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Art Exhibition: Illuminating a Hidden Narrative

Exploring how youth with disabilities navigate sexuality across healthcare settings

Welcome to our digital art exhibition!

Due to COVID-19, the physical art exhibition has been postponed to a later date, please stay tuned!

pdf-iconArt Exhibition Announcement

About the Exhibition 

Welcome to the Illuminating exhibition. Illuminating is a physical and digital art exhibition that shows how young adults living with disabilities in Toronto feel about navigating their sexuality in healthcare settings. The young adults involved were aged 18 – 25 and identified as living with a visible or invisible disability.

This exhibition was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada’s Connection Program and the Kimel Family Opportunities Fund through the Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital Foundation. The Illuminating exhibition is part of a broader series of activities, including a Connection Day on April 28th, 2021. The Connection Day will bring together young adults with disabilities, parents of children with disabilities, healthcare providers, researchers, and other community members to share information about sexuality and disability, identify topics needing more research, and discuss how we can start creating resources on sexuality and disability. The day will include both research and lived experience talks, small-group discussions, and art activities. Afterward, we will hold Creation Workshops to start designing the resources in more detail.

Aims of Illuminating

The broad aim of the Illuminating exhibition is to reduce the stigma surrounding sexuality for youth with disabilities so it can become a more accepted discussion in healthcare settings.

We would like like you to view the artistic creations and consider how you think about disability and sexuality. As well, our team wanted to convey the importance of Illuminating being a safe space where
everyone feels accepted and respected. We hope we have created a space that is anti-ableist, anti-homophobic, and decolonizing. Feel free to come to the space as you are.

Through the exhibition, we have provided questions for you to reflect upon.

Reflection Questions

Please reflect on your own experience navigating your sexuality within a healthcare settings. Did you have any success? Did you face any barriers? What sexuality resources do you wish you could have had
at the time?

What do we mean by 'Sexuality'?

The World Health Organization describes sexuality as a core component of human nature and a human right. Sexuality includes how people view themselves and others, feelings about their body, respecting diversity, consent, and developing healthy relationships (including friendships). Sexuality does not just refer to sexual intercourse and reproduction.

