My artist name is Rebel Fayola Rose. I am an access artist, social practice artist, and Disability Justice practitioner and consultant. My passions are community organizing and lovingly curating nonprofit administration from my bed.
Image Description: Red hearts on a pink background. Text reads, “Support me via Patreon.” See main text for rest of information.
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My rent and basic expenses will be higher than my income no matter where I live in my city, so I need community support for my survival.
- Please recommend me for Disability Justice consulting opportunities (trainings, audits, and more). For more info, check out my consulting practice, LeapingWater.org
- Join my Patreon to get first access to my content! patreon.com/RebelFayolaRose
Projects
We Smash It Together
Image Description: Pink background with two hands holding a paper with the 10 Principles of Disability Justice. They are, “Perfection, Individualism, Right to Comfort, Sense of Urgency, Power Hoarding, Defensiveness, Paternalism, One Right Way, I’m the Only One, and Progress is Bigger, More.”
Sponsored by Rebel Fayola Rose and Oregon Health Equity Alliance.
Image Description: Artist Rebel Fayola Rose sits in wheelchair wearing a berry red dress and a pink mask. He is holding his hand up to his name on the entrance to the exhibition.
Provisional Structure 1
I am collaborating with non-visual artist Carmen Papalia to bring my Disability Justice Dreaming Sessions to the Vancouver Artgallery (VAG) in Vancouver BC Canada January 9-February 7, 2023.
Artist’s Statement:
Disability Justice Dreaming Circles,
Artist’s Statement
Rebel Fayola Rose,Â
Guest Artist, Carmen Papalia’s Provisional Structure 1, Vancouver Art Gallery; and Gallery Gachet, 2022
âDreaming is a human rightâ (Rebel Fayola Rose).
A Dreaming Circle is a gentle, 1-2 hour transformative audience performance centering those most impacted by systems of oppression. They begin with an access check in and include time to reflect on/respond to various questions that support each personâs imaginings. Dreaming Circles are an opportunity to imagine a different, more liberated world. This requires creativity, imagination, and collective dreaming. The artist/facilitator is present to elicit these dreams and to reflect back the open presence of the community. Dreaming Circles are done with gratitude to Indigenous- and Afro-Futurisms, which dream liberatory worlds beyond the impossible.
Reframing Disability
When we talk about disability, we include people who identify as:
âą Sick
âą Disabled
âą Mad/Mentally Ill
âą Deaf/Hard of Hearing/DeafBlind
âą Low vision/Blind
âą Neurodiverse
âą Cognitively or developmentally disabled
âą or otherwise Chronically Ill people
We include in our Disability umbrella people who may not identify as disabled, but who may experience ableism. For example, someone who is Autistic, Deaf, or lives with a mental health diagnosis.
âDisability is more than the deficit of diagnosis. It is an aesthetic, a series of intersecting cultures, and a creative forceâ (Alice Sheppard).
I will be working at Vancouver Art Gallery and Gallery Gachet Tuesdays and Fridays 11-1 Pacific Time in January and early February, 2023. Here are the takeaway zine and coloring pages if you would like to have your own copies.
Sponsored by Vancouver Art Gallery, Gallery Gachet, and Rebel Fayola Rose
Pain Pals
I was interviewed by Carmen Papalia about my lived experience of pain. The video begins around 11 minutes in.
Image Description: In purple, there’s text above with pictures of Rebel and Carmen.
Detail of Colourful by Charisse Rayne.
Being Studio: Intersectionality
I worked with Charisse Rayne, a Disabled artist, to create a short video about one of the 10 Principles of Disability Justice: Intersectionality. “This video series aims to define disability justice in a way that is accessible to a variety of audiences, including those with intellectual and cognitive disabilities” (Visualizing Justice).
Disability Justice Dreaming
Disability Justice Dreaming is a Portland OR-based, inter/national Disability Justice gathering space that focuses on disabled art, justice, culture, leadership, and more, by and for Queer and Trans (QT) + Black, Indigenous, Multiracial, and People of Color (BIPOC). I am the Founder of this all-volunteer run organization.
The advisory board meets once a month for 90 minutes.
Image Description: Disability Justice Dreaming logo of white text on black background surrounded by flowers. In the lower half is a person with a black braid lying in bed under a handmade quilt. Their walker and tracheostomy are visible. The image was drawn by Sarah Holst.
See image description at end of section.
Image Description: pink drawing of a waterfall flowing through mountains while the wind swirls.
Leaping Water Consulting
Leaping Water is a liberation practice I founded in 2020 that focuses on helping individuals, groups, organizations, foundations, and institutions embody Disability Justice and all forms of Liberation.
The practice currently has several incredible facilitators that alleviate my need to manage the practice.
Dis Rep 2022: Liberating Words
Rebel Fayola Rose was a co-facilitator and script-writer (in collaboration) on this project.Â
Dis/Rep is a project of The City of Portlandâs Civic Dialogues program and this is the third year it has been facilitated by The Curiosity Paradox, with the support of Claudia Alick and, for the past two years, Rebel Black.
Image Description:Â Spoons growing out of violets.
See image description at end of section.
Desire Path
I was interviewed for The Curiosity Paradox’s “Desire Path” project in early 2022. The questions were related to my experience as an Access Artist, supremacy culture, and accessibility.
The Curiosity Paradox defines Access Art as, “The ways marginalized people and communities creatively grow resources together, design accessibility, celebrate joy and struggle, out-maneuver supremacy culture, and dream worlds beyond the impossible.”
Image Description:Â Text over image. Quotation from Rebel Sidney Fayola Black, Access Artist, Disability Justice Consultant. âWhen Iâm producing work, I interrupt if thereâs an access need. I donât think, âOh, itâs so important that the presenter gets to present their whole thing at the expense of people not understanding or people not being able to read the information and just leaving those people behind.â Instead, I say, âHey, can we take a pause for a minute? Weâre having some access issues.ââ Sea holly surrounded by lush foliage.
Image Description:Â Graphic with black text that reads: “ACCESS IS LOVE” with a red heart as the âOâ in LOVE.
Dis/Rep 2021: #Access is Love in Action
As The Curiosity Paradox described, this was a “5-month exploration of accessibility through a Discord server and a series of six two-hour relaxed virtual workshops via Zoom.Â
This [was] an anti-ableist, anti-racist, queer, and trans-positive space centering the needs and voices of the Disability community.”
Coping with Physical and Psychiatric Disabilities: A Strengths- and empowerment-based approach.
The slides for the webinar can be found here.
This was a webinar I gave for the Fireweed Collective in January 2021. There is ASL interpretation and closed captions. The webinar begins at 8:55. Screen share was not recorded, so check out the slides linked above.
This webinar is an opportunity to learn about the tools I use when coping with mental health challenges and chronic pain. I will talk about DBT skills as well as practices that I have developed myself and learned from others.
You donât have to memorize or incorporate everything presented, just focus on what speaks to you.
Image Description: A teal hand a fireweed plant embrace the words ‘Fireweed Collective’
As We Are: Disability Justice and Community Care Conference, 2020
In 2020, I organized a transformative, Disability Justice-centered conference about mutual aid just as COVID was beginning to take hold.
The way I hosted the conference is as important as the topics that were shared. I went through 941 registrants’ access needs and was able to meet all but 1 person’s needs in the context of a webinar conference.
I also sent out 20 care packages to the first 20 BIPOC registrants.
The conference was linked to a Discord server in order to make communication among participants accessible, and that was a huge success.
People still comment to me how life-changing and accessible the conference was.
Image Description:Â The Portland Disability Justice Collective logo featuring a variety of Black and Brown Disabled people spending joyous time together.