Paper short abstract:

Floral fasciation is a citizen-researcher, art-sci project using plant mutations to present disability as a valuable form of biodiversity. Emery, a non-academic artist-researcher at the interdisciplinary AIM lab, will share the project in an artist talk grounding the work in disability liberation.

Paper long abstract:

Genetic variation and mutation are inherent to all life on earth, and yet are often perceived as unnatural, just as disabilities often are. This citizen-researcher collaborative project is creating an artwork on plant mutations (floral fasciation), as a way to consider disability differently. In its final form, our project, Floral Fasciation, will be an installation featuring real fasciated flowers and physical and digital sculptural representations of them, complemented by animations inspired by the mutation process. The installation will put the research-creation process on display, featuring photo and video documentation, from studying and growing plants, to 3D modelling and animation. Through exploring the aesthetic possibilities opened by plant mutations, our project will provide an opportunity to reimagine human disability as a form of survival.

Emery, a disabled artist, will present this ongoing work as an artist talk and share her motivations for and experiences of creating it at the Access in the Making Lab under the mentorship of disability studies scholar Arseli. She'll present her creative process, reflect on her positionality as an artist collaborating with researchers, and the ethical dimensions of using art as an accessible form of knowledge-making and dissemination.

Our project is situated at the intersection of disability studies, and environmental humanities, and implements artistic research to address that complexity. It posits an accessible visual language for conveying themes from disability studies and contributes to a growing movement that recognizes disability as a lens and a method through which planetary decline and “shrinkage” (Dokumaci 2023) can be addressed.