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  • OM 2022
    • A. Laura Brody
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    • Katlin Combs
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    • Ash Hagerstrand
    • David Isakson
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    • Judith Klausner
    • Ellen Mansfield
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    • Penny Richards
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    • Misty Stokes
    • Dianna Temple
    • Emily Tironi
  • OM 2019
    • Aurora Berger
    • A. Laura Brody
    • Becca Cerra
    • Yaron Dotan
    • David Isakson
    • Jewel Lin
    • Cheryl Nickel
    • Larissa Nickel
    • Penny Richards
    • Annelies Slabbynck
    • Dianna Temple
    • Emily Tironi
    • Jenni-Juulia Wallinheimo-Heimonen
  • OM 2018
    • A. Laura Brody
    • Yaron Dotan
    • Kellie Dunn
    • Julia Feldman
    • Gabriele Gervickaite
    • ju90
    • Aragna Ker
    • Penny Richards
    • Katherine Sherwood
    • Annelies Slabbynck
    • Laura Swanson
    • Storytellers at OM 2018 >
      • Paul Ford
      • Liebe Gray
      • Diana Elizabeth Jordan
  • OM 2017
    • A. Laura Brody
    • Yaron Dotan
    • Gabriele Gervickaite
    • Gini
    • ju90
    • Fang-Wei Hsu
    • David Isakson
    • Penny Richards
    • Katherine Sherwood
  • OM 2015
    • Zeina Baltagi
    • Elaine Bereza and Claudia Barreto
    • Bill Brody
    • A. Laura Brody
    • Elisa Jane Carmichael
    • Laura Darlington
    • Yaron Dotan
    • Michael Garlington
    • Gini
    • ju90
    • David Isakson
    • Larissa Nickel
    • Baxx Vlada Pantelic
    • Penny Richards
    • Greg Schenk
    • Katherine Sherwood
    • Sandwishes Studio
    • Priscilla Sutton
    • Ian Wood
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Jenni-Juulia Wallinheimo-Heimonen

A pale-skinned woman in a long white dress with a wheelchair attached around her waist and arms. She holds the leash of a black guide dog.
Back view of a pale skinned woman in a long white gown with a wheelchair attached to her waist and arms. The back of the wheelchair has lines of text printed on them: Pushing Myself, Not Pushing up Daisies, Sttop patriarchal push, Not even close ot the edge.
Am I Your Inspiration Really? (Diptych)
2021
Photographic prints
48" x 24"

$375 each

Website:
http://www.kolumbus.fi/jenni_juulia/
Finland

Modeled by Counsellor of Social Welfare Sari Loijas and her guide dog Citta
VO by Mari Weiss

ABOUT THE ARTWORK:

“Am I your inspiration, really?” is a statement against hypocrisy and discrimination framed as kindness. If we people with disabilities are really so cool, why would the most common symbol of ours - the wheelchair - not be part of an evening gown for walking people as well?

STATEMENT:

As a political disability artist all of my artwork deals with kindness, discrimination, structural violence, human rights, and design which maintain 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 on 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 a refined and cultured disability. People with inborn impairments don't have a sensor that constantly monitors how we differ from 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 that is produced by culture, by human perceptions, and by inaccessible environments runs 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 doing so already exists.

For me, disability as a concept doesn’t mean defective individuals but the way people are treated whose features differ from 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 eudaimonia 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.

DESCRIPTION:

Am I Your Inspiration Really?
A smiling woman with short, straight blonde hair and bangs wears a white blouse and floor length skirt. The top has long sleeves embellished with white sequins and the international disability symbol stitched in white thread and beads on the chest. She also wears a necklace of IV tubing with purple valves adorned with scattered pearls. A small wheelchair is incorporated into the blouse and its back touches her back. The push handles stick out behind her. The blouse has a slightly flared square hem that rests on the chair seat. Beads and sequins trim the layers of the hem.  Her right hand lays on the rear wheel which is trimmed in ribbon and tiny pearl beads. A panel of accordion pleats falls from below the seat in a stair-step like manner. Some of the skirt hem is pulled up and attached to the panel revealing a sheer petticoat. The skirt is quilted with a raised diamond pattern. At the woman’s feet to her left is a black guide dog on a lead.
On the back of the woman’s gown, four panels are attached to the chair back that read:
Pushing Myself. Not pushing up Daisies. Stop patriarchal push. Not even close to the edge.


-description by Teri Grossman
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Creative Commons License

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.

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