ABLE Assembly: Arts Better the Lives of Everyone 2021 | Theme: Intersectionality, Disability, and Arts Education
Sunday, April 11, 2021
Pre-recorded 20-minute Session: Coping with Hidden Identity: Creating Art to Address Workplace Isolation
Teachers are expected to fit dominant narratives of the workplace, typically characterized as white, male, middle class, able, heterosexual, and Christian. Teachers who don’t share these values tend to remain closeted, left to resolve inner conflict on their own, in favor of peaceful communities. This comes at a tremendous personal cost, negatively impacting teacher engagement and well-being. Presenters will discuss personal narratives of isolation and conflict in the workplace due to non-privileged identity statuses such as being neurodiverse, female, and having different religious beliefs that the norm. The demonstrated artmaking exercise and micro-resistances can help teachers process, clarify, and understand the intersectionality of their identity in relationship to environments in which they work, empowering teachers to cope with conflicting feelings which arise in everyday encounters. Through experimental writing and journaling, participants will learn skills to address this internal conflict, enabling them to coexist within their work environments.
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