Born in Vancouver, unceded Coast Salish territory, Carmen Papalia is a 2019 Sobey Award Long List nominee. He uses organizing strategies and improvisation to address access to public space, the art institution, and visual culture. Papalia’s walks, workshops, and interventions model new standards and practices of accessibility.
Agnes acknowledges the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Government of Canada.Born in Vancouver, unceded Coast Salish territory, Carmen Papalia is a 2019 Sobey Award Long List nominee. He uses organizing strategies and improvisation to address access to public space, the art institution, and visual culture. Papalia’s walks, workshops, and interventions model new standards and practices of accessibility. …
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Intro
Intro
0:00
Intro
0:00
White mobility cane
White mobility cane
2:04
White mobility cane
2:04
Marching band
Marching band
5:30
Marching band
5:30
Mobility Device
Mobility Device
7:43
Mobility Device
7:43
The Band
The Band
8:49
The Band
8:49
See for Yourself
See for Yourself
9:44
See for Yourself
9:44
Design for One
Design for One
11:20
Design for One
11:20
Caine Ideas
Caine Ideas
13:15
Caine Ideas
13:15
Use CTRL+F to find key words if it is a longer transcript.
Intro
0:00
[ Background Conversations ]
0:08
>> Yeah, I’m going to talk about my work,
but first I’d like to do an exercise
0:11
that I usually do when I get to know
new groups of people, just to see —
0:14
get a sense of who’s in the room,
what your voices all sound like.
0:18
So, if everybody — if I could
invite you all to close your eyes.
0:25
I’m closing my eyes, too.
0:27
I promise.
0:28
And so, what I’m going to do is I’m going
to say my name, and then I want someone else
0:35
from the crowd to say their name,
and then someone else say their name,
0:38
until everybody said their name once.
0:40
And we’re going to keep our eyes shut until
everybody in the room said their name.
0:43
And I’m going to start off the chain reaction.
0:46
I’m just going to take a second to breathe,
to get comfortable in the non-visual space.
0:58
Carmen.
1:00
[ Inaudible Comments ]
1:04
>> Martha.
1:05
>> Alicia.
1:06
>> Helen.
1:08
>> Margie.
1:09
[ Inaudible Comments ]
1:13
>> Nadia.
1:13
>> Max.
1:15
[ Inaudible Comments ]
1:19
>> Shannon.
1:19
>> Julia.
1:20
[ Silence ]
1:25
>> Taneisha.
1:26
>> Vanessa.
1:27
— all assumed spellings.
1:32
>> Is that everybody?
1:33
You can open your eyes.
1:37
There’s always someone that waits until the end.
1:39
I’m glad that I got you two last ones,
before I told everyone to open their eyes.
1:43
Okay. So, I started like doing creative
work maybe in 2007, but I didn’t think
1:52
of myself as an artist at that time.
1:54
I was a writer, and I just was
trying to think through this idea
1:59
of what it means to be someone who is disabled.
2:03
And I was doing these experiments to
help me better understand my own position
White mobility cane
2:08
within my community and how like
adopting a white mobility cane sort
2:14
of changed my position and
my relationship with others.
2:18
So, you know, initially I was using
a typical like white and red cane.
2:22
I really felt like this — like
as a symbol, it classified,
2:26
and it put me into a separate category than
my like friends and, you know, my peers.
2:31
So, I was always felt like
it really didn’t identify me
2:35
in the way that I wanted to be identified.
2:38
So, one of the first things that I did was
peel all the red and white tape off my cane,
2:42
and it was just this black graphite underneath,
2:45
and I replaced the handle
with this wooden handle.
2:47
And I thought of this as sort of
a way to like turn down this —
2:51
the volume on the signal that
the cane usually is transmitting,
2:56
which is this person needs help.
2:58
And yeah, I — you know, sometimes they
do need help, but I’d kind of rather just
3:03
like ask people when I need help, instead of,
you know, having people just kind of grab me
3:08
and try to help me across the street when
I’m, you know, these interactions are often
3:12
like too quick for me to even know what to say,
3:16
and I just wanted a way to
like disrupt that a bit.
