combines reflections on positionality with a portrait brief.

Resource Two: Religion, the public sphere and higher education, Professor Craig Calhoun, London School of Economics and Political Science

I read several headers of the section of this paper written by Professor Craig Calhoun. In the section “Religion and dissent in universities” he addresses gender segregation and sexuality intolerance in the Church of England. In one paragraph he writes:

“But today, gender hierarchies are often justified in religious terms and this is challenging to universities committed to equality. Anglican dithering over the appointment of women bishops is not the same as segregation of the sexes in meetings, but both raise concerns. As Modood notes, it is interesting and perhaps evidence of the embrace of the Church of England as a public institution, that its reluctance to appoint women bishops received a good deal more attention than outright exclusion of women from clerical roles in other religions.“

While I don’t necessarily disagree with him on this point, I found the language he uses in this paragraph extremely loaded. For example choosing the verb ‘dithering’ to describe the issue around appointing women bishops seems to deliberately downplay the deeprooted misogyny at the heart of this debate AND at the heart of the Anglican church – which in many countries still does not appoint female priests, let alone bishops. In the final sentence he points out that many other religions exclude women completely from clerical roles. So rather than debate the issue at stake he seems to swerve it by saying the Church of England is doing better than other religions in this area. This made me wonder if the author is inadvertently revealing a bias not only against women in the church, but also against other religions in comparison to the Anglican church.

Further down the article he moves on to discussing gender identity and sexuality. He touches on the homophobia that exists in many religions which he links to contentious readings of scriptures, then he concludes the section by writing: “At the same time, some religious congregations and student groups are specifically welcoming and supportive of sexual minorities.” I couldn’t help feeling that he was brushing over the reality of the damage done by the church and other faiths to LGBTQ+ community.

He finishes this section writing:

“Not least, religiously motivated students are active in efforts to secure harmony among different religious groups, and lead in efforts to promote greater knowledge of religions beyond their own. They often seek to provide public goods on campuses such as neighbourhood tutoring, peer counselling and mediation.“

To me this reads as a rather unconvincing attempt to offset the rampant homophobia at the heart of many religions. Calhoun does admit this, writing “Homophobia in particular is often visceral, and by no means limited to immigrants or adherents of non-Western religions.” But again the language that he chooses seems aimed at deflecting rather than acknowledging.

My positionality is as an atheist woman with a strong dislike of organised religion and I acknowledge that my innate hostility towards them means that I struggled to read this article with an open mind and without bringing my own bias into my reading of Professor Calhoun’s writing!

Resource 3: Kwame Anthony Appiah – Mistaken Identities – The Reith lecture

This is a long lecture that I’m having to listen to in chunks. I may not be able to add comments about it in time for the deadline, but I will certainly listen to it.

Resource 4: William Whitcombe, Chaplain and Interfaith Advisor for LCC and LCF interview, SON terms of reference, Faith

This article was interesting to me because I teach at LCC. Very few of my students openly talk about their faith, but for those who do, it often manifests itself in the work they produce, so this was a good opportunity to learn more about the chaplaincy and religious guidance that LCC offers.

William Whitcombe opens this interview by describing his role as being to support ‘the religious, the atheist and the unaligned’ and to be there for people no matter what their religious or ethnic background, and this made me immediately warm to him! He then goes on to create an eloquent metaphor for what he believes religion, spirituality and faith to mean. He talks about people riding a bus down a road in a desert and how that bus is operated by fallible humans which means that thing might go wrong or breakdown. He says people might get on or off the bus at different points in the journey. I particularly loved these words:

“There are also people in this picture. People who have a side to them that yearns, wonders, dreams, creates, loves. They have moments on that road in the desert when their vision is somehow extended, and they see so much more in and around them than they did just a few moments before. This is the spiritual side that I believe exists in all of us.”

I found this to be a very beautiful explanation of spirituality. Now that I have discovered William Whitcombe I would recommend him to students who are interested in discussing their own journey towards spirituality or who want to explore religion in their work.

Blog Task 1 – Disability

Christine Sun Kim – 10 min short film (Nowness)

I found Christine Sun Kim’s film showing how her hearing impairment has fed into her art practice beautiful and inspiring. She has ‘lent into’ her deafness, using it to make performative art that subverts expectations of what is sound and what is noise and how deaf people interact with both. She creates art that celebrates the experience of being hearing impaired, and how it has given her unique approach to creating sound based art. Her biography on whitespace.cn says:

“She highlights what is constantly present and yet unnamed by us all through naming and then deconstructing preconceived ideas about sound and communication through their parameters, social values, and linguistics.”

This celebration of her disability as a gift, that allows her to express herself and interact with the world in a wholly original way, was very powerful to me. It feeds into ‘The Affirmation Model of Disability’ that I read about in (2020) Shades of Noir, Disabled People: Many Voices, “Evolution of Disability Models. Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow.” pp. 58-63

I would encourage my students to approach any documentary project that they embark on featuring people with disabilities to watch this film and think about the Affirmation Model of Disability. Let’s celebrate how disabilities give someone a unique perspective that we can all learn from. Bringing this into the classroom can help create an inclusive space and encourage an inclusive art practice.

