Visual Impairment as a Resource: An Interdisciplinary Study of the Work of Artists with a Personal Experience of Visual Impairment in Mexico in the Field of Literature, Performing Arts and Plastic Arts

In mainstream thinking about disability, whether in a medical, political or cultural context, disability is usually presented as a negative phenomenon. Most discussions around it focus on how to prevent, cure or at least reduce its negative impact on the individual and society. Trying to overcome this trend, this dissertation intends to explore creative possibilities generated by a personal experience of disability. Abandoning the dominant point of view on disability as a pathology and thinking about disability as a natural part of human diversity is a principle of disability studies that forms a theoretical framework for this study. Informed by the recent trends in this field, this dissertation proposes to think about disability as a resource to create new epistemological and practical qualities. I argue that it is especially visible in the field of art and particularly interesting to examine in cultural areas that have not gained a lot of attention from disability studies scholars to date. Therefore, I investigate how artists with a personal experience of visual impairment explore and refer to their disability in their creative work and I locate my inquiry in Mexico. The main research goal of this study is to investigate how artists with a personal experience of visual impairment in Mexico manage their disability in navigating between sensory knowledge, personal artistic vision, creative process, disabled identity, and access. The main research question of this study is then: can visual impairment be interpreted as a resource and if so, under what circumstances? The understanding of the term “artist” can be very broad, but in my study, I focus on fields of literature, performing arts and plastic arts. My understanding of the notion of resource is broad as well. It is a concept coming from economics, but also widely used in sociology and psychology. The definition adopted in this study draws on all of these disciplines. I explore various aspects of the notion of resource such as productivity, relationality, and subjectivity. It means that, on the one hand, I examine the variety of original aesthetic proposals resulting from an individual experience of visual impairment, but on the other hand, I also ponder on circumstances that enable generating these new qualities. I put these considerations in the context of art, but also strongly ground them in the current discussion about defining disability itself. I adopt my own definition of resource as any individual circumstance; physical, social, mental or psychological characteristic, property or ability; personal experience or knowledge; possessed or accessed by an individual that helps him or her in achieving the desired result. I argue that for the purpose of proper investigation of the concept of disability as a resource in artistic work, it is necessary to study both an artistic product and a creative process. Achieving this goal requires applying various methodologies, each of which allows one to reveal different aspects of the investigated theme. That is why, in my study, I combine qualitative research with literary analysis. Qualitative research understood as fieldwork among selected artists with visual impairment, on the practical level, gives me an insight into their methods of working, and on the level of theoretical reflection, it helps me understand their approach to their own disability. It also helps to familiarize myself with the general socio-cultural context of disability in Mexico and the personal socio-cultural background of selected artists. The qualitative research was carried out between December 2020 and December 2022 and was divided into two stages: online interviews and on-site research. During the first stage (between December 2020 and August 2022), I concentrated on extensive interviews that were enriched by online materials, such as digital registration of the performances of some of my interlocutors, press articles, and descriptions of their artworks available on various Internet services and social networks. During the second stage of the fieldwork (between 14 October and 14 December 2022), I met in person all of the previously interviewed interlocutors and I also managed to interview some more artists. I interviewed 13 people in total. I spent most of my research stay in Mexico City, with short periods spent in Oaxaca and Guadalajara interviewing artists living there. During the on-site research, I participated in several rehearsals and performances of my interlocutors. I also visited the studios of some of them and visited museums and galleries where their works were exhibited. The application of literary analytical tools enables the detailed examination of literary works by selected writers with personal experiences of visual impairment that are conceived as special cases of artistic products. The literary analysis facilitates a meditation on the particularities of the non-ocular centric language of narration and details of the character construction that are grounded in the personal experiences of the discussed authors. The literary analysis focuses on the writings of two Mexican authors with a personal experience of visual impairment: Guadalupe Nettel and Maricarmen Grau