Talk

MPS Art Therapy presents Sandie Yi, Ph.D., ATR-BC who will give this year's Valery Daniels Memorial Lecture—"Disability Culture-Informed Art Therapy Practice: Examining Ableism in the Field of Art Therapy."

This virtual presentation will focus on the epistemology of practices within the field of art therapy that may be implicitly ableist due to the social and cultural constructions of disability within the larger society. Yi, a disabled woman artist-scholar activist, whose work is rooted in disability studies and is influenced by art therapy training, examines the “overcoming narratives” and othering in art therapy. Yi interrogates the meaning of care and the role of “help” given to disabled people. She argues that the pervasive concept and definition of “healing” is imbued with ableism and that the role of the “healer” in the field of art therapy has been simplified, dramatized, fantasized and distorted to sustain white, heteronormative and non-disabled power structures in society. To remedy the lack of cultural, social and political spaces for disabled therapists to survive and thrive, Yi suggests alternative ways to envision the teaching and practice of art therapy.

Sandie Yi, Ph.D., ATR-BC is an assistant professor in the department of art therapy and counseling and the program director of Disability Culture Activism Lab (DCAL) at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). She has a Ph.D. in Disability Studies from the University of Illinois at Chicago, a MA in art therapy from SAIC and an MFA from the University of California Berkeley. She is a disabled artist and disability culture worker whose work focuses on wearable art made for and with self-identified disabled people. As a part of the Disability Art Movement, Yi’s art, Crip Couture explores the issue of intimacy, desire, and sexuality of the disabled body-mind. The latest rendition of Crip Couture researches and archives disability narratives by collecting bodily artifacts, including skin flakes and hair. Crip Couture aims to preserve and conserve disability culture and narratives as heritage. Her research interests include Disability Arts and Culture, accessibility design and programming for arts and cultural venues, disability fashion and social justice-based art therapy.

School of Visual Arts, MPS Art Therapy Department is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed creative arts therapists. #CAT-0054. 2.0 CE hours available for LCATs.