Jenni-Juulia Wallinheimo-Heimonen
Jenni-Juulia Wallinheimo-Heimonen, conceptual artist
Digital film. 2019
6 minutes, 56 seconds
Website: https://www.jenni-juulia.com/
Finland
Audio description by Teri Grossman. For best results, play the file along with the video.
Digital film. 2019
6 minutes, 56 seconds
Website: https://www.jenni-juulia.com/
Finland
Audio description by Teri Grossman. For best results, play the file along with the video.
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ABOUT THE ARTWORK:
As a political disability artist all of my artwork deals with kindness, discrimination, structural violence, human rights and design which maintains the low status of disability. I´m especially intrigued by the culture of "aboriginal" persons with disabilities; people who are born with their piquant features. I come from a family which has a history of four generations of visual impairments from my father’s side and a history of four generations of brittle bones disease from my mother’s side. All my life I have seen my relatives solving challenges and acting in unconventional ways. This life style that physically privileged people see as adaptation, extreme courage or surviving represents for me refined and cultured disability. People with inborn impairments don't have a sensor that constantly monitors how we differ from the imaginary norms. Questioning being defined as anomalies by outsiders is important for our identity.
In science fiction it's predicted that technologically advanced societies will someday be able to get rid of disability. The media leads the general public to believe that no one would choose to live with a disability or give birth to a disabled child - if there was a choice. Disability is treated as something horrifying that needs to be avoided. But actually it arises in social relations, from the environment and our reactions to impairments.
Globally, even in Finland, people with disabilities often don´t understand what kind of rights we have. Discrimination produced by culture, by human perceptions and inaccessible environments run so deep. Charity and human rights often get mixed up in decision-making. Setting things right is a value judgment; all the knowledge and technology for that already exists.
For me, disability as a concept doesn’t mean defective individuals but the way people are treated whose features differ from the imaginary norms. This phenomenon does not disappear, even though we manipulate bodies or genes and change them. Tampering with individual features does not eliminate discrimination. To increase overall eudaemonia in this world, we should find smarter ways to change attitudes and structures around the whole concept of well-being. This is what I try to do through my art.
In science fiction it's predicted that technologically advanced societies will someday be able to get rid of disability. The media leads the general public to believe that no one would choose to live with a disability or give birth to a disabled child - if there was a choice. Disability is treated as something horrifying that needs to be avoided. But actually it arises in social relations, from the environment and our reactions to impairments.
Globally, even in Finland, people with disabilities often don´t understand what kind of rights we have. Discrimination produced by culture, by human perceptions and inaccessible environments run so deep. Charity and human rights often get mixed up in decision-making. Setting things right is a value judgment; all the knowledge and technology for that already exists.
For me, disability as a concept doesn’t mean defective individuals but the way people are treated whose features differ from the imaginary norms. This phenomenon does not disappear, even though we manipulate bodies or genes and change them. Tampering with individual features does not eliminate discrimination. To increase overall eudaemonia in this world, we should find smarter ways to change attitudes and structures around the whole concept of well-being. This is what I try to do through my art.
BIO:
Jenni-Juulia Wallinheimo-Heimonen is a textile and conceptual artist, speaker and a disability activist. She gives performative presentations about accessibility, political disability art, the aesthetics of assistive devices, and gender issues related to women with disabilities. She has facilitated social art workshops in Finland, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Estonia, and China, and participated exhibitions in Finland and abroad. In 2016 she received the municipal art award of Nurmijärvi. In 2019 Jenni-Juulia´s short film "Reflector of Living Will" received Best Screenplay at the Pisa Robotic Film Festival. Her short film "Illusionist's Visions" has been screened in the USA, France, Brazil, Canada and Poland. For her current project, Jenni-Juulia is making "Empathy Objects" with three years of funding by the Arts Promotion Center Finland. As a hobby she writes an art and social politics related blog. She has osteogenesis imperfecta as a piquant characteristic.
DESCRIPTION:
Jenni-Juulia Wallinheimo-heimonen, textile and conceptual artist:
Images in the video include:
Black boots with fabric flowers.
A snow sled with wings. A walker tilts toward the rear of the sled and rests on the seat frame. Sprouting like wings from either side of the walker are multiple canes. The female rider’s feet rest on the sled runners as she glides along the snow.
Black leggings with plastic toy building bricks scattered along the length. Some of the bricks light up.
Two women have additional mannequin’s leg or legs. One pair of legs wears gold high heels.
A man wears a shoe with a blue fur animal on it. Chicken bones protrude from the animal's nostrils.
A mannequin sits in a moving wheelchair that has balloons tied to the back. A small van pulls the chair.
The woman powers an adult tricycle with her hands. Piano keys are under her feet. The piano hammers fan out behind her like a peacock’s tail. An celeste (small organ) is below the hammers.
Children ride on a carousel with wheelchair seats. At the center under an umbrella are mannequin legs and arms and life size birds that are painted gold.
-description by Teri Grossman
Images in the video include:
Black boots with fabric flowers.
A snow sled with wings. A walker tilts toward the rear of the sled and rests on the seat frame. Sprouting like wings from either side of the walker are multiple canes. The female rider’s feet rest on the sled runners as she glides along the snow.
Black leggings with plastic toy building bricks scattered along the length. Some of the bricks light up.
Two women have additional mannequin’s leg or legs. One pair of legs wears gold high heels.
A man wears a shoe with a blue fur animal on it. Chicken bones protrude from the animal's nostrils.
A mannequin sits in a moving wheelchair that has balloons tied to the back. A small van pulls the chair.
The woman powers an adult tricycle with her hands. Piano keys are under her feet. The piano hammers fan out behind her like a peacock’s tail. An celeste (small organ) is below the hammers.
Children ride on a carousel with wheelchair seats. At the center under an umbrella are mannequin legs and arms and life size birds that are painted gold.
-description by Teri Grossman
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Opulent Mobility by A. Laura Brody is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
The Opulent Mobility license refers to the exhibit and its audio descriptions. Individual artworks are the property of the individual artists.