Exhibition

September 8 – October 14 2023

Opening: September 7^th 2023, 19:00–21:00 Hybrid opening onsite and online. 
Closing date: October 14^th 2023

Letícia Barreto, Cinzia Greco, Maica Gugolati, Jaime Lee Loy, Gabrielle Le Roux

Feel(In) the Gaps starts from an ongoing discussion among the five of us: artists, activists, researchers, and curators who shared the experience of having different invisible and visible disabilities. After meeting regularly online since the pandemic, creating a space where we learned about one another’s (in)visibilities, this art show allows us to take “body and space” of these discussions while opening the dialogue with different audiences and colleagues. This art exhibition does not treat disabilities as an “object” of discussion but is created through the experience of the disabilities themselves. 

Within ‘invisible disabilities’ we include permanent and transient disabilities, such as autoimmune diseases, psychological and neurological conditions, unrecognized or medically unexplained disabilities, chronic diseases, Long Covid, and forms of trauma, with trauma explored both as the consequence of disability in ableist societies and as a disability in itself. 

When defining disability, and in particular invisible disability, in medical contexts, mistranslation can occur, especially due to its inner changeability of manifestation. For this reason, we promoted dialogism as a methodology of sharing, creating, and exhibiting. 

We confront societal “toxic positivity” that pressures people to over-perform “feeling fine”. But we also disagree with the classic iconography of suffering that superficially boxes-in the complexities of knowledge and experiences. We rather insist on sur-viving ‘through’ and with our disabilities, in a form of “through living” or “through-viving” in partnership with our challenges and discoveries. This allows for a different way of living in the world and possibly being (un)recognized by it.  

We deliberately move in(side) and beyond external recognition, looking within ourselves and at other realities, moving past the limitations of being routinely diagnosed, undiagnosed, and misdiagnosed by biomedicine. Issues of isolation, hypervigilance, and frequently forced relearning lead us to confront ourselves and each other and question what constitutes the notion of disabilities and their relation to possible unintended external and internal self-betrayals. It is an ongoing individual and collective constant co-learning. 

Program: 

7 Sept., 19:00 – 21:00
Opening (hybrid streaming, in English and sign language). 

9 Sept., 14:00 – 17:00
“Living is ripping and mending“, Workshop with Letícia Barreto (onsite, in English and Portuguese).

12 Sept., 19:00 – 21:00 
“The Passion According to GH”, Clarice Lispector. Lecture and Debate with Letícia Barreto and Maica Gugolati (onsite, in English).

13 Sept, 19:00 – 21:00
“Expressive Art Activity” with an art therapy approach with Jaime Lee Loy (onsite, in English).

27 Sept., 19:00-21:00
Screening and Discussion of the film on Nthabiseng Mokoena’s life: Reclaiming Intersex while black, genderqueer + feminist in South Africa, with Gabrielle Le Roux (hybrid, in English with English subtitles).

30 Sept., 15:00 – 17:00  
“Unmasking the Self“, combining ethnographic discussion with photography on neurodiversity with Cinzia Greco (onsite, English).

3 Oct, from 20:00 
Feel(In) the Gaps, A conversation between all artists, faculty members, and students of Toronto University (online, in English).

6 Oct, 19:00 – 21:00
“Visible / Invisible – Speakable-Unspeakable: a discussion about flirting, love and dating websites” with OSTENSIBLE Collective (online, in English and French).

10 Oct, 19:00 – 21:00
Performative Chronic Sharing. Cooking with Maica Gugolati altogether in cooperation with Afrorainbow Austria (onsite, in English).

12 Oct, 19:00 – 21:00
Online discussion about the show and with the Italian association of Fibromyalgia AISF ODV, with artists’ group and collaborators (English and Italian). 

14 Oct, 19:00 – 21:00
Closing celebration (onsite).