Harper celebrates Incapacity Consciousness Month with dance, artwork and extra: Harper Faculty

As a part of Incapacity Consciousness Month, Harper Faculty will host the Embracing Feminism
and Intersectionality Artwork Exhibit, that includes works by former Harper pupil Genevieve
Ramos (left) and Dr. Grishma Shah.

Harper Faculty is celebrating Incapacity Consciousness Month in March with a wide range of
occasions – highlighting the incapacity rights motion, fostering inclusivity via
dance and spotlighting intersectionality by way of visible artwork.

“These occasions are shared experiences for people with and with out disabilities,”
stated Rebecca Ramirez-Malagon, interim director of Harper’s Entry and Incapacity Companies (ADS) workplace.

ADS is spearheading the month of programming in collaboration with different teams on
campus, together with the LAND (Studying about Skills, Not Disabilities) Worker Useful resource
Group, the Workplace of Range, Fairness and Inclusion, the ADS Success Membership, the Liberal
Arts Division, Social Justice Research, and Group of Observe – Educating for Fairness.
The free occasions – which embody a dance workshop, documentary screening, job honest
and artwork exhibit – are open to college students, workers, alumni and everybody within the higher
Harper group.

“Incapacity is a phrase that has many, many meanings,” stated April Maman, ADS entry
advocate. “We need to emphasize that incapacity is an efficient phrase and [through these
events] we are able to share folks’s tales, their journeys, their experiences.”

A method of expressing that’s via portray, which is the main target of the Embracing Feminism and Intersectionality Artwork Exhibit, which begins with a reception and dialogue on March 8 in Constructing P, Room P202
on Harper’s Palatine campus, 1200 W. Algonquin Highway (see field for extra particulars). The
exhibit will function the work of former Harper pupil Genevieve Ramos and Dr. Grishma
Shah, two ladies artists with disabilities who discover the intersectionality of their
identities via graphic arts.

“The aim of the gallery occasion is for the artists to point out how their disabilities
have impacted their lives via artwork, via portray,” Maman stated. “And it’s good
to remind everybody that individuals with disabilities have very productive lives.”

Comparable reminders will be present in different occasions, together with the Northern Cook dinner County Job Truthful for People with Disabilities on March 22 (at Harper’s Studying and Profession Middle in Prospect Heights) or the March
9 screening of Crip Camp (within the Cultural Middle, Constructing R, Room D281). The 2020 documentary focuses on
individuals who bonded at a camp for youngsters with disabilities, then labored to enact
accessibility laws. The screening will probably be adopted by separate dialogue periods
for workers and college students, the latter sponsored by Entry Success Membership and Social
Justice Research.

“These occasions emphasize incapacity legislation, but it surely’s extra than simply the authorized perspective,”
Maman stated concerning the slate of occasions, made potential by an inner Useful resource for Excellence
Grant Award. “College students can have enjoyable and share their experiences, via actions
together with dance.”

EveryBody Can Dance, on March 13, will probably be led by dance artists and incapacity advocates Kris Lenzo and
Maggie Bridger, who see dance as a possibility to incorporate folks of all talents.
As well as, Maman identified not solely the extensive spectrum of disabilities, however how
some are seen, and others are invisible, or will be, relying on when and the way you
work together with a person.

“We need to be delicate to that, as a result of it’s simple to make assumptions,” she stated.
“We serve everybody at Harper.”

That pertains not solely to occasions, however to every little thing else that goes on within the school’s
school rooms and on campus. Ramirez-Malagon shared that ADS is a pupil help workplace
that may have a good time its 50^th anniversary later in 2023, commemorating 5 many years of helping college students and educating
the group at massive. Click on right here for extra data on ADS.

“ADS is a assure that people have entry to every little thing at Harper with cheap
lodging,” Maman stated. “We welcome our college students to return by and ask questions.”