We are delighted to invite you to the last lecture of the American Studies Colloquium Series in the 2024/2025 Fall semester!
Stephen Proski
(Fulbright Poland)
Painting in Total Darkness: Blindness as the Medium for Vision
Thursday, January 16, 2025
at 4:45 p.m.
You can get 3 OZN points for participating in this event.
Where?
Dobra 55, room 2.118
(the building features some mobility accommodations: ramp and lift)
What?
Painting, in its current state, steeped in ocularcentrism, continues to uphold ableist ideologies refusing to acknowledge the varied potential of blindness. Disability as an art form continues to define its own aesthetic parameters, resisting categorization for which to engage in contemporary art discourse. When blindness is given attention, it is usually framed through the lens of tragedy and overcoming, thus perpetuating stereotypes of pity and inspiration. If blind people are to become artists, usually they are introduced to sculpture, for its reliance on touch rather than vision. But an art practice informed by one’s own blindness can invoke new kinds of languages, pictures, and symbols. Touching upon various processes, materials, histories, and methodologies of making, I will show how blindness can function as a unique lens of perception, particularly as it relates to the expanded field of painting.
Stephen Proski is a blind/disabled artist, writer, educator, and advocate. Their work addresses personal experiences of blindness and takes the form of painting, sculpture, installation, and text. Proski uses their artwork to focus in on the complexities of blind culture, its relationship to vision and language, and the embedded hierarchical structures that prioritize the ocularcentric. They received an MFA from Boston University. Their work has been exhibited in various venues in New York, Chicago, Boston, and Tokyo. They were recently awarded a Fulbright Research and Study Scholarship to Warsaw, Poland, where they currently live and work.