3:19
So, this really helped, with the black cane.
3:24
And one of the first experiments that I did was
3:29
that I made a 15-foot cane,
and I brought it here.
3:41
So, yeah, so I would go on walks with this.
3:49
My first walk was in — on Commercial Drive
in Vancouver, on like — during rush hour.
3:58
And so, I would like, you know, I took up the
entire sidewalk when I was using this thing.
4:02
People had to like jump out of my way.
4:06
And really, I became an obstacle for
other people to have to negotiate.
4:13
So, and I really think that, you
know, usually when I’m using a cane,
4:19
there’s like this forcefield around me.
4:21
People kind of stay away, but
they always are attracted to me,
4:25
like it’s a magnet, almost,
for unwanted support.
4:29
But with this cane, I really felt like
it just exaggerated that whole dynamic
4:34
of like distancing that I felt with the cane.
4:45
And it was, I mean, it was more
of an antagonistic project.
4:50
Like I don’t — yeah, it was coming at
a time where I was feeling frustrated,
4:54
because I was learning — my walking
route’s in Vancouver, where I grew up.
4:59
But I had to like relearn all these walking
routes, how to navigate them with a cane.
5:03
And I kept bumping into things
and obstacles, and it really felt
5:07
like the city wasn’t build
with my access in mind.
5:10
So, I don’t know, with this — I just kind of
wanted to claim some space and just like, yeah,
5:17
really become an obstacle and have others
have to negotiate for their own movement.
5:24
This is a project from 2013, a performance
where I replaced my cane with a marching band.
Marching band
5:37
I — yeah, so I — it really started as a joke
conversation with my best friend in Portland,
5:43
where we were just kind of discussing like the
various things I could replace my cane with,
5:47
and landed on this idea of
replacing it with a marching band.
5:51
And like I really love this idea,
so I kept telling people about it.
5:55
And but a month later, I was
telling this curator and, you know,
6:02
a week after that conversation, he said, oh,
you know, by the way, I have five marching bands
6:07
who are interested in working with you,
6:09
and they were all high school marching
bands from Santa Ana, California.
6:14
I ended up working with this band,
6:16
the Great Centurion Marching
band, from Century High School.
6:19
And it took about six months for us
to develop sort of this performance,
6:26
and we would meet on Skype, and they would
interview me about the kinds of things
6:30
that I might encounter on a walk, the
kind of obstacles that I might bump into,
6:35
and then they went off and developed
musical cues to indicate various things.
6:39
And like right before the performance,
we did like this really quick rehearsal
6:47
in the high school parking lot, and
we just played out various scenarios,
6:49
like pretend I’m stepping from
the sidewalk onto a busy street.
6:54
What happens?
6:56
And like the Marching Band
Director would direct band members
6:58
to different things, like obstacles.
7:02
And yeah, we kind of just improvised, and
downtown Santa Ana, where we were exploring,
7:09
was really unfamiliar to
me before this performance.
7:12
And throughout the performance, we just kind
7:15
of like became this responsive
kind of like support network.
7:20
And were moving pretty intuitively.
7:23
Yeah, I found my way into like an underground
parking structure, to like a cafe, art gallery,
7:33
and people would also just like be really
happy that there was like a marching band,
7:38
so they just joined the crowd
and walked with us.
7:42
This is from a performance
from that same project.
Mobility Device
7:48
It’s called Mobility Device.
7:50
And it says from September in
New York City on the high line.
7:54
So, with this iteration, I was
working with the Hungry March Band.
7:59
They’re, you know, the high school band was
playing like football, like hype music, so —
8:07
and that’s what their repertoire consisted of
— and, you know, I’ll just give you an example.
8:15
It was like da-da-da-da da-da-da-da-da
da-da-da-da-da da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
8:22
And that was kind of the song they played
for like our whole hour-long performance.
8:28
And it would slow down and speed up,
based on like how fast I was walking.
