January 23, 2017 - 20:55
I first saw Riva Lehrer's work in the spring of 2016. I was reading Eli Clare's Exile and Pride, and to supplement the ideas in the book, we also studied Riva's portrait of Eli. I then spent a lot of time looking at the portrait, as I had to put up dozens of posters for Eli Clare's talk at Swarthmore that I organized. Needless to say, seeing the portrait of Eli, the portrait, was truly amazing. Studying a piece of art from a laptop screen or projected onto the wall is nothing like seeing it inches away from you. I loved how we were able to tie artwork into Disability Studies. Artwork that was of disabled people, by a disabled person.
I'm also very much looking forward to potentially discussing the intersection of disability and queerness/sexuality/gender identity, which Riva focused a lot on.