Drone Together | Steff Juniper

Steff(ania) Juniper is a third-generation, southern Italian-Canadian, white settler, residing in Tkaronto. They are a neurodivergent, sober queer, non-binary trans witch, a mad/disability justice worker, writer and sound artist. They have completed an arts-based MA in Critical Disability Studies at York University, titled “Trans-Feminist Witchcraft: A Psychiatric Survivor Narrative”. For years they have worked on Psychiatric Survivor advocacy, mostly out of the office of The Empowerment Council: A Voice for the Clients of CAMH. They create drone and sound art to bring voice to their experience of anger toward systems, especially carceral colonial institutions, under the title “Quivering”. Recently, they have participated in ReDefine Art’s “Inkling Incubator”, and The Cyborg Circus Project’s disability-led dance programming to deepen their passion for Disability Art and Performance in its connection to self-advocacy and surviving psychiatry and the medical system. Their piece “A Creature Untamed”, performed at The Rhubarb Festival in 2019, at Buddie’s in Bad Times Theatre has been conceived over years of imagining their embodiment as something other than its human form, and a world with alternatives to institutional violence. Steff is currently working on a PhD in Gender, Feminist and Women’s Studies at York University.

An audio recording of Steff Juniper’s drone workshop at the ReDefine Art’s “Inkling Symposium” on Saturday, April 27, 2019, which was a day of panels and performances on disability, equity and collaborative art making. Inkling was a series of workshops and events that explore intersectionality in the arts. The goal of the symposium was to find ways of centring disability and equity within collaborative art making. ReDefine Art’s statement on the symposium was that, “as an organization led by artists who embodied disabled and enabled experience, we often grapple with the pedagogy of inclusion: “Who is including who?” While methods of ‘access’ and ‘inclusion’ are often tacked on after an artwork has been created, Deaf and disabled artists and audiences are often positioned on the periphery. These concerns go to the root of how we create, which is to dismantle systemic barriers that limit the participation of many.” The impetus for Steff Juniper’s drone workshop was to include as many Deaf and disabled artists and audiences in a space together to create sound art to increase feelings of connectedness and belonging. How does the act of making and feeling sound together leave an impact? The hope was for building conversations and kinships in artistic practice and disability futures.

Biography

Steff(ania) Juniper is a third-generation, southern Italian-Canadian, white settler, residing in Tkaronto. They are a neurodivergent, sober queer, non-binary trans witch, a mad/disability justice worker, writer and sound artist. They have completed an arts-based MA in Critical Disability Studies at York University, titled “Trans-Feminist Witchcraft: A Psychiatric Survivor Narrative”. For years they have worked on Psychiatric Survivor advocacy, mostly out of the office of The Empowerment Council: A Voice for the Clients of CAMH. They create drone and sound art to bring voice to their experience of anger toward systems, especially carceral colonial institutions, under the title “Quivering”. Recently, they have participated in ReDefine Art’s “Inkling Incubator”, and The Cyborg Circus Project’s disability-led dance programming to deepen their passion for Disability Art and Performance in its connection to self-advocacy and surviving psychiatry and the medical system. Their piece “A Creature Untamed”, performed at The Rhubarb Festival in 2019, at Buddie’s in Bad Times Theatre has been conceived over years of imagining their embodiment as something other than its human form, and a world with alternatives to institutional violence. Steff is currently working on a PhD in Gender, Feminist and Women’s Studies at York University.

Artist Statement

An audio recording of Steff Juniper’s drone workshop at the ReDefine Art’s “Inkling Symposium” on Saturday, April 27, 2019, which was a day of panels and performances on disability, equity and collaborative art making. Inkling was a series of workshops and events that explore intersectionality in the arts. The goal of the symposium was to find ways of centring disability and equity within collaborative art making. ReDefine Art’s statement on the symposium was that, “as an organization led by artists who embodied disabled and enabled experience, we often grapple with the pedagogy of inclusion: “Who is including who?” While methods of ‘access’ and ‘inclusion’ are often tacked on after an artwork has been created, Deaf and disabled artists and audiences are often positioned on the periphery. These concerns go to the root of how we create, which is to dismantle systemic barriers that limit the participation of many”. The impetus for Steff Juniper’s drone workshop was to include as many Deaf and disabled artists and audiences in a space together to create sound art to increase feelings of connectedness and belonging. How does the act of making and feeling sound together leave an impact? The hope was for building conversations and kinships in artistic practice and disability futures.