8:35
You know, it was fun to play
around with, as well.
8:39
But for this performance in New York, this
band’s been together for over 13 years.
8:44
They actually started as a band playing
the Mermaid Parade at Coney Island.
8:48
And they have their own repertoire.
The Band
8:52
There’s no band director, but they advertise
themselves as a band that plays any gig.
8:56
So, I kind of challenged them on
that and said, “Hey, how about this?”
9:00
And they were up for it.
9:02
So, we were rehearsing in this space
in Williamsburg from last October.
9:07
And again, just going through various
scenarios I get myself into when I’m walking,
9:13
and then they develop these kind of
strategies for addressing those things.
9:18
So, what the band does when
I’m encountering a staircase
9:22
that leads upstairs or down
and various obstacles.
9:27
And the — since there was no band leader,
every band member in the band had practice being
9:35
at every position in our formation, so they
could each respond to whatever we encountered.
9:41
Yeah, so this is from 2015.
See for Yourself
9:44
It’s a performance where I
replace my cane with a megaphone.
9:48
And instead of letting the cane like
speak for me, I speak for myself —
9:52
use the words that I use — to describe myself.
9:55
And really put that call to support
out to the the people around me.
9:58
So, this first performance was just for myself.
10:03
It was an improvised process,
just with a small camera crew.
10:08
And, you know, I don’t use words like blind or
visually impaired to describe myself because,
10:15
you know, I think those terms still privilege
visual experience, and at a point in time,
10:20
I made this choice to shift the value from the
visual to the non-visual, to really, you know,
10:26
kind of explore what I could
discover through my non-visual senses.
10:31
And now, you know, I think of
myself as a non-visual artist,
10:34
someone who uses their non-visual senses
as a way of navigating their surroundings.
10:39
So, in this performance, I was
just saying like, “I can’t see you.
10:44
I hope you can see me.
10:46
I hope I don’t bump into you.”
10:47
I would find myself at the corner of a —
or at a crosswalk, just asking, you know,
10:54
someone there that can help me cross
the street, and I’d have to wait there
10:58
for quite a long time, until someone showed up.
11:03
People have actually like been parked at a
crosswalk and then like got out of their car
11:07
to cross me across the street before during this
performance, which I think it’s interesting,
11:13
how it like just — I mean, other
people have yelled at me as well,
11:16
because they just don’t know what’s going on.
11:19
So, yeah. And I really thought of this as like a
way to reclaim that social function of the cane.
Design for One
11:26
So again, use my own language to [inaudible].
11:35
This is a project that I did with this
engineering college just outside of Boston.
11:41
And the whole idea around this was
to like redesign like the cane.
11:48
So, like — and the designer that invited me
11:51
to do this project really embraces
the — this concept of design for one.
11:56
So, instead of making the next like, you know,
iPhone or consumer object that, you know,
12:02
everyone can use, they interview someone
and make one object for one person.
12:09
So, you know, what one’s hopes for
usability are or like what they want
12:14
in the device that they’re developing.
12:17
And so that’s a process we went through.
12:19
So, students interviewed me about
like my thoughts about the cane
12:24
and how I felt it classified me
and distanced me from others.
12:28
And we just like played with
this idea of alternative canes.
12:31
And what you’re looking at is a studio
sort of where groups of students are
12:36
like making basic prototypes around this idea.
12:39
And one of the groups was just working
with what they had in their dorm room,
12:44
and they had a bunch of like guitar
equipment and like effects pedals
12:49
and like delay and looping pedals and amps.
12:53
And so, what they did was like put
a contact mic at the tip of my cane,
12:57
and then just tapped a cord to it.
12:58
And then output it to an amp, and so
I would be able to translate texture
13:04
into sound as I scraped or tapped my cane.
13:06
And then, I could play with
that sound with the pedals,
13:09
like with the effects and
delay and looping pedals.
13:14
The students made like 300 cane ideas.
