Art in the Library

Disability is intrinsic to my artistic practice. When I was a child, I was assessed as having a fine motor disability along with learning disabilities. I was told I would never be able to create art. At that moment, I became determined to create art, to illustrate that I could do something I was told would be impossible for me.

Since that time, I have become physically disabled with a spine injury, and my art began more and more to revolve around the body, identity, and the way that my body didn’t fit into a normalized world. I eventually discovered DisArts, the art of disability and became part of a tradition of disabled artists creating art that stems from our disabled bodies and our oppressed status in an ableist world.

Disability has shaped the way that I create art, requiring me to modify my style and teach myself how to create art differently from the way most people are taught art. I leaned that instead of struggling against my body to create art, I would invite my body into the creative process.

This is some of the art that has come from the intersection of my disabled body and the various media around me.

Meet the Artist

Join us on May 27 for a film screening and panel discussion featuring Derek Newman-Stille, Adelle Purdham, Luka Stojanovic, and Rob Viscardis. Learn more and register for DisArts as Transformative Justice: Disability Art and Society.

About the Artist

Derek Newman-Stille (they/them) is a Queer, Nonbinary, Disabled, Fat author, poet, academic, editor, visual artist, and activist. They are the 9-time Aurora Award-winning creator of the digital humanities site Speculating Canada. Derek has published poetry in fora such as Fat Studies in Canada, Polar Borealis, and Eye to the Telescope. Derek has published short fiction in Dark Waters (Poise and Pen Publishing), and Nothing Without Us (Renaissance Press), and co-published the collection Whispers Between Fairies (Renaissance). They have edited the collections Over the Rainbow: Folk and Fairy Tales from the Margins (Exile), and We Shall Be Monsters (Renaissance Press).

For more information, visit dereknewmanstille.ca