How art is changing the politics of disability

Official title: ‘Agonistic Bodies: How Disability Art Reshapes Disability Politics’

Andries Hiskes investigates how artists and activists with disabilities are developing new forms of political action. In public life, political participation is often a matter of bodily control: citizens are expected to speak clearly, move smoothly, and present themselves as coherent, self directed actors. Disabilities are therefore frequently understood as a barrier to political life—a sign that someone cannot fully participate. Yet disabled artists and activists demonstrate the opposite.

When bodies behave in unexpected ways, they unsettle the norms of political action, revealing how these norms exclude those who do not fit them. Rather than signalling failure, such moments can generate new forms of collective presence and agency, exemplified by disabled protesters who crawled up the steps of the US Capitol on hands and knees to demand civil rights.

Andries Hiskes investigates how disabled embodiment transforms the meaning of political action across different cultural practices, from mixed-ability dance and performance to disability protest and contemporary art. He addresses a persistent blind spot in political theory, which has largely privileged reason and autonomy while ignoring how disabled bodies participate.

Researcher

Andries Hiskes

Partners

• Dance company Misiconi
• Dance company Lien Danstheater

Financing

Veni grant from Dutch Research Council NWO.