Caine Ideas
13:19
They developed this list of 300 possible
cane ideas, from like a cane that had —
13:25
like would leave a trail of ink when
you’re using it, to a cane that was just
13:32
like an extension of my vest, basically, that
was like these like cat whiskers that would
13:38
like touch things, and I would get
feedback based on what I was encountering.
13:45
Yeah, all sorts of designs.
13:46
But only a few of those were
developed into basic prototypes.
13:50
And one of them that I’m going to show a
short video of is called the Wander Cane,
13:55
and it would take the user where it wanted to
go, rather than letting the user, you know,
13:59
have the agency where they wanted to go.
14:03
[ Video playing ]
14:20
These are the kinds of videos that got like
every month or so just about done playing
14:24
in studio around these different concepts.
14:28
[ Video Playing ]
14:43
That was short-lived.
14:44
And this is one of the students working on
the modulation device that produces the sound
Modulation Device
14:49
that was made with the pedals,
the Fender guitar pedals.
14:54
[ Video Playing ]
14:59
And so he’s working on like the delay or working
15:01
on the effectiveness of the
contact mic in the delay.
15:06
And so this student like
actually built this like three —
15:09
a reverse 3D printed, housing
for the contact mic,
15:15
so it could sit like comfortably
inside of the tip of the cane.
15:21
So, they just — yeah.
15:21
Just playing.
15:22
Oh yeah, you can go to the next one.
15:26
This is just when it was fully
developed, another student using the cane.
15:33
[ Video Playing ]
Cane
15:42
And this is what the object looks like now.
15:46
It’s supposed to be portable, but it’s kind
of heavy, and I can like put it on my belt,
15:54
but yeah, it’s — the idea is that
like I will redevelop this design,
16:00
and then it will be more portable, and I
can just like throw it into my suitcase.
16:04
And I tried to send this — well,
I sent it to Australia for a show,
16:09
and some of the internal components came
loose, so I need a more robust model, I guess.
16:16
And the idea is I’d be able to connect
to any sound set-up, so I could like work
16:21
with a composer or a musician, who could
like mix the sounds that I’m making live.
Walking Tour
16:30
This is an image from a walking tour
that I’ve been doing, since 2010.
16:35
It is a non-visual walk, where people line
up behind me, link arms, and shut their eyes.
16:41
And I take them on like about an
hour-long walk or longer, sometimes.
16:45
I don’t think of this walk as like a walk in
my shoes or like a simulation of my experience,
16:52
because there’s like a lot that I
can’t share with people in that way.
16:55
I really think of this more
as like time in which we’re —
17:00
intentional time spent with your eyes closed,
17:03
time where you’re exercising
your non-visual senses.
17:07
We don’t usually get to exercise our
non-visual senses in our daily routine,
17:11
so this is just like time in
which we get to do that together.
17:16
The walk that you’re looking at now is
at Haverford College in Pennsylvania.
17:21
And usually, what I’ll do is, I’ll map
a route and walk it multiple times,
17:25
until I feel comfortable bringing
like a group of people with me.
17:29
But for this walk, it’s relatively easy
landscape, so I just chose the destination
17:34
for where I wanted the walk to end, which
was like the campus track and field track.
17:40
And I just problem-solved my way there, with
the group of people who came for the walk.
17:45
And if you knew where you were going,
and you started from our starting point,
17:50
you might get there in five minutes, but
for this, we took an hour and 45 minutes.
17:57
And that’s part of the project
— the performance as well.
Performance
18:04
This is a group at the California College
of the Arts in San Francisco in 2012.
18:11
This is a walk I did a couple
of years ago in New York City.
18:14
This is the same group, at the California
College of the Arts, and this is the first time
18:25
like a large group of people came to one
of my walks, and this is about 50 people.
18:30
Since then, I’ve led walks for up to
90 people, and we really like kind
18:35
of like disrupt public space,
when we’re that large of a group.
18:38
So, like people are waiting
for us to cross the street.
18:41
Sometimes, people honk at us.
18:44
We — yeah, and I really think, too, when —
18:48
I mean, even if it’s like a modest group
of people, like it really is about a group
18:52
of people coming together and
just kind of finding a way
18:56
to support each other in this sort of activity.
