Nádia Elisa Meinerz

The challenge of the Symposium will be to expand the ways disability is represented in Brazil and displacing stereotypical images of Brazil and Disability in the Global South. The starting place is “Disability Portraits from Brazil” research-creation outcomes of multi-modal portraits that focus the perspectives of disabled people: 22 co-creative duos delivered 11 podcast episodes and 11 visual art pieces viewable at https://www.retratosdeficas.com/ The workshop will be organize in 4 international virtual symposia dedicated to engage disabled and nondisabled (including participants from Disability Portraits from Brazil) in a collaborative discussion. We select themes that emerge from the co-creative process: 1. Art, Activism, Disability and Indigeneity in the Anthropocene; 2. Gender, Sexuality and Disability; 3. What visibility do we want? 4. Art and Access: between technique and aesthetic. For each symposia we have invited 10 artists, scholars, and activists from Brazil, Canada and USA to present a text or work of art that is in dialogue with the research project co-creations. We expect diversifying academic networks/emergent scholarly curriculum, develop multi-level mentoring opportunities and discover new alliances among disabled and non-disabled artists, activists and scholars in Brazil and North America.