wun·der·kam·mer
/ˈvo͝ondərˌkämər
The wheelchair is a visual statement of disability to most people.
It creates a readily accessible medical model of disability for observers. For myself, the user of the device, it provides a functional solution to a problem, it lets me be mobile.
I began creating images of wheelchairs a few years ago.
One way I used it was as a foundation for building small assemblages. I could bend and shape the realities of these imaginary objects in ways that I can not do with my mobility device. It opens a door to possibility. It allows me a voice.
In this intimate Wunderkammer the wheelchair becomes my subject of exploration. Here in the curiosity cabinet are several small rooms, each has different wheelchairs, each is a small theatre.
It is not the inaccessible world of unending hours invested in planning for mobility, of continuous mechanical failures, of the desexing of the rider, of the wet blanket of the perception of disability that shrouds us and begs to be ripped off.