Presented in partnership with Arts AccessAbility Network Manitoba

Creative Accessibility is a series of online webinars and panel discussions that will explore disability art, the experiences of artists with disabilities and how to make art accessible. These workshops will be beneficial not only for emerging artists with disabilities, but artists at all levels of their career with and without disabilities.

What does access mean? What can access look like? Join Adriana Alarcón (curator and artist), Jordan Sangalang (Deaf Performer) and Cheryle Broszeit (Deaf photographer) as they discuss their experiences within the art world. Find out the types of accommodation that artists who are Deaf/disabled need to participate in the arts and how their lived experiences reflect in their artwork.

Register for this FREE event and a Zoom link will be sent to your inbox closer to the event date. All Creative Accessibility workshops will have ASL interpretation.

Adriana Alarcón is an artist living on Treaty 1 territory. A first-generation immigrant from Guatemala of complex identities, Alarcón is Latine, cisgender, queer and living with disability. As a Mestiza woman, she recognizes Maya K’ekchi’ and her Spanish ancestry (though no direct claim to Indigenous community). These identities guide her work to explore coexisting contradictions in everyday life.

Alarcón incorporates cultural craft traditions and ancestral knowledge with contemporary narratives using fibre-based crafts, such as knitting, crochet, embroidery, beading and weaving. She has a bachelor’s degree from York University in cultural studies. Alarcón combined her art practice with arts administration in Toronto and Winnipeg working at artist-run centres such as A Space, CARFAC Ontario, Craft Action TO and MAWA.

Jordan Sangalang, taken under the wing of Hot Thespian Action’s Shannon Guile, took flight with 100 Decibels in the summer of 2014. Jordan made his performing debut during high school in Florida, where he signed songs all around the state. He had his professional theatre debut performing a play called Tribes written by Nina Raine as Billy, a play with music called The Threepenny Opera written by Bertolt Brecht as Mr. Peachum and performed the Phantom of The Opera as Raoul. He did ASL performances including poetry at World Poetry Day, storytelling at the Storytelling Festival , and visual vernacular for Royal Manitoba Theatre’s Tiny Plays, Big Ideas festival. Jordan aspires to show audiences the beauty of building connections through ideas and feelings in ASL.

Cheryle Broszeit is a Deaf self-taught photographer born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She briefly explored photography in her early 20’s but didn’t pick up her camera again until 2013 when she took some photography courses, continuing her studies to this day. Her new passion centers on photography as an art form, which captures the Deaf community’s way of life. Through her art, she reflects her experiences, and expresses her true values in life.

When reflecting on her photos and the subjects captured in them, a sense of absolute connection comes over Cheryle knowing that they share a language, culture and experiences both positive and negative. She wants others who see her work to see what Deaf people’s daily experiences look like in their community or outside in the non-Deaf world.

“I make art because I am part of that picture.”