Cognitive Disability Aesthetics by Fraser Benjamin;

Author:Fraser, Benjamin;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Toronto Press

It may be important to underscore that María has come to drawing in the same way as artists who may not experience cognitive disability – through time, opportunity, practice, support, and ultimately the benefit of an artistic community that connects her with others. Through the publication of María cumple 20 años, readers of the graphic novel can also form part of María’s artistic community. (Interestingly, she is already recognized as a cultural celebrity of sorts, as indicated on 2015: 3). The inside front and back covers of the volume are key to understanding how this comic’s core is constituted by María’s drawing – and also to the interpretation of María’s drawing. The faces she draws are featured on the front and back inside covers, but only on the back inside cover do names accompany each face. In this way, the composition of the volume as a whole stages for readers the insight that Marco, above, has regarding her drawings (2015: 35). Seeing the front inside cover, readers may not understand what the images are; but on completing the graphic novel and seeing the back inside cover, they participate in a “reveal” that recapitulates Marco’s hermeneutic discovery of the meaning of the drawings. Together, these inside front and back covers convey the progression from unknown to known, or put another way, they present the story of the discovery of María’s engagement with iconic representation as both an engagement with others in a common activity and more specifically as a form of communication.

In the most recent comics text authored by María Gallardo and Miguel Gallardo, it is iconic drawing that serves as the explicit link between people. Artistic production thus stands as a symbol of the potential of collaboration, as well as testament to the power of collective acts and collective imaginaries to bring people together. This chapter has explored two very different contexts in which cultural and artistic production has been linked, whether more or less effectively, to deeply rooted patterns of social marginalization surrounding cognitive disability. One of these testified to the limitations and the potential of large-scale events to address the social and urban marginalization of developmental disability, and the other explored a small-scale cultural product focused on the value of art as a way of building family and community connections supportive of experiences of developmental disability. Both of these attempts centre on the notion of visibility, and both underscore the value of collaboration for populations with severe cognitive impairments. Returning to this chapter’s epigraph penned by Michael Bérubé, we must remember that “the dynamics of disability compel us to recognize that there will always be among us people who cannot represent themselves and must be represented” (2005: 572).37 Cognitive Disability Aesthetics is a call for disability scholars in general to recognize something they may have been slow to acknowledge – that not all people with disability can represent themselves in the ways required by ableist norms of individualism and ability. That said, I believe that the contexts explored in this chapter suggest another option outside of the represent-or-be-represented binary.

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