CRIP COLLAB is a collaborative zine featuring artists who belong to all three of these fantastic communities: Disabled, Racialized and 2SLGBTQ+. This zine is curated by a multiply disabled, chronically ill, cancer survivor named Pree Rehal.
2023: Pree Rehal joins as Luminato Artist In Residence
2022: CRIP COLLAB Issue #4 (see below)
2021: CRIP COLLAB Issue #3
How do we imagine the futurities when our lived realities as Disabled/crip/mad/chronically ill folks are compounded with constant reminders of mortality? CRIP COLLAB Issue 4 is about CRIP FUTURES. This zine is an entry point to a portal where our stories are in conversation with one another to highlight how they can be ripe with messiness, simple joys, and crip time.
This zine was curated by Pree Rehal.
Pree is a multiply disabled, chronically ill, cancer survivor who belongs to the Panjabi diaspora.
Learn more about Pree Rehal
Crip as a term is a reclaimed slur, that is used by disabled folks. Self-identifying as a crip comes from learning about disability justice, disability pride, and finding disabled community. Not all disabled folks identify as crips, but it’s a term that feels good to me.
– Pree, CRIP COLLAB Curator
Inexplicable Maze
Acrylic on Canvas Diptych
Image Description: Inexplicable Maze is an abstract painting composed of two canvas panels that are hung side by side with a one inch gap between them. Each canvas is painted black and is covered in a collection of varying white shapes, lines, and indiscernible symbols.
Artist Bio: It is a piece based on duality. It is a self-portrait of my Bipolar Disorder as a Black woman, as well as a reflection of society’s systemic barriers. As a self-portrait, it speaks to my Blackness, my mental health, and my navigation for accessibility. As a societal reflection, it speaks to the arbitrary rules and borders put in place that at first glance, appear to make sense and have order, but upon further inspection and interaction, these borders are seen as part of a bigger system that is made to confuse, abuse, and confine those who are marginalized. This painting illustrates both the frustrations of navigating one’s own mental health, and the fact that this world was not built for me, and others marginalized like me, it was built in spite of us, causing us to navigate life literally and figuratively within the margins.
community/connection
Digital
Image Description: An orange and tan ringed planet sits at an angle in the middle of a teal background with tan speckles resembling stars. Overlaid on the top of the ring is text reading “Community” and on the bottom of the ring is text reading “Connection”. The planet is shaded in a gradient of pointillism. The entire piece appears to be aged or weathered.
Artist Bio: Aron Shaw is a Black, queer, autistic, disabled, transmasculline wheelchair user. Born near Nogojiwanong, Ojibwa (Peterborough, ON) they currently live and work in Kjipuktuk, Mi’kma’ki (Halifax, NS). New to the world of digital art much of their practice is based in textile work and abstract acrylic painting. Much of their digital art specifically focuses on the ideals and visuals of Retro-Futurism and mid-century Science Fiction.
Gut Flora by Namitha Rathinappillai
Digital Media
Image Description: A poem titled “Gut Flora,” written in the shape of the gastrointestinal tract.
Artist Bio: Namitha Rathinappillai (she/they) is a queer, Tamil-Canadian spoken word poet, artist, and writer who has entered the poetry community in 2017. She is currently based in Toronto, and was the first female and youngest director of Ottawa’s Urban Legends Poetry Collective (ULPC). They are a two-time Canadian Festival of Spoken Word (CFSW) team member with ULPC, and they published their first chapbook titled ‘Dirty Laundry’ with Battleaxe Press in November of 2018. In 2019, they won the RBC Youth Ottawa Spirit of the Capital Award for Arts and Culture. You can find more at namitharathinappillai.com.
The Stages of Growth and Change by Dolly Roul
Pencil and ink pen
Image Description: In the middle of this art piece there’s a mandala in the form of a flower representing ourselves growing. On the top right there’s an infinite line that goes all over the place in that corner and kind of surrounds messily and embrace fully (which represents how messy and beautiful life and every paths and decisions we take can be) the shadow of a woman/her soul while she is holding and protecting a ball, her energy. On the bottom left there’s another mandala in the form of a circle with 5 eyes, 3 of them are crying and the other 2 are not. And that’s because a lot of us were told not to cry when we were younger but a huge part of growth is letting go, grieving and sometimes even crying which is totally okay. In the middle of the circle mandala there’s also a star which represents protection and guidance.
