by Alison O'Daniel, shot on location, with poems by Kenny Fries

Shot on location in the eight Japanese gardens Kenny writes about in the poem sequence In the Gardens of Japan, Alison O'Daniel finds images of disability and care in the landscapes designed and cared for by people. In a film with no sound, the film immerses the viewer in worlds both symbolic and actual, a testimony to the Japanese idea of mono no aware, which noted poet and translator Sam Hamill describes as "a resonance found in nature . . . a natural poignancy in the beauty of temporal things."

In The Gardens of Japan film is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts.

In 2002, Kenny arrived in Japan and visited various traditional gardens throughout the country. He transformed his experiences of eight of these gardens into eight poems (subsequently published as In the Gardens of Japan: A Poem Sequence). Before he left Japan, he gave the poems to singer Mika Kimula to set to music and perform.

Mika introduced the poems to composer Kumiko Takahashi, who began to set them to music. After much trial and error, Kumiko recently completed all eight songs, with the English lyrics set for traditional Japanese instruments. It is significant to note that the year 2002 was also the year when the Japanese government reintroduced traditional Japanese music into the public school system, which for over 120 years had been focused completely on Western music.

On November 4, 2023, the Chihan Art Project in Izu, Japan, presented a performance of six of the eight songs from the In the Gardens of Japan song cycle. The performance was recorded.

At the same event was the premiere of Alison O’Daniel’s short film shot on location with Kenny in the eight gardens.

Performers: Mika Kimula (voice), Yasuko Satō (koto), Christopher Yohmei (shakuhachi), Ōchi Kadowaki (noh flute), Nobuhiro Kaneko (shamisen),

The Gardens in Japan Song Cycle is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and the Chihan Art Project.

Disability Poetics is a series of short videos featuring poets reading their poetry and then discussing how their work relates to what constitutes Disability Poetics. Curated by Kenny Fries, including his video introduction, the ten selected disabled poets represent a diverse range of disabilities, generations, and backgrounds, creating both a virtual disability poetry community, as well as a resource for poets, disabled and nondisabled alike.

Disabilty Poetics features Kay Ulanday Barrett, Sheila Black, John Lee Clark, Meg Day, torrin a. greathouse, Cyrée Jarelle Johnson, Travis Chi Wing Lau, Stephen Kuusisto, Naomi Oritz, and L. Lamar Wilson.

Video production by Intrinsic Grey Productions.

The series was launched on October 24, 2023, with a free online event with Meg Day, Cyrée Jarelle Johnson, Stephen Kuusisto, and Naomi Oritz, moderated by Kenny. A recording of the launch event will be available soon.

The series is now available and you can access it here.

Disability Poetics Video Series Trailer

Disability Poetics Video Series Introduction

Disability Poetics is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and the Office of Interdisciplinary Programs and Outreach in the Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University.

A Picture of Health: Jo Spence, a Politics of Disability and Illness, is a multi-pronged project based on the work of UK photographer Jo Spence (1934-1992), and what curators Kenny Fries and Elisabeth Frost view as her influence and legacy on Disability Arts.

The project includes an online exhibit featuring the work of Jo Spence and artists and writers whose practices have an affinity with Spence. The artists and writers featured: (in alphabetical order): Navild Acosta and Fannie Sosa, Ezra Benus, Anne Boyer, Pelenakeke Brown, Yvonne Buchheim, Mary Cappello, Andrea Gibson, Suleika Joaud, Carolyn Lazard, Audre Lorde, Guadalupe Maravilla, Naomi Ortiz, Alicia Ostriker, Perel, Joey Solomon, Stephen L. Starkman, Simon Watney, and Alice Wong, In addition, there is information on the Cancer Care Collective.

As part of the project, there will be an online speaker series with Yvonne Buchheim (October 2); Pelenakeke Brown (October 23), and Simon Watney (November 15). The series will be recorded and eventually available on the exhibit website.

Jo Spence
In collaboration with Rosy Martin, Maggie Murray and Terry Dennett
The Picture of Health?
1982
Gelatin silver print photograph, C-Print and laminated press cuttings
54 elements of various dimensions
MACBA Collection. MACBA Foundation. Work purchased thanks to Banco Sabadell Foundation
© Jo Spence Memorial Archive, The Image Centre.

A Picture of Health: Jo Spence, a Politics of Disability and Illness is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and Fordham University.

Kenny curated this exhibit at the Schwules Museum Berlin:

“. . . both groups have managed to carve out rich and often joyful cultures in the face of oppression—as evidenced in this groundbreaking exhibition.” — Anne Finger, Art Agenda

Queering the Crip, Cripping the Queer

AN EXHIBIT ON QUEER/DISABILITY HISTORY, ACTIVISM, AND CULTURE

2 SEPTEMBER 2022 — 30 JANUARY 2023 EXTENDED AGAIN 29 MAY, 2023!

“ . . . raises questions about the ideals of beauty that have historically been embraced by queer people, demonstrating how contemporary artists are pushing at the limits of artistic media in order to change what it means to perceive beauty, pleasure and joy.” — Kevin Brazil, Frieze

"Venus de Milo (Aphrodite from Melos),” ca. 150- 125 BC,

“Self Portrait with Robert Andy Coombs in My Dorm Room," detail, 2019, © Joey Solomon, Manhattan, New York

“Queering the Crip, Cripping the Queer” is the first international exhibit exploring the multiple historical, cultural, and political intersections of queerness and disability.

