Advance book previews Contributor QuotesPam Patterson
"While not denying that there is some pleasure in what I do, pleasure per se is not my motivation. I am a woman with painful disabilities living with cancer challenges. Grappling with the means to survive, to thrive, to engage, to act is what drives me. "
"I wanted to reinvestigate my own photo-based performative work in order to consider the problematic of maker/viewer perception and the possibilities for social and cultural change. I focused first on Travelling, a web flash exhibition which depicted, through moving stills, my journey across different terrain and through changing seasons from London, UK, to Prince Edward County and Toronto, Ontario, and finally to St. John’s, Newfoundland. Travelling Body Worlds the title of the “performance” from which this exhibition was drawn, was actually a series of conversations on performance, disability, and health that I had with colleagues in Ontario, academics and access theatre professionals in London, and community health advocates in St. John’s."
"I “performed” these conversations while walking barefoot out through snow to the Toronto International Airport, standing on wet North London streets, wading in the Bloomfield Mill Pond, and hiking at the edge of a cliff in Newfoundland. As I was the photographer and the subject was me, the only part of me that I could consistently see to photograph was my feet. So the images used in the web flash exhibit are of my feet in these various settings. What is not visible though is the pain in my limbs and the exhaustion on my face. The conversations, the frustrations, and the elations are also not recorded. But, could Travelling allow for another way of reading performances of pain, suffering, and disability? Not everyone can see performances. Many are site specific and budget limitations can make touring difficult. Videos can be easily distributed and on-line images and sites provide greater access. Can these images recall the performance and/or enrich our understanding? "
