Lab E: In-Progress Showing with Tango 21 | Photo by Mallory Qiu
Lab E: Convening of Chicago's Disabled Artists
Presented as part of FUSION: A Celebration of the 2023 Fellow Artists in Residence
Advanced registration is requested.
LabE grew out of a convening of Chicago’s disabled dance artists in late 2022. A year later, we’re expanding the program to serve the wider disability arts community.
This convening invites anyone who is invested in fostering a vibrant disabled artist ecosystem in Chicago to reflect on the pilot year of “Lab E”. This program is centered around artists with a lived experience of disability including Deaf, disabled, sick, neurodivergent, and Mad artists (including those working through their relationship to these categories) working in all mediums. What supports would be most useful to developing your artistic practice? What do you feel is most needed to continue building Chicago’s disability art community? Let’s reflect on what we’ve accomplished so far and continue building LabE as a platform to support Chicago’s disabled artists.
Convening facilitators, Maggie Bridger, Andy Slater, and Reveca Torres, and participants will think together about what is most needed to continue building Chicago’s disability art community and what platform can best support Chicago’s disabled artists. Masks are required for this event.
ASL interpretation and CART provided. Multiple types of seating (mats, chairs, floor cushions/bean bags) will be available, as well as some stim tools and ear defenders. All speakers will use microphones. Agendas will be provided to all registrants in both text and symbol-based formats. Attendees are welcome and encouraged to bring their own access tools.
Who should attend?
This convening invites anyone who is invested in fostering a vibrant disabled artist ecosystem in Chicago. This program is centered around artists with a lived experience of disability including Deaf, disabled, sick, neurodivergent, and Mad artists (including those working through their relationship to these categories) working in all mediums.
Masks are required for this event. For those unable to mask or to risk being in a public space, we are offering a virtual option to join the event via Zoom.
Additional Access Information is available here. For any other questions or requests regarding accessibility accommodations, please contact HCL’s Accessibility Coordinator, Angee Lennard (angee@highconceptlabs.org).
About LabE
LabE is a series of gatherings addressing particular needs of disabled artists such as studio access, development and production support, and platforms for promoting Chicago’s sick, Deaf and disabled artists.
About the Curator
Maggie Bridger is a 2022 City of Chicago Individual Artist Program grantee and PhD candidate at the University of Illinois at Chicago in the Department of Disability and Human Development. She is a co-founder of the Inclusive Dance Workshop Series at Access Living, for which she and her project partner received a 2021 Chicago Area Albert Schweitzer Fellowship. She was part of the inaugural cohort of the Dancing Disability Lab at UCLA and serves on the planning committee for CounterBalance, Chicago's annual integrated dance concert.
Meet the Facilitators
Andy Slater is a blind Chicago-based media artist, writer, performer, and Disability advocate/loudmouth.
Andy holds a Masters in Sound Arts and Industries from Northwestern University and a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is a 2022 United States Artists fellow, 2022-2023 Leonardo Crip Tech Incubator fellow and a 2018 3Arts/Bodies of Work fellow at the University of Illinois Chicago. He is a teaching artist with the Atlantic Center for the Arts’ Young SoundSeekers program, Midwest Society For Acoustic Ecology, and Creative Users’ Sensory Shift program.
Andy’s current work focuses on advocacy for accessible art and technology, Alt-Text for sound and image, the phonology of the blind body, spatial audio for extended reality, and sound design for film, dance, and digital scent design. Andy is a member of the 3Arts Disability Culture Leadership Initiative New Art City accessibility board, and the founder of the Society of Visually Impaired Sound Artists.
And last but not least, he is a member of the acid-soul band, the Velcro Lewis Group, and performs solo as electronic melting pot, Calculator Font.
Reveca Torres was paralyzed in a car accident as a teenager. After completing degrees in Fashion Design and Theatre Arts, Reveca worked as a costume designer and simultaneously with organizations doing disability work in health, advocacy, recreation, and peer support. She started the nonprofit BACKBONES, which provides information and other resource support for people newly living with spinal injuries (SCI), after realizing that years of interaction and friendship with others living with (SCI) made a significant impact in her own life.
She is co-director of ReelAbilities Film Festival Chicago and has curated touring photography and art exhibitions that showcase work of people with disabilities and bring awareness to disability rights. Reveca received Creative Access Fellowships at Vermont Studio Center (2014) and Santa Fe Art Institute (2017). She was selected as a fellow for Kartemquin Films Diverse Voices in Docs program (2017) and Hulu+Kartemquin Accelerator Program (2020). She received a 3Arts Residency Fellowship at the University of Illinois Chicago in 2018 and is a 2020 3Arts Awardees and 2022 Next Level Awardee. In 2020 she was awarded the Craig Neilsen Visionary Award for her art and advocacy work. Reveca uses painting, illustration, photography, film, movement, and other media as a form of expression and a tool for advocacy and social justice.
Supported by High Concept Labs, the Monira Foundation, and Experimental Station, where HCL is in residence.