Huesca. The former one has an eye condition from her childhood and, as a consequence, she sees just with one eye. She refers to visual impairment in two of her novels: El Huesped 2006 [The Guest] and El cuerpo en el que naci (2011), translated into English as The Body Where I Was Born (2015). The latter one was blind for almost half of her life due to glaucoma which has affected her vision since childhood. She refers to the theme of her blindness in the collection of short stories entitled Mirar Mirandome (2019). And there are these three books that are the subject of the literary analysis conducted in this dissertation. The dissertation is divided into three parts. The first part explains the theoretical framework of the study, introduces the investigated material and explains the adopted methods of the research. Chapter 1 provides a short introduction to the principles of disability studies. It is mainly dedicated to the overview of various ways of understanding disability framed in the concept of models of disability. I also explore there the particularities of visual impairment in relation to previously discussed models of disability and I introduce the concept of negative and positive disability studies. In chapter 2 I introduce the key concept for this study, namely the resource. I shortly present its history in the social sciences and define my own understanding of it that is adopted in this research. Further, I explain why I am convinced that it is a powerful concept for the investigation of disability. I also ponder on its possible limitations and risks related to using it in the field of disability studies. In chapter 3 I present the methodology adopted in this study which is composed of two parallel elements: literary analysis and ethnographic research. I introduce selected literary works and explain my choice, I also present my interlocutors and describe my methods of work in order to gain and subsequently analyze research material. In chapter 4 I sketch the functioning of visual impairment in both the Western culture and the field of disability studies. In chapter 5 I pass to a specific context of Latin America and particularly of Mexico. I present the demographic data, legal regulations and sociocultural context of the functioning of persons with visual impairment in this place. The chapter is concluded with a review of scientific literature exploring the theme of disability in the Latin American context. The subsequent parts of the dissertation are dedicated to presenting and analyzing collected research material. The second part consists of three chapters and is devoted to the literary analysis of works by selected authors. Chapter 6 is concerned with drawing the very broad spectrum of ways of representation of characters with visual impairment in Latin American literature with a special emphasis on the phenomena that are typical for the literature of this region. These considerations serve as a kind of introduction to two subsequent chapters. In chapter 7 I examine the 2019 collection of short stories by a Mexican blind author Maricarmen Grau Huesca Mirar Mirandome. The main question discussed here is how the author uses her “blind knowledge” and particular experience in constructing the non-ocular narrative. Chapter 8 is dedicated to the analysis of two novels by another Mexican writer Guadalupe Nettel: 2006 El Huesped [The Guest] and 2011 El cuerpo en el que naci [The Body I Was Born 2015]. The central theme here is the ambiguous situation of a person with low vision who belongs neither to the blind nor to the sighted community. The third part also involves an analysis concerning the findings of the qualitative study. By analogy to the previous part, the initial chapter 9 here also serves as a kind of introduction to further considerations. It introduces important concepts of blindness art and briefly discusses the relationship between blindness and art across the centuries. Chapter 10 investigates the phenomenon of blind acting and blind directing. It is based mainly, but not exclusively, on interviews with members of the Teatro Ciego MX, a theater company formed by blind actors that work in Mexico City. Focusing on my interviews with members of the troops and observation of their work during rehearsals and performances, I explore how disability could be used as a resource in theatrical work. The last chapter of this part is dedicated to the study of disability as a resource in plastic arts focusing on photography and painting. I pay particular attention to issues related to accessibility and collaborative effort in the creation and reception of art. The dissertation ends with conclusions. In sum, this dissertation aims to investigate the phenomenon of art created by artists with visual impairment and its impact on the whole field of art. Using the concept of disability as a resource it strives to explain the subversive mechanisms of functioning of non normative bodies in the field of literature, performing arts and plastic arts. By exploring the implications of the idea of disability as a resource based mainly on the embodied unique knowledge resulting from disability, it fits in with the trend of returning to the bodily dimension of disability postulated by several disability studies scholars. It also contributes to the development of this part of the field that focuses on exploring positive and empowering aspects of disability.