Who says you have to do art and live your life the way you do it?
Interface News Reporter | Xu Luqing
Interface News Editor | Yellow Moon
"Hello everyone, I am a man about forty years old, wearing a light blue shirt, my hair is cut short, I have white skin and blue eyes. ”
In the opening session of the 5th UK-China Accessible Art Forum, the Minister for Culture and Education of the British Embassy, Mr. Tong Zhili, introduced himself. All of them portrayed their own images in their speeches, which was a way of verbalizing to help the visually impaired get information about the scene.
At the recent China-UK Accessible Art Forum, more than 10 professionals from the field of accessible art shared their views. Tong pointed out that accessible art emphasizes the "social model of disability", a concept coined in 1983 by British disability activist Michael Oliver – disability is caused by contemporary society's neglect of the physically impaired and their exclusion from mainstream social activities. Just as gender is a social construct, the construction of disability is closely linked to systemic social discrimination, and art is an area that is rarely paid attention to when discussing disability.
Robert Soveli Gale, Artistic Director of the Birds of Paradise Theatre Company, describes himself to the audience before sharing
The door to art is not open to everyone, and that's what it's all about accessible art. During the Q&A session at the event, a sign language audience member stood up to ask questions, and her expression was delivered in two steps: the sign language interpreter on stage repeated her movements at the same time to help other deaf audience members see, and another interpreter translated sign language into sound for the audience to understand.
At the forum venue, barrier-free facilities include Chinese Sign Language interpretation, electronic subtitles, wheelchair seating and accessible toilets at the exit. In fact, these amenities, which are rarely seen on weekdays, are only the minimum required for people with disabilities to participate in on-site activities. The relevant staff told Interface Culture that the requirements for wheelchair seats do not need to be changed a lot because the seats at the venue can be retracted and adjusted, but the barrier-free toilets at the exit are temporarily added.
During the Q&A session of the event, the deaf audience asked questions to the guests (Photo source: organizer)
Almost everyone experiences a temporary or long-term disability
Ge Huichao, founder of the cultural and arts institution Body, believes that the premise of exploring the creative space of disabled artists is to see that society is designed based on Ableism, which refers to the general exclusion of physical and mental disabilities from participation by the public, policymakers, and educators, and the perception that people with disabilities are "abnormal" and that they lack certain perceptual abilities, such as being unable to work, limited intelligence, and having no sex life.
The Birds of Paradise Theatre Company from the United Kingdom participated in the talks and roundtable discussions, working to promote performances by artists with disabilities. Robert Soveli Gale, Artistic Director of the Theatre Company, said that breaking down soundness-centrism is actually relevant for everyone, that no one can remain sound forever – almost everyone can experience a temporary or long-term disability at some point in their lives, and that accessibility is not just for people with disabilities, but that everyone in society may have a need for them: when they are sick, when they are carrying large luggage, when they are old... In contrast to the common perception that disability is a fixed, well-defined identity, it is in fact more of a fluid characteristic.
The Birds of Paradise Theatre Company's production, Don't Make Tea, is a theatrical work about how the government treats citizens with disabilities. In the story, a welfare evaluator visits Chris's home to determine whether she is fit for work and uses arrogant measurements to assess her disability. According to Robert, these episodes are inspired by the life experiences of his community friends. Another of the company's productions is a dating comedy that defies the popular stereotype of people with disabilities as having no love and no comedy, and their lives have nothing to do with sex.
Wheelchair seats at the forum (Image source: organizer)
Mo Qianting has participated in the production of many accessible dramas. She mentioned that many times the disability arts do not have much say in performance, so she tries to use a lot of improvisation in her drama and let the actors decide what to do on stage. ”
She explores different perceptions of equity. Equality of opportunity and equality of outcome is discussed more, and many people believe that good fairness is to provide different steps according to each person's different height, so that everyone can see the game. But Mok pointed out that while people have become the same, it doesn't really acknowledge the differences between them – can we take off the fence of the stadium and respect the uniqueness of each person while enjoying the game at the same time. She hopes that accessible art can create such spaces.
Mo Qianting demonstrated three types of fair pictures to the audience
When will art be accessible?
Video blogger and wheelchair user Zhao Hongcheng shared her experience in the drama "Where is the nearest accessible toilet?". Before her appearance, she never thought that she would have anything to do with the theater industry, except for putting a theater in Shanghai on the black list in an accessibility evaluation video. When she went to see the performance, she asked the staff about the barrier-free toilet, and the staff replied: Is it more convenient for you to wear diapers?