Disability studies scholar Carrie Sandahl, who coined the phrase, writes: “sexual minorities and people with disabilities . . . share a history of injustice: both have been pathologized by medicine; demonized by religion; discriminated against in housing, employment, and education; stereotyped in representation; victimized by hate groups; and isolated socially, often in their families of origin.”

Disability and queer histories are similar, if not always parallel. Sometimes queers and the disabled acquiesce to the fantasy of “the ideal body,” but queer/disabled artists mostly counter it. The exhibition is to a large degree curated by queers and people with disabilities; the contemporary artists exhibited largely self-identify as disabled and queer. Sandahl points out, “Those who claim both identities may be best positioned to illuminate their connections, to pinpoint where queerness and ‘cripdom’ intersect, separate and coincide.”

The exhibit includes the work of over 20 contemporary international artists whose works speak to the historical themes and objects of the exhibit, and includes a selection of work by artists who created while institutionalized and whose works were collected by the Prinzhorn Collection in Heidelberg, as well as a section on important queer/disabled artist icons Lorenza Böttner, Raimund Hoghe, and Audre Lorde.

Visit the extended exhibit site for more about the exhibit, events, and access information.

Watch the virtual curatorial tour of “Queering the Crip, Cripping the Queer.”

There was an exhibit-related performance festival curated by Noa Winter at Sophiensaele from September 9 - 17, 2022.

Queering the Crip, Cripping the Queer
is supported by

in cooperation with the performance festival at Sophiensaele from September 9 - 17, 2022

in cooperation with

For the past two years, multidisciplinary artist Perel has been presenting this talk show throughout Germany featuring interviews with writer Kenny Fries. “Life unworthy of life” is an official designation used by the Nazi regime to decide who would be killed or spared. It was used to justify the killing of disabled people under the Aktion T4 program. Perel changed the construction of this term to create a space for the open discussion of legacies of oppression.

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, Perel and Kenny had to go virtual for their Chicago performance, produced by Bodies of Work. The video version is based on Perel and Kenny’s Zoom discussion with 11 eminent Chicago-based disability artists, scholars, and activists, about T4, eugenics and the coronavirus pandemic, and how best we might move forward as a community.

The video premiered on June 27, 2021.

Video: Life (Un)Worthy of Life, Season 3, Episode 1: Chicago and on the Zoom Ramp of the Universe

Life (Un)Worthy of Life: A Queer Dis/Crip Talk Show,
Season 3, Episode 1: Chicago and On the Zoom Ramp of the Universe
is supported by

“Disability Arts does not have a received canon. . . .This series will look at who and what disabled artists themselves look to, thus creating a legacy.”

— KENNY FRIES, "FILLING THE EMPTY CHAIR: AN INTRODUCTION TO "DISABILITY FUTURES IN THE ARTS"

"Disability Futures in the Arts," is a series of essays curated, edited, and introduced by Kenny. From 2020 - 2023, Wordgathering published 15 essays by disabled writers and artists working in different media. 

The first cohort includes essays by Chun-shan (Sandie) Yi, Travis Chi Wing Lau, Sandra Alland, Jerron Herman, and Noa Winter. Read and/or listen to the first cohort of essays and Kenny's series introduction here.

The second cohort includes essays by Pelenakeke Brown, Calvin Seretle Ratladi, Elsa Sjunneson, Syrus Marcus Ware, and Meg Day. Read and/or listen to the second cohort of essays and Kenny's introduction to the cohort here.

The third and final cohort includes essays by Emilie Louise Gossiaux, TJ Cuthand, Carolina Teixeira, Hana Madness, and a jointly written essay by Stephanie Alme and Tommy Carroll. Read and or listen to the third cohort of essays and Kenny’s introduction to the cohort here.

The entire series can be read and/or listened to here.

“This cohort makes inclusion, as it is usually understood, obsolete.”

— Kenny Fries, "Against Being Disappeared: On Disability Culture, 'Inclusion,' and Community," introduction to the second cohort

“. . . each essay tells a personal story but . . . also connects one’s body with the world in which our bodies live. As these essays attest, though there are challenges presented by our disabled bodies, what most challenges us as disabled artists and writers is the societies in which we live.”

— KENNY FRIES, “IN WHICH OUR NAMES DO APPEAR: OUR DISABLED BODIES AND THE BODY’S WORLD,” INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD COHORT

“Disability Futures in the Arts” is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts: