AEPE Showcase Video Transcript Published: June 2023 Transcript and Captions by: Dustyn Krasowski-Olmstead Video found here: https://vimeo.com/838105561 Kay Slater 0:00 The Accessible, Exhibitions, Public Programming and Events project is a grant funded project that supports a radical development prototype, exploring access and accessible planning, community care and public programming, Disability Justice and non-hierarchical approaches to knowledge sharing and decision making. The cross departmental initiative provides leadership and labor to the grunt team as we explore access, justice, and care as an artist run centre. Vanessa Kwan 0:31 Hi, I'm Vanessa Kwan program director at grunt gallery located on the unceded lands and waters of Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil Waututh nations, otherwise known as Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. I am an Asian human, my pronouns are they and them. I have beige or brown skin. I have dark, very short hair kind of cropped close to my head, very animated eyebrows, and I’m wearing a white shirt today. And you probably see a black microphone clip to the top of my collar here. I'm sitting in a white room, there's a white wall visible behind me and not much else. From the very beginning, grunt was really devoted to presenting the work of artists and community members who were not getting a lot of play in the art scene here in Vancouver. And so over time, this questioning of what has currency and what is a valued overall art culture is something that has been always part of how grunt makes its choices and creates work and community. From the beginning, our mandate has always been to support artists in the diversity of their practices to engage audiences, and also to question very particularly the established hierarchies of cultural production. So just before the pandemic hit, we were having conversations within the staff team about accessibility and decided that we wanted to invest and kind of co-learn together around what that could mean, in terms of grunts operations and presentation. And so together as a staff team, we have had a lot of discussions and made a lot of like, asked a lot of questions, really, I think it also we're really conscious of the level of curiosity, but also, I would say, interruption and not a little bit of fear around the particular moment of that pandemic, like the early months of the pandemic, were actually super scary for so many of us, and I think one of the things that gave us a lot of purpose, was the idea of working together to figure out answers to some of the questions we were asking. We ended up coming up with the idea of focusing on co-learning and accessibility and really relying on knowledge within the staff team of what were some initial realizable first steps to making sure that our programs were being a little bit more accessible to a wider public, it became a real opportunity for us. So we wrote grants, and working with Kay, they designed a series of really incredible workshops that were presented through the summer and fall and a little bit into 2021, which were around captioning and non-auditory access to presentation in online media. And so we had a huge uptake to these, we realized that this was something that people in the art sector were really, really keen to learn. And this kind of focus on tangible first steps was really important for us. So that kind grew into what I think we have envisioned as a much longer term project, which has as its goal creating accessible first steps and also opening up our own organization about the sector at large to really considering what accessibility means at all levels of our production. And so for my part, and for the part of grunt, I think, because audience engagement is so much a part of our mandate, it's really become clear that anything to do with engagement at any point is about accessibility. And that's something that we're going to carry forward from here on out. Keimi Nakashima-Ochoa 3:54 Hey, my name is Keimi Nakashima-Ochoa. And I'm here at the grunt space today. I have a short, sort of messy buzzed hair, I have large brown glasses that are a shape of an octagon on the outside, and a circle on the inside. I have a round face, I'm pretty racially ambiguous. And today I'm wearing a dark blue shirt that's sort of loose and baggy. And I'm sitting in front of a white background. I've joined the grunt team pretty recently. I've come on as a grunt team member, since January 2022. And have been working with the grunt team in our AEPE department. I've been focusing mostly on the events. So I’m sort of like the events and access manager. I've been really excited to have a lot of leeway and a lot of input and trust into what we do. Space for dreaming has been really exciting to do and how quickly we can get things moving has been really exciting as well. Just sort of like being able to build momentum through that trust. And that really creative energy has been, yeah, a really exciting part of this AEPE project. Kay Slater 5:02 I'm Kay Slater, I use they/them pronouns. I'm a white person in a black shirt with white handcuffs that are crying, black pants, and I have gray hair that is shaved on the sides. My lips are pierced, as is my nose. And I have excellent facial hair and kind of yellow teeth. I've been here at grunt for about three years now. And it's been really excellent to be in conversation with the team about things that I've learned, things that I heard from other audience, other artists, and other galleries. And what's been really spectacular has been how open and accepting this team and all of the artists that we hosted have been to making changes. And by changes, sometimes it's just as small as adding a map with 16 point font, trying to ensure that all of our materials are high contrast so that people can read it easier. And it really is about an experience. And it's just been a really lovely experience to be here at grunt as we are exploring what access means together. Thursdays are still hosted by Kay Slater and will be voice off. Sound will be played low with English captions. Communicate by text, ASL, or step outside of the gallery to remove masks for lip reading. We are continuing our low sensory and voice off Thursday experiment to provide alternative access to our exhibitions in 2023. We continue to be committed to a low scent space on Thursday, but also know that the smell of the screen material is strong. So please be advised. We will face the fear of the unknown by naming our fear. This allows us to be vulnerable and human in this process designed for care. It may appear that we are on the cutting edge. But really we're just trying to make space for change and to listen to our community. Keimi Nakashima-Ochoa 7:23 We will face the fear of making a mistake. I think it's fair to say that a lot of art institutions or art leaders are expected or expect themselves to be really knowledgeable and like experts on everything. And I think that part of what we're trying to do with this project is to move away from that. Being open to other people’s expertise, knowing that there’s not going to be one knowledge holder that is able to cover everything and meet everybody’s needs is really important to us. We're really excited to learn quickly and to get feedback from people. We want to listen with immediacy just giving a level of importance to the feedback that is always such a gift and so generous and we’re really excited to hear more and to practice different things, and that's gonna mean that we're not going to get it right every time. But that's kind of the exciting and creative part of all of this. ♪ [ faint drum noise ] ♪ And while this work is really radical and exciting for us, we also don't necessarily want to celebrate. Ideally, everybody who is sort of inspired or excited by what we're doing, can copy it and can do their own version of it with their own relevant folks. And we don't want this to be something that is solely grunt and solely exciting for us. We want this to be as widespread as possible, ideally. Vanessa Kwan 8:47 We will face the fear of giving power and trust to others. I think one of the things that I've learned about being within an institutional structure is that we're very used to hierarchical methods of decision making. So often, there's folks at the top who have generally more responsibility and sometimes more risk. And so there's a real reluctance to take risks from those positions. And so when we decide to give approval, it becomes something that we're personally afraid of giving, because we are implicated in what those actions mean. And I think one of the things about this department and what we’re kind of trying to experiment with, is opening up spaces where folks can make decisions on their own, and also know and trust that those decisions are going to be supported whether or not they are quote-unquote successful or not. So I think it’s about making room to change and to shift and to grow. And those are the things that I think as institutions we really need to start doing, because we are kind of locked in a system that is actually quite fearful. And so change can happen within that particular affect of state as individuals or as larger institutions. And I think this is our attempt to kind of shift and change that. Keimi Nakashima-Ochoa 10:03 Some cool things we've done so far are: * Checking off the compliance checklist and going beyond. * Creative access tours. * Community access training. * Queer ASL 101 for current staff. * Prioritizing captions and transcripts as base access for all media. * Prototyping low-sensory and voice-off days. * Accessible meeting formats. * Non-auditory access workshops. * Catalog considerations. * And sharing and learning with artists and incorporating community feedback. * Hybrid hosting workshops. * Ongoing learning around visual descriptions and non visual experience. * Tactile residency. * And C-care. If you have questions for us or would like to learn more, you can email access@grunt.ca to reach our team. That's a-c-c-e-s-s@grunt dot ca. You can also visit us at grunt.ca online to learn more about our upcoming events, AEPE initiatives and our forthcoming exhibition schedule. 11:21 ( grunt logo with brushstrokes sounds )