As an audience member, she often can't find wheelchair seats, elevators, barrier-free toilets and other facilities in the theater. "The industry as a whole doesn't know about the disability community, and the staff doesn't know how to respond to a wheelchair audience. When it was her turn to be an actress, the crew searched for a theater in Shanghai for a long time with barrier-free facilities in order to rehearse smoothly. She had never seen a wheelchair actor on stage before, and it was equally rare for people with disabilities to work backstage on a show. After rehearsing "Where is the nearest barrier-free toilet?", she hopes to use the barrier-free performance to work backwards on the construction of the venue's facilities.
Zhao Hongcheng demonstrates to the audience the problems encountered in the theater
Mok also shared the situation of Macau's theaters, although the basic facilities seem to be equipped - for example, the most formal theaters in Macau are equipped with wheelchair seats - but there are only two, "more like set up for the superficial position". Fu Lin, an independent artist, also mentioned that although many places are equipped with barrier-free toilets, they will later become places for piles of debris, and the railings of barrier-free toilets also have problems such as irregular size.
In addition, many artists at the scene emphasized that the first consideration should be the artistic value itself, rather than barrier-free artworks, when creating barrier-free art, and believed that barrier-free art should be put into the vision of mainstream art platforms, such as the platform for entering international art festivals as an inclusive unit, rather than just being promoted as barrier-free art alone. It is worth thinking about how to connect people who care about disability issues with these works of art.
After the forum, Interface Culture (ID: booksandfun) interviewed Mo Qianting to further discuss the details of barrier-free art creation with her.
Mo Qianting, chairman of Stone Commune, director, and actor. Founder and Art Director of Todos Fest!.
Interface Culture: How do you understand the concept of "disability" and how is it different from what we usually call "disability" or "disability"?
Mo Qianting: "Disability" emphasizes the disease-making of medicine, while "disability" is emotionally demeaning, both of which treat physical and mental disabilities as personal problems. We want to place more emphasis on the existence of "barriers" and focus on the barriers created by the absence of the external environment – the failure of society to meet the needs of these groups, their exclusion from mainstream social activities, and the barriers to their lives.
Interface Culture: You'll be exposed to a lot of people with disabilities in the arts, what is the biggest barrier to working in the arts for most of them?
Mo Qianting: The biggest obstacle is the lack of access to art. We seem to think that they can only do cleaning jobs or work as packers in factories because we feel that this is the way they can best be embedded in the social system. They don't have the opportunity to show themselves and don't realize that there are other options.
Also, I think time is a hindrance. In city life, we have a very fixed way of life, and we move forward at a certain pace every day. The pursuit of speed and efficiency seems to be the goal for everyone, but whose standard is this? Why is it so fast? People with disabilities are not in step with this standard, and I feel that true equality is to respect their pace, not to impose standards directly on them.
Of course, these are all things that need to be trained. The problem now is that we rarely see people with disabilities in public spaces, and people with disabilities and people without disabilities are completely separated, and there is a lack of opportunities to understand each other. For example, Macau, although it is a small place, still has regional divisions, the northern part of Macau has lower rents, higher population density, many welfare facilities are located there, and there are more people with disabilities. However, the facilities are all concentrated in the same area and on the street, making it difficult for them to get to other places and are "trapped" in one area.
Because we don't see and don't understand, we feel as if people with disabilities are slow to speak, and we are impatient with this slowness. But why do we think everyone should speak in a certain way?
Wang Yiming, an actor and promoter of sign language culture, shared sign language at the scene (Photo source: organizer)
Interface Culture: In your understanding, what is the attitude of the mainstream art world towards accessible art, such as theater companies with disabilities?
Mok Qianting: As far as I know, these troupes are certainly not mainstream in Switzerland, the United States, and Australia, but they will be treated as a professional troupe, which means that people with disabilities have the opportunity to choose actors as a career. But in Macau, we are really much behind in pace, and most of the performances have a welfare attribute.
I think aesthetics itself is a political thing – what should be seen, what should be put at the center of the stage, what should be at the center of everyone's vision, and accessible art is a challenge to it.
