Blackwood Gallery → Perseveration

Shit is a common object-metaphor among disabled people. Our shit is used, time and again, to showcase our abjectness and unworthiness. Our lives are narrated through the difficulties of dealing with our shit (think caregiving, institutionalized care, medical devices, diagnostic pathologies), and these narratives use shit as a pretext for devaluing disabled people. In autism spaces, shit-smearing is so endemic in caregiving narratives that it borders obsession: The very rituals that are levied against neurodivergent people become the practices through which neurotypical people commiserate.

This talk considers shit’s possibilities—the perversities, obsessions, and meanderings that it imparts. For example: What might poop become through neurodivergence? Toward what affects and body-knowledges might our crap compel us?

Accessibility

Room L1220 is located in the Kaneff Centre on the ground floor and lower level. The building is on the south side of campus near Inner Circle Road, adjacent to the campus’ main public transit stop and Student Centre. It features open spaces, round sloped corners, and windows to facilitate visual communication and navigation. Accessible multiuser gendered washrooms are located on the ground and lower levels. The building is AODA-compliant, with wide doorways and powered doors. The Kaneff Centre’s white and teal postmodern architecture is distinguished by a minimal grid façade and connects to the modern architectural style of the Innovation Complex with its sleek lines and big windows. Room L1220 is a large room with fixed, raked seating, like an amphitheatre; the stepped seating integrates tables for note-taking.

Accessibility

Poopseveration