ON DISPLAY HARVARD is presented by the Office for the Arts Dance Program each year as part of ON DISPLAY GLOBAL, a worldwide movement installation and social justice initiative created by physically-integrated dance company Heidi Latsky Dance. ON DISPLAY GLOBAL annually commemorates the United Nations' International Day of Persons with Disabilities on December 3rd.
The Office for the Arts (OFA) Dance Program has been an ambassador of the work since 2018, presenting ON DISPLAY HARVARD at accessible locations across campus as well as virtually each year, building a community of partners and diverse performers to bring awareness of disability justice, art, and culture to Harvard's campus and beyond.
The work invites performers and audience members alike to consider societal "norms" about disability and celebrates difference as an affirmation of our humanity. Originally created to disrupt public space, audience members are invited to wander through the installation, viewing each performer in close proximity and inhabiting the performance space. Participants in the work create sculptural compositions of their own making and on their own terms, in real time. The slowness of the installation invites reflection and introspection for all involved.
“The gaze is an integral part of the installation as an instrument of agency, and ODG plays with the tension between the viewer and the viewed, often blurring the roles of audience member and performer to challenge conventional notions of beauty."
–Living Sculptures: Honouring International Day of Persons with Disabilities, by Josephine Minhinnett, Fjord Review, 2020
Through this collaboration, the Dance Center has been building a community of partners and diverse performers to bring awareness of disability justice, art, and culture to Harvard's campus and beyond.
Campus partners from 2018-2022 include Harvard Common Spaces; Harvard Libraries; Harvard Art Museums; Cambridge Common Voices; Harvard Undergraduate Disability Justice Club, design,able, Domain Mediums of the Master in Design Studies (MDes) at GSD, The MiND Project, and (snobs._).
ON DISPLAY HARVARD 2023
ON DISPLAY HARVARD 2023 was in partnership with the Harvard Art Museums and presented in the Calderwood Courtyard on December 3, 2023.
Performers– a mix of Harvard students and community members– will create sculptural compositions of their own making, on their own terms, and which evolve in real time. The installation allowed performers and the public alike to explore what it means to see and be seen, in slowness and silence.
The work was viewed live around the world via ON DISPLAY GLOBAL’S 24-hour Zoom and Livestream platform. Performers wore wear unique art pieces created by (snobs._) and students in Harvard's Graduate School of Design.
Below is a link to a time-lapse video of ON DISPLAY HARVARD 2023. Video has no sound but includes open audio description.
ON DISPLAY HARVARD 2023 was part of Beyond Access: A Celebration of International Day of Persons with Disabilities at Harvard, a project in partnership with (snobs._) and other students in the Graduate School of Design.
Beyond Access is a winner of a 2023 Culture Lab Innovation Fund (CLIF) grant through the Harvard Office of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, & Belonging.
ACCESSIBILITY
For In-Person Installation at Harvard Art Museums:
Sighted guides and live in-person audio description was offered at 11am for Blind and low vision audiences; a pre-show offering for tactile access with description of wearable art was offered at 10:30am. Harvard Art Museums is wheelchair and other mobilty device accessible from all entrances.
For Virtual Installation on Zoom:
Audio description was offered via a conference call line.
IMAGE DESCRIPTION
Video still of performers in all white clothing posed around the Calderwood Courtyard in Harvard Art Museums, showing its two levels of neo-Romanesque arches and triangular mobile.