Irresistible Revolution: Black, Trans, and Disabled World-Making through Activist Portraiture

This practice-based dissertation project engages large-scale portraiture to confront and resist the fungibility of Blackness. The project comprises a selection of twenty drawings and an exegesis in which I analyze my aesthetic process in order to shed light on theoretical problems and gaps in Trans, Disability, Black studies and activisms. This collection of writing also discusses and presents activist struggle, white supremacy in the arts, abolitionist organizing and speculative futures. These theoretical explorations are supported by reflections on the collaborative creation process and the ways in which the portraits have been received. To this end, I have included interviews I conducted with the portrait subjects and through textual analysis of ways in which the portraits have been taken up in art and activist contexts. I argue that studying and supporting Black disabled activist practice can inform ways forward for disability arts in the Canadian milieu.