In the British and American theater world, there is a form called Relax Performance that is being studied academically, not only the actors on stage can have special needs, but also the audience. Relax means that the rules of the theater can be loosened, you go to see a Relax Performance, maybe the audience next to you is not necessarily quiet, they may have a physical or mental disability, they may have sounds, clap hands or walk around at any time. Relax Performance is all about saying that we're used to sitting in the stands and watching what happens, but does it have to be like this? If the aesthetic on stage can be loosened, why can't the so-called rules in the audience?
Interface Culture: From the perspective of the forum, it seems that the theme of most of the drama expressions of people with disabilities is to explore the social situation of people with disabilities. In your opinion, is this also a narrowing of the theme?
Mo Qianting: I think there are always some stages in things, maybe we have to understand ourselves first, understand our position in society, and then we can expand to more discussions, just like we must discuss social phenomena from our own center, so this is an inevitable stage, and our own situation is indeed the first thing I want to say.
The performances of people with disabilities that I have come into contact with in Macao either make the audience feel miserable, or they are very happy to wave some small bunting and sing on the stage to express that we are living well. But people with disabilities can also play Hamlet, kill people and commit crimes on stage. They can also deduce their own desires, love and hate, kindness, and very mean and cold human nature.
On-site sign language interpretation and electronic subtitling
Interface Culture: Your inclusive art is more related to drama, do you think there are any characteristics of the art form of the body compared to other expressions?
Mo Qianting: I think drama is first and foremost expressed with the body, and the core of the performance is the person himself—about the autonomy of the human body, whether it is physical, vocal, or the existence of the person as a whole.
In addition, drama is a transformative art, we play a role, dance a dance, or improvise on stage, in fact, we will go through a process, after the experience, people will change, and they will slowly understand that they and the role they play are symbiotic with each other. We may learn about ourselves through acting, and knowing ourselves will help us play a role.
Interface Culture: There are a lot of works of art that can be controversial now, in which vulnerable groups are considered to be reduced to tools to enhance representation.
Mo Qianting: No matter what kind of drama you do, the premise is that the actor agrees. If I arrange for them to do this and they don't want to, that's problematic. But I think if we had a consensus, it wouldn't be too much of a problem.
For example, we have an actor Ah Lai, and there is a performance where he is going to speak on stage, and we usually have a sign language interpreter, but because he can't hear clearly when he speaks, and every time he is improvised, what should we do? We have been in contact with him for a long time, and we know what he means by pronouncing a certain sound, so we thought, should we add a layer of interpreter between his speech and sign language, so that we can tell the sign language interpreter what he is talking about. Later, we tried it, but we decided not to do it, because this passage was originally for him, and everyone thought he couldn't speak, and this paragraph was himself speaking on stage, and if we let the translator add it at that moment, we would be highlighting that he just couldn't do it.
Interface Culture: You have always emphasized the autonomy of actors with disabilities and chose to present them in an improvised way, why?
Mo Qianting: Because improvisation will not be taught how to do it, they will know the method, but how to choose the final presentation is autonomous. Improvisation is not about doing whatever you want, jazz is improvisation, and the musicians listen to each other and cooperate with each other, which can be trained and taught. It must be autonomous, and it will be different every time.
Dramatic improvisation allows the actor to make his own decisions, and if he wants to come out and do a certain action, of course, it may not be good, just like jazz music is not always good, but that's not the point, the point is that they make their own choices.
Videos displayed at the event, equipped with visual descriptions and language commentary
Interface Culture: Actually, I was hesitant before interviewing you, because there are a lot of artists who are people with disabilities in the venue, but because I have to add a layer of translation in the middle, I am worried about the limited time or the communication effect. I think this can also be a realistic example of what you mentioned at the beginning of the interview, where each of us is pushed forward by a kind of standard time. So I'm curious, as a non-disabled person, do you have any feelings that you look back on and feel that you have neglected?
Mo Qianting: There have been a lot of times when I've been studying. Traditionally, directing is an art of manipulation, but in the context of accessible theatre, I found that I had no way to manipulate. For example, I told an actor that it was better to go in circles, but he didn't do it, or he still chose his own way after I communicated many times. I used to be disappointed, but then I thought, why is my idea the best? Maybe not, how can I let this thing flow within a certain range while not being in control? Sometimes the flow may exceed my plan, but that's the interesting part.
(Unless otherwise indicated, the pictures were taken by reporter Xu Luqing)