Visionary Voices

A project of the Institute on Disabilities at Temple University

Photos: JJ Tiziou

Visionary Voices

Visionary Voices tells the history of Pennsylvania’s Intellectual Disability Rights Movement, through:

o Interviews with the Movement’s Leaders

o Preservation of documents significant to the Movement’s history

o Public Performance and Civic Engagement

A Fierce Kind of LoveWith support from Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, the Institute has commissioned a new play from Obie nominated playwright Suli Holum and director David Bradley.

•features an inclusive cast of nine•uses word, music and movement to tell the stories of the ID Movement•in the style of documentary theater, AFKOL uses interviews with advocates as a starting point •content is also generated by our cast and creative team in workshop settings.

Photo description: AFKOL cast members are seated in a semi-circle. Cast member Lori McFarland, a wheelchair user, sits in the middle. Producer Lisa Sonneborn stands behind the group.

A Fierce Kind of LoveThrough discoveries made in A Fierce Kind of Love workshops, our team realized that we were missing first person accounts of present day life in segregated settings (e.g. State Centers, sheltered workshops).

How could we connect the disability history portrayed in the play with the present day experiences of people with ID?.

Photo description: AFKOL cast members are seated in a semi-circle. Cast member Lori McFarland, a wheelchair user, sits in the middle. Producer Lisa Sonneborn stands behind the group.

CONNECTING THROUGH STORY: LIVES LIVED APARTConversations with and images of people with Intellectual Disabilities who live and work in segregated settings.

Train people who have limited or no contact with people in segregated settings to interview narrators in State Centers, and sheltered workshops.

Hear and publicly share voices and experiences of narrators with intellectual disabilities.

Evaluate if the experience of meeting and working with people in segregated settings causes interviewers to recalibrate their understanding of disability.

Photo description: Portrait of Edith and Nicki. Edith, an African American woman in her sixties, is wearing a bright pink sweatshirt. Nicki, a Caucasian woman in her thirties, touches Edith’s left shoulder. Both are laughing.

Interview Excerpt:NaomiKatie: Will you tell me about our work?

Naomi: We do putty.

Katie: Will you tell me more about what that means?

Naomi: We put putty inside the cans and put the lids on.

…its blue and pink and it has blue at the end. You put it in the microwave and it melts the putty and it turns to pink and it has blue in the putty, then we put it into cans and put them in a box.

Katie: Is there a job that you would like to do that you haven’t had a chance to do yet?

Naomi: I don’t know how to label.

Photo description: Portrait of Naomi, an African American woman in her twenties, seated in a wheelchair. She is wearing blue and orange shirts, and leopard spotted leggings. She is smiling.

Interview Excerpt:HelenEvie: What kind of things would you like people to know about you?

Helen: I’m a woman now and I’m 24 and I’m a woman now. Yeah.

Evie: Do you feel like people don’t always treat you like a woman?

Helen: A little bit, yeah. A little bit. Yep.

Evie: How is that different from when you were a teenager or a little girl?

Helen: It feels weird on me. I’m a woman now and not be a little girl no more and stuff.

Photo description: Narrator Helen and interviewer Evie are seated at a table, in front of an audio recorder. Helen and Evie are both young Caucasian women in their twenties. Both are smiling at the camera.

Our Interviewers Reflect

Shawn[First} time he felt like he got a little bit out of Jim; [second] time went great. Even though Jim kept changing the subject when Shawn asked questions, he kept trying. Jim was sad when Shawn left and asked when he's coming back.

NicholeReflected on the notion of choice, and wondered what it meant for her narrator Norma to make a choice. Nichole wondered how much that is a function of never having learned how to make a choice - never having meaningful access to choice.

CaroleWondered if it matters that our narrators can mark time the way we ask them to? Her narrator George marked time in sensory ways.

Photo description: Eight interviewers of various ages, genders and ethnicities, seated on a bus that is taking them to the Selinsgrove State Center.

What we’re thinking about as we curate the Lives Lived Apart exhibit:

Exhibits:PA State Capitol Building in October of 2015, Philadelphia City Hall in March and April of 2016.

The rigor called for by oral history sometimes means that we exclude vulnerable voices.

How will we engage the community in this conversation at exhibits, and through web content and social media?

Photo description: Joe, a Caucasian man in his sixties sits with is ands folded in front of him on a table.