Introduction to Collective Liberation.

Cole: This black screen has been added to the original film.

The video Collective Liberation is six minutes long. The video is closed captioned, with text that appears along the bottom of the screen or sometimes a music note in the top right corner.

Cole: In the video, many artists and their mentors talk to each other through an online video chat, like Zoom or FaceTime. Only their upper bodies are in view.

The video shows clips from their video chats mixed with animated scenes, which are like cartoons, and some moments that focus on artworks by Charisse Rayne.

Cole: When the video chat clips are shown, usually only the person speaking appears.

The animated scenes usually look like an invisible person is creating a single line drawing with a black marker on a white background. Sometimes these drawings are coloured, or appear to be coloured in by the invisible person. These scenes often focus on key words they say or match what the people in the video talk about, like plants growing or hearts circling the Earth. The words often look like bubble letters, or sometimes look handwritten with curled letters.

Many of the people in the video use the pronoun “they” similar to how some people use the pronouns “he” or “she”. Some of the people are also genderfluid, which could mean that some days they feel more feminin or masculine, or sometimes they may not feel like either.

The artists Bing Cherry, Henry Hong and Debbie Ratcliffe appear in the video along with mentors Jet Coghlan, Pree Rehal and Carmen Papalia.

Jet describes themself as a person who people think of as female and uses they/them pronouns. Jet has a tan skin tone, looks to be around 30 years old, and has an athletic build. Their long hair is brown with bangs and worn in a ponytail. They have glasses and wear a septum nose ring through the part of their nose between their nostrils, a piercing stud above their upper left lip, a stud below their bottom right lip, a black, red and white plaid long sleeve shirt and a long chain necklace. They sit in front of a green, leafy background.

Bing describes themself as a genderfluid person with FASD and ADHD. Bing says that they sometimes go by he and she, but use the pronoun “they” in the video. Bing presents as white, is 39 years old and is of average build. Their long hair is black with bangs and they wear glasses. They appear from the neck up, so it’s not really clear what kind of clothes they’re wearing. In the video they regularly rock back and forth as they sit in a room with white walls and a window. There is a large black and white painting of people on the wall behind them.

Pree describes themself as a genderfluid Brown Person of Colour with Panjab heritage who is multiply disabled, chronically ill and uses they/them pronouns. Pree is of full build and says that most people think they are 25. Their short hair is black and they wear glasses, a backwards tan baseball hat, a septum nose ring, a gray t-shirt and have many tattoos on their left arm. They sit in a black computer chair in a room with white walls.

Henry describes himself as a Chinese Canadian middle aged man with autism who uses he/him pronouns. He is of average build and his very short hair is black and gray, which some people call “salt & pepper”, and he wears glasses and a red sweater or black shirt. He appears mostly from the neck up and sits in a room that looks like a dining or living room with a cabinet and tan coloured walls with paintings that hang on them.

Carmen describes himself as a non-visual artist. He has sickle cell anaemia and uses he/ him pronouns. He describes his skin tone as olive, and that he has Mediterranean ancestry, from Italy and Greece. Carmen is 40, with an average build. Carmen explains that he uses “non-visual artist” instead of blind or visually impaired, and that sickle cell anaemia causes him severe chronic pain. To get around when he’s outside or somewhere new, he uses what he calls a detection cane. It started off as a white cane, then he peeled off all the red and white tape.

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His black hair is covered by a brown leather cap and his short full beard is also black. He wears headphones, a white shirt with a small brown print of leaves and mushrooms, and over it is a plaid flannel shirt that is open. He sits in a room with white walls. Just behind him is a stand that holds several hats.

He describes himself as a nonvisual artist instead of using words like blind or visually impaired. He has sickle cell anaemia, which causes severe chronic pain and intense episodes that are known as crises. He uses a detection cane to navigate his surroundings. He calls it a detection cane rather than a white cane because he peeled off all the red and white tape when he started using it. He also uses a screen reading program when he’s on his computer. It sounds like a robot and reads out everything that his cursor touches.

Debbie describes themself as a person with a disability called Williams syndrome who uses they/them pronouns. Debbie says their cultural background is white with Mi’kmag and French heritage with white-beige coloured skin and are 55 years old. They also say that they have the nose of a dragon, ears that stick out like an elf, small hands and are about the size of an elf. Debbie’s short, “pixie cut” style hair is light brown and they wear glasses, a colourful cloth face mask, white earbud headphones, and a black hooded sweater. They appear in front of a blurred background.

Cole: The video will begin now.

0:46 JET: Even though we might not come from the same circumstances. I can see that in a way that we are just like fighting for the same cause.

1:00 In the fight of struggle, I do believe that every person has something to contribute. There;s no person who is like just an object or is useless. So, we all have different abilities and they all don’t have to be the same and they don’t have to be standardized, right>

1:28 Recognizing that we all come from very different backgrounds, but we do understand that we are sort of kind of like seeking something really similar, which is like collective, like liberation. I hope that makes sense… [laughter]

1:46 BING: Yeah, that does, make sense to me… [laughter]

1:53 PREE: Do you have any ideas about that? Any thought on collective liberation?

1:58 HENRY: No, not really.

1:59 PREE: No, that’s okay. Collective being like ‘together’. And liberation being like ‘free, happy future.’ So what do you think about, if you think about, like interdependence and in community, in the future?

2:24 HENRY: I feel happy. I feel alive.

2:28 PREE: I love that. You feel happy and you feel alive.

2:38 CARMEN: There’s this disabled scholar and curator whose name is Eliza Chandler, and Eliza talks about dwelling with disability. So, like, instead of trying to minimize and erase and, you know, alleviate disability or conditions on disability, let’s spend time with disability. Let’s try not to integrate into non-disabled culture, but let’s nurture disability culture. And I think that is what you’re talking about, is nurturing our culture as people who are disabled and inviting people into it, rather than asking for access that we don’t have. We just need to be respected and honoured for the community that we are. And for the joys, and the beauty that exists within our community.

3:33 DEBBIE: Yeah, and help us understand why we’re not getting the access we need. Tell us why.

3:43 JET: Every so often, we might wake up and feel, “oh, I don’t know what to do or I don’t feel like there’s much I can do or I don’t know where to start.” And I think that. That kind of mentality, it’s not easy to like get out of that train of thought, and like really do the opposite action. But I want to remind people to really just try your best. Like, imagine, like put your imagination to flow, especially in those times when you’re feeling that things are not getting better, that things are not changing. Why? Because you stop imagining a future in which you can see and live in a way that you deserve and that you will feel happy. And with and where others also deserve, you know, then you can, you can create that world.

4:46 It is possible. It really is. It’s just we need to undo a bunch of things that we have been living with for a while, that we’re not used to.

END.