pdf-iconAbout the Exhibit
Digital Art Exhibition
Play VideoVideo Introduction Image
Video Introduction
Please click on the link below to watch an introductory video for the Illuminating art exhibition.
Illuminating Art Exhibition Video
art 1
Broken Chain
This piece represents gender and sexual identity performative freedom. Disabled individuals are not held up to the same standards of masculinity or femininity on the gender spectrum. We are not seen in the ways that typically develop folks are. Those social chains are broken, allowing us to formulate our own gender and sexual identity more freely. In addition, my experience as a wheelchair user and a disabled individual in general has caused me to be much more in touch with my physicality because of my experience as an actor and having to consistently monitor my body for healthcare. The wheelchair also acts as a screening process for potential romantic and sexual partners. It turns away those who would reject me for simply being disabled and helps me identify those who only want to date me for being as such.
-Wesley
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art 2
Pure like a Flower
Purity. Pure like a flower. Save your virginity, protect your innocence. Women are led to believe that our moral compass lies somewhere between our legs. At 16, the doctors ask, "are you sexually active? Wait, never mind you're too young anyway." Ashamed, promiscuous and undesirable. While free protections are given out to young boys, young girls are taught to stay pure.
Purity. The notion that controls and exploits women. Men get praised, women get told to close their legs. She’s either pure or she’s not, and if she’s not? She’s indecent. But this is my body, I have control. Whoever I'm with is not your concern. Women-shaming is an internalized oppression. Sexual double standards established by men. Men aren't praised for 'saving themselves.' So why are we?
-Shehrin
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art 3
The Interwoven
These colourful installations reflect my experiences as a person with disability and identifying on the LGBTQ spectrum. Bright and dark colours represent my mixed feelings towards navigating sexuality and sexual wellness in healthcare settings, the interwoven lines build a tight network but often there are uncomfortable struggles during interactions due to misunderstandings from each healthcare professional. Despite any negativity, I try to stay optimistic that further education and discussion about these issues will build more awareness among the healthcare community and would become more accepting of differences.
-Jade
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art 4
Lifeless
Lifeless is how I feel
Alone in the forest of my mind I can’t heal
Thoughts attack me like a machine gun
I feel as though I have to run
But I can’t, my mind will not let me be
Even finding love is a challenge for me
But there is always hope even when morale is gone
Like a ray from the most golden sun
I will always fight no matter what
Even if my mind will never hush
Lifeless is how I feel
-Orlando
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art 5
Individual
As a person with a disability, I live my life with the knowledge and unfortunate understanding that people will have their biases and stereotypes about me. They will group me as a “person with a disability” without firstly acknowledging that I am an individual. This is no different in any environment I put myself in, but when it comes to a healthcare experience, this is where I am most surprised. For me, growing up, I was taught that I could be anything I want to be and achieve any goal I put my mind to – from graduating school, travelling the world, independence, lifelong friendships, and even a healthy, positive relationship. The only thing I was not told was as soon as you think about or set being in a relationship as a goal to a healthcare provider, they will have all these biases and stereotypes projected on to you as if that is a foreign concept and try to convince you that you should not pursue one. With this photo, I wanted to inspire the idea in others that while you may be a person or a couple with a disability, that a healthy, fulfilling, and happy long-term relationship is possible (and should be normalized). And that it is possible, despite the biases people may have.
-Effie
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art 6
Gender Stereotypes
This project was really interesting. I am doing this project because I notice there is such a stigma with disabilities and sexuality. Society tells us that people with disabilities cannot be sexual beings and thus cannot have intimate relationships. I feel that healthcare professionals are uncomfortable talking about sexuality to youth with disabilities because they feel like it is taboo - because society tells us it is. The themes of my projections are gender and disability stereotypes. My first photo is one of a soccer ball and a pair of Dolce & Gabbana glasses. I chose this photo because society tells us that soccer is a “male” sport and Dolce & Gabbana is a “female” brand and I wanted to show that females like soccer too. My second photo is of a painting one of my friends did and gave me. It depicts a young female with a physical disability writing in her journal. I chose this photo because I wanted to dispel the myth that people with disabilities are incapable of having normal relationships. As a youth with a disability, I often get shut out when I talk about my plans to have a family and instead tell me that I should not have a family either because of my disability or because it is not normal to have or want a family in 2021. I want health professionals to know that youth with disabilities need and want the same things that other people need and want.
-Alex
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art 7
Trans & Sexy
Trans & Sexy. well, yeah? Why wouldn’t it be? Unfortunately, this is not everyone’s perception. Especially, if you are like me and happen to be living with a multi-layered. I am both Trans and Disabled; which means I often have experiences with professionals in healthcare where they only focus on one part of who I am and not how all of my identities intersect. Trans folx and especially people who are disabled and Trans do not receive the same sexual health education and treatment as cis gendered/able-bodied people do. Trans folx and disabled people have a right to receive information about their bodies that corresponds with their lived realities. Trans/disabled people are sexy. We are sexy because of our resilience, The button, “Trans & Sexy” found its way to me about a month after I started my medical transition. I found it laying on the street and the message is one that I try to remember every day. I’m not only sexy because I’m an advocate for myself and others. I’m sexy because I am Trans; I am Disabled and all of those things make me who I am.
-Logan
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art 8
Poison
I hate the boy who turned your lips to poison the guy who put his own impulses first and then told the world that those who commit his crimes are liable to change, because of course he’s not to be blamed and you aren’t a talker, I’ve watched them hurt you, and I know I’d be scared too because bruises aren’t just red, and blue, and purple and green and blood can only run for so long, but I know how much you crave the shower floor I feel like a watcher, not a saviour, I’m helpless. I have a heart, and blood like you and bruises of my own so maybe I should just start drinking and then I asked to taste the poison. yet you stopped me so abruptly I couldn’t help but be selfish enough to think that it was personal it’s been a while. and since then I’ve signed the 3 worded contract with another accomplice because for once in my life, I gave up, and then again I gave in and in the end I’ll probably lose the game, but I’ll forever envy the addict who gets to choke on your blood and poison.
-Tai
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