January 22, 1:30 PM–3:00 PM
Franklin Street Works is offering a Verbal Description tour of our current exhibition Otherwise Obscured: Erasure in Body and Text on Wednesday, January 22 from 1:30 – 3pm. Blind individuals and those with low vision are invited to experience our current exhibition through a variety of sensory engagement. To join the tour or sign up people from your organization please email or call our creative director at terri@franklinstreetworks.org or her cell: 203-253-0404.
For these tours, we are fortunate to have a seasoned educator trained at the Brooklyn Museum, Ezra Benus, working with Franklin Street Works. Attendees will explore our current exhibition with a verbal description tour designed for blind individuals and those with low vision. The hour-long tour will feature evocative descriptions of videos, paintings, and sculptures and tactile exercises with one or two works. There is also a commissioned sound work by Jennif(f)er Tamayo in the exhibition that we will listen to and discuss.
Tours are made possible with the support of the Department of Economic and Community Development and the ARTE-Accessible grant.
THE EXHIBITION
Our original group show is “Otherwise Obscured: Erasure in Body and Text” which is curated by Danilo Machado and features contemporary art that blurs distinctions between obscuring and revealing, and show how acts of erasure can uphold and subvert authority. In part, the show is sparked by persistent questions, such as: When systems of oppression demand legibility from marginalized bodies, can illegibility become resistance?; Can erasure expose the flimsiness of language, especially that which is coded with “authority”?
PDF of the exhibition Catalog / ACCESSIBILITY STATEMENT
ABOUT OUR TOUR GUIDE
Ezra Benus is an artist, educator, and access worker. Most recently Ezra was the Access and Adult Learning Fellow at the Brooklyn Museum, and consulted on access and disability arts for art organizations such Eyebeam and Hunter College Art Galleries. As a disabled artist, educator, and cultural worker he has experience to the barriers of cultural spaces and working in the arts. Personal experiences informed his art practice and understanding of the critical importance of disability leadership, representation, and accessibility in the public and cultural sphere. Ezra is committed to creating discourse and change in exclusionary cultural value systems and structures that affect marginalized groups, by keeping the intersections of disability at the nexus all work. His work is recognized and mentioned in i-D Vice, The New York Times, and Sight Line Magazine. He has given talks and workshops on disability arts and accessibility at: Princeton University, York College Fine Art Gallery, CUE Art Foundation.