18:59
I’m delivering like information
from the front of the line,
19:04
like about obstacles and different things.
19:06
And then every second person is
repeating those directions or those —
19:12
that information, sort of like a
game of Telephone that abstracts
19:16
by the time it gets to the end of the line.
19:19
And also, people are just like letting
others know about what’s relevant to them.
19:24
Like say they encountered a step, and they’re
like, oh yeah, I just walked up that step.
19:29
Just be careful.
19:30
And sometimes, the chain breaks, and I
tell everyone to keep their eyes shut,
19:37
and I separate myself from the
front, and then reconnect the chain.
19:42
This is a project that I did
in 2013 at the Guggenheim.
The Touchy Subject
19:50
I proposed this project,
called the Touchy Subject,
19:53
which was about touching artwork in the museum.
19:57
And so, as part of the process,
I negotiated for the ability
20:02
to touch objects from the collection.
20:04
And then I worked with staff members in
this training program, where we spent times
20:09
with our eyes shut, touching these objects.
20:12
And then, you know, kind of discovering
what we could find out about these objects,
20:17
like different kinds of knowledge about these
things, that we could know with eyes closed.
20:25
And we developed this methodology for touching
that kind of like, you know, made it a practice.
20:34
And the next day, we offered tours where
anybody who was interested could go on a tour,
20:44
where they would link arms — it
was very similar to today, actually,
20:48
without the touch element today, but
anyone who’s interested could link arms
20:52
with a staff member, and shut their eyes,
and then their hand would be directed
20:56
to like tactile points of interest.
20:59
So, like the objects that
we had from the collection,
21:02
as well as like the building
itself and, you know,
21:05
the Guggenheim is like a big sculpture, really.
21:09
And for some people, since like the Guggenheim
is also like this tourist destination,
21:15
it was some people’s first time experiencing
the museum, and it was with eyes closed,
21:20
feeling their way through, so it really
shifted their perception of that place.
Model Contemporary Art Center
21:26
This is from a series of projects
I did in Ireland a few years ago.
21:31
It — at the Model Contemporary
Art Centre in Sligo, Ireland.
21:35
And I just responded to my own
experience there, while I was there,
21:38
and I found it really difficult
to navigate the space on my own,
21:41
because there’s just a confusing lay-out.
21:43
So, what I did is tie bed strings to the
things that already existed in the space.
21:48
So like hand rails or like
a table leg or something.
21:52
And then these red strings indicated
my most used routes, while I was there.
21:58
So like, from the elevator to the cafe,
from the cafe to the restroom or, you know,
22:06
where else I needed to go in the museum.
22:09
And I just used these as like tactile way
finding — a tactile way finding system.
22:14
And it was something I just could
like tie up and put — take down.
22:19
And yeah, it was also like a kind of line
that indicated my movement through this space.
Art Gallery
22:29
Another project that I did there was this,
where I found a gallery that had like paintings
22:36
from the permanent collection,
and they’re all hung
22:38
at like a typical height for a standing viewer.
22:41
So, I requested they all be lowered, so
they’re just really close to the ground,
22:45
so people would have to like problem solve
their way to comfortably view the work.
22:53
Yeah, and so — and it really was an
effort to like trouble or, you know,
22:58
complicate that typical access
or that common access.
23:04
And while it kind of like was doing that,
it also opened up access for young people,
23:13
people who are wheelchair users,
and it just invited more —
23:17
so, the average time for someone — that someone
spends with an artwork when they’re walking
23:21
through a gallery and just looking
at work, it’s like around 20 seconds.
23:25
But like this kind of encouraged people
to just like sit down and lie down
23:29
and spend time looking at these works,
which I thought was interesting.
23:32
So, I’m going to leave it there.
23:35
I do have more to share, but
we have a lot to do today.
23:39
So, I think I’ll just maybe take a couple
of questions, if there are any, first.
23:43
And then we can get on with our tours.
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