Artist Bio: I am a Black female artist, born and raised in Canada with ancestry from Martinique (a French Caribbean Island). As a young Black woman and a second-generation Canadian, I use my art to express the issues that I experience such as racism, culture clash, mental health issues and much more. My art is a part of me; It is emotional and personal. It is my way to express things that I cannot fully explain with words.
Liberty by Aly McDonald
Acrylic paint, raw canvas
Image Description: Expressive acrylic nude figure against a bold black background. Colours of red, brown, and silver merge together to bring to life a seated nude figure on the ground, leg crossed in-front of themselves firmly. Breasts exposed, bright silver nipples. The figure appears to be confidentially deteriorating into the black background by their strong silver shoulder flaking, floating.
Artist Bio: Aly McDonald is a young mentally ill individual focusing on nudity and self discovery, navigating emotions and body autonomy through art.
Seed
Poetry
Image Description: A poem titled “Seed”, written in black text on a white background
Artist Bio: Sheri Osden Nault is a Métis visual artist, community activist, and educator. They work across mediums including sculpture, performance, beading, Indigenous tattoo revival, and more. Their work speaks to their experiences as Métis and queer, while focused on human and non-human relationships in a multitude of ways. Sheri currently lives and creates on the lands of the Anishinaabek Nation, home of the 3-fires confederacy, and near the Delaware Nation; in a region known as ‘Chatham-Kent, Ontario.’
Coming Home
Acrylics, snake shed (real snake shed),
beaded tail with real beads beaded onto felt.
Some glitter and glow paint.
Image Description: A deep green canvas with a golden snake with a beaded rattle on the tail as well as real snake shed on the drawing. A porthole in the middle of the canvas with a snow and a tipi with the northern lights in the sky.
Artist Bio: Hope Adler is a 26 year old Two Spirit person born in Tkaronto. They have been doing art since they could walk or write beginning art lessons at age 4 they continued to do art till today. This new piece is dabbling in mixed media with use of snakeskin from an indigenous snake and beading a tail. Today Hope now does different forms of art from visual to performance art.
What Are Crip Futures?
Digital Artwork
Image Description: A poem written on a cool toned watercolour background, with a floral drawn border.
Artist Bio: Kay Chan (They/He/She) is a Two-Spirit/Non-binary Tkaronto-based artist. With a mixed Métis-Chinese heritage, Kay transforms their experiences, passions, and identities into art through traditional and digital mediums.
Medical Equity for Black Girls
Procreate
Image Description: A white cake with pink icing and rainbow sprinkles. The background is beige. The cake reads: “Medical equity for Black girls.”
Artist Bio: Destiny is a queer and disabled Black second-generation immigrant with roots in Xaymaca. Her multidisciplinary art practice focuses on zine-making and drawing which she enjoys as an outlet for personal expression and social justice action. She is particularly invested in decolonization, abolition and mutual aid. At any point, you can catch Destiny watering her extensive plant collection, rewatching Glee and/or Twilight, reading or dancing.
The Stars that Killed Me
Photography, Photoshop, Written Word
Image Description: Close up on Amelia’s skin. The skin is edited to reflect rainbow colours (more like fruit loops, blue, yellow, red, green, a bit of purple). You can’t tell it’s Amelia as it’s just a patch of skin and on that skin looks like scarring or rougher tissue. The pores are shaped like stars and connected to one another through lines. The star shape is more easily defined at the pores at the center of the skin and become more blurry and a more expected skin texture as it gets to the edge of the photo.
Underneath the photo, text reads: It started out as raspberries, light hives that stung. Then my skin grew dark stars. It turns out, the cancer was changing the texture of my skin.
Artist Bio: Amelia Ruthven Nelson (she/her) is a Black writer and artist in Tkaronto. To pay the bills she works as an animation coordinator. When she is not working or arting, Amelia lives with her dog Charlie and her beta fish, Icarus. Together they enjoy trashy reality tv shows, reading, and eating ice cream. Her island in Animal Crossing, has a 5-star rating.
