Centering Disability: Art, Representation, and Disability Gain.

As has been said by many, disability is all around us, all the time. It is a matter of knowing where and how to find it. In this talk, Conor Moynihan highlights the ways disability has been represented in the arts and why representation–and who is making that representation–matters.

Conor Moynihan is the Assistant Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs at the RISD Museum and a Visual Studies PhD Candidate at the University at Buffalo (SUNY). His forthcoming exhibition, The Performative Self-Portrait, at the RISD Museum in spring 2023 looks at photographers who turn the lens back on themselves, whether to enact an alternative identity or to engage with history or something else.

Moynihan will introduce concepts formulated by disability activists and scholars, such as the Social Model of Disability, and build a set of examples that illustrate the history of disability in art history. Through a discussion of different types of representations, Moynihan considers what is gained when we center disability in art. Artist Bob Dilworth will be moderating and leading the Q & A portion of the talk.