Lampworked Eyes! - From Cane to