1. Dreaming a better future: irreverent beings who say what we cannot.
- Author
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Huntingford, Stasha
- Subjects
- *
PAPER arts , *SOCIAL services , *NONPROFIT organizations , *ART , *SOCIAL workers - Abstract
This paper/visual art/puppet show is about the more-than-human entities who help me include my whole self in my teaching and other research. It is about how generative it is to be our whole, sacred, profane, glorious selves. This art reminds us of the importance of dreaming beyond what we have been told is possible. It demonstrates how irreverent, gleeful, binary-challenging art makes oppression more visible, so that we can challenge it. This work is about interrupting hegemony/the status quo/the idea that some of us are ‘normal’ and the rest should be pecked to death. It is about resistance strategies for poking fun at power, especially our own (so we don’t become someone who attacks difference). The puppet collaboration aspect came from shared frustration with the Non-Profit Industrial Complex. This collaboration is part of our ongoing, decades-long experimentation. This paper includes art that I shared as a participant in dichotomy-challenging research, which uplifted the voices of Mad social workers. This art makes fun of my profession of social work. I was encouraged to have space to express my feelings, without being constrained by mere words. I invite you to share the dream of being our whole selves, beyond and within the confines of universities, professions, classrooms, societies and research. By continuing to play in unsafe circumstances, I am keeping myself, connection, dreaming beyond binary, and art as resistance. What are you fighting for? How are you making fun of yourself? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
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