Reflection on Film by Christine Sun Kim

Christine Sun Kim often drew me in with her gestures and her facial expressions more so than the subtitle text. Interesting how the two occupy the same space for attention with one holding more power through ‘embodied’ expression. This echoes her exploration of sound as a physical and visual experience, changing one form of experience into another. It reminds me of my spatial practice collaborations with ‘Disordinary Architecture,’ where we explored the idea of creating layered multi-sensory experiences that have something for everyone to engage with.

In terms of my teaching practice, I am thinking about exploring diverse ways that allow students to engage in a way that works for them through collaboration. I think within the collaborative learning process, there is an opportunity to allow students to construct their own learning according to their needs.

Christine also made me reflect on her identity as a woman as she applied her makeup. The rituals and performances that individuals go through to fit the expected norms of a society.

UAL Disability Service Page

The advice included in these pages reinforce the notion that it is the built environment or the world more generally that creates disabilities and barriers. Physical access at some UAL colleges need to be adapted, so that there is equality of access and autonomy. It is not enough to say our buildings ‘include heritage or listed buildings and have little or no step-free access.’

The physical barriers posed by heritage buildings are not too dissimilar to the traditional ways of learning or the standardized one-size fits all of universities. In both instances, allowances and adjustments have to be made for the person othered by the situation. A person with disabilities is treated as a special case whereby they are treated differently rather than the building being changed, or the course being adapted to provide diverse ways of accessing or learning. Much easier to treat people as different to a standard through ‘Individual Support Agreement’ than changing the structures to allow options for diverse ways of access. Going back to Christine’s video, what creative possibilities might open up by considering ‘what’ and ‘how’ we teach when we center diverse needs.

#DisabilityTooWhite article

The article reminds me of the pervasiveness of Whiteness as the ‘norm,’ which is why the term ‘intersectionality’ is so helpful for understanding that we need to go beyond seeing categorisation of identities in silos. I think that ‘intersectionality’ as a framework has the potential to encourage understanding across different identities through our reflections on the privileges/disadvantages our positionality presents.

My design studio in BA Architecture focuses on places in London where there are lower socio-economic communities, which has proved to be sufficiently open for students to explore the different needs of different groups. My own research interests, however, focuses on race, which is useful for interrogating with specificity. The question that I maybe need to consider is, ‘is race an umbrella term that includes the voices of those at its intersections with other identities, or I my foregrounding the voices of the ‘norm within racial categorisation’ when interrogating through the lens of race. I need to keep considering this question.

Deaf Accessibility for Spoonies

My reflection on the article echoes my previous reflections on #DisabilityTooWhite in that I wondered whether people with hidden disabilities remain unseen and underrepresented under the categorisation of ‘disability.’ Similarly, it highlights why ‘intersectionality’ is a useful term for remaining aware of the complexity of identities or the ways that we un-neatly fit into various categories created by social institutions.

The article prompts me of the importance to remain open to that which I may not see or may have not been disclosed to me. ‘Open’ as in not to make ‘quick judgements.

Academic Truth

I chose to respond to this article because it highlights the experience in academia of someone with an invisible disability, dyslexia, and intersectional identities. She is a Black woman with dyslexia. As a Black woman, I can relate to her experience of how prejudiced views can categorise us as less intelligent. I named my architectural practice, ‘Deft.Space’ in part as a challenge to this. I can only imagine that her dyslexia adds to the challenge of being perceived as ‘not as intelligent’ or ‘not as capable’ in a space where how much you know and well you do are valorized. I imagine this might induce feelings of impostor syndrome and questions of belonging.

The article also holds hints for how as an educator, I might create the space of belonging for students with disabilities through her reference to ‘our uniqueness.’ As a tutor, I would like to explore the liminal spaces, the grey areas, the in between spaces of the learning outcomes. In the first semester of PG Cert, I saw the learning outcomes as a fixed criteria, but what do they miss out and are there lots of diverse ways of achieving the same outcome? As a tutor, I would like to work towards a space where differences and uniqueness can be explored in the learning environment. One standard way of doing cannot fit all.