I have a deaf student in my year group that I would love to share this film with, but rather than single her out, or send it to her outside the group, I will find a way to work viewing the film into one of our regular teaching sessions. I will also share this with my teaching colleagues.

#DisabilityTooWhite article/interview with Vilissa Thompson

This article reminded me a lot of key passages from “Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race” (Eddo-Lodge, 2017) where she powerfully dissects how White Feminism discludes and discounts the voices and experiences of women of colour. Thompson highlights the lack of representation and diversity within the disability community and how that adds to the marginalization of people of colour. The article references particularly the lack of representation of disabled people of colour on TV or in film and how this inattention to intersectionality in the experience of disabled people is damaging.

Intersectionality is very common within the cohort I teach. The convergence of race, gender, sexuality and economic and social background are realities for many of my students. Creating a space where students can express and explore their experience of intersectionality within a supportive peer group is very important. I currently have a first year student who is making a documentary photography project on people who share her experience of growing up as a ‘queer, black, young adult’. Having read this article I wonder if I should have given her more space to speak out in class about this, rather than seeing it as just another personal project. Lots of my students in this group are making work based on difficult personal subjects, but I wonder whether her desire to explore her intersectionality and share it with the class deserves more attention and more focus. I took it for granted that all my students understand the concept of intersectionality and that we are in a safe space to explore these issues, but this does not acknowledge the struggle that these students have likely experienced and their bravery in sharing it with the class. It also assumes that the rest of the cohort understand these terms and their meaning which in hindsight is not necessarily the case.

Lack of representation is a big topic and on one hand it feels like things are finally changing with TV series such as Bridgerton and the His Dark Materials series casting more actors of colour. We are also see far more people of colour and far more depictions of non-hetero normative relationships on TV. I’ve also see far more representations of disabilities. However I feel that its the voices of people from these marginalised groups who should be listened to on whether these changes are far reaching enough.

‘Deaf Accessibility for Spoonies: Lessons from Touring Eve and Mary Are Having Coffee’ by Khairani Barokka

Khairani Barokka writes very honestly and movingly about her experience of touring a one-woman show all over the world whilst chronically ill. I was particularly interested in the lengths she went to in ensuring that her shows were accessible, from putting the script on a Google Doc to giving D/deaf or hearing impaired audience member iPads and iPhones to read the poetry, to projecting the URL to the google doc onto a wall.

Her article also touched on the intersectionality of being a ‘brown woman’ with a hidden disability and how appalling she was treated by different institutions. One passage particularly stood for me:

It behooves us to understand that accessibility should extend to all – those behind the scenes, performers, as well as audience members – with multiple D/deaf and disabled identities, and more than one impairment. My story serves to show the need for us disabled and D/deaf arts practitioners to uphold such sensitivities ourselves, to recognise the need for advocacy for D/deaf and disabled communities in the arts outside of our own experiences. It is also a reminder to, as my case illustrates, never forget nor underestimate the need we all have at times to ask for help, to treat self-care as paramount, and to do justice to our needs in our own work, particularly if we don’t see ourselves represented, and if we put pressure on ourselves as representation.

I have one deaf student, many students with dsylexia and several students with ADHD and autism along with lots of students who are struggling with their mental health. Whilst their ISA’s, should they chose to share with me, do a good job in letting me know what they need. I need to make more of an effort to understand how their disability impacts them. It is sometimes hard to have these conversations if the student has chosen not to share their ISA with me, but with so many students presenting such a range of disabilities this Inclusive Practicse unit is going to be extremely useful and important for my practice. Barokka’s article gives valuble insight into the additional struggles that artists with disabilities face and how much there is to learn in creating accessibility in the arts.

UAL Disability Service Webpage and Terms of Reference, Shades of Noir, (2020) Disabled People: Many Voices, “Evolution of Disability Models. Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow.” pp. 58-63

The Social Model of Disability at UAL – short animation

This wonderful animation was made by UAL graduate Gabriele Lorusso and was posted on the UAL Disability Services Webpage. It beautifully illustrates the Social Model of Disability with simple and impactful graphics. It sets up a view of disability in relation to the construction of the world around us. Inviting us to reflect on whether we expect disabled people to fit into a world that is not designed to be inclusive to different abilities, rather than ensuring that our world fits all.

This led me to the Shades of Noir, Terms of Reference article titled “Evolution of Disability Models. Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow.” This lays out evolving views of disability from the earliest ‘The Religious Model’ that frames disability as punishment for a sin through to ‘The New Radical Model’.

Learning about these models put a framework to different attitudes towards disability that I’ve seen played out from my childhood onwards. I remember how the London 2012 Paralympics changed the conversation about disability and seemed to mark a shift in attitudes. My positionality as an able bodied, woman who before becoming a lecturer had almost never interacted with the disabled community means I have a lot to learn. Reading this issue of Terms of Reference was a much needed education and I found several articles interesting and useful. Negotiating the UAL Disability Services website has given me a better idea of what help is available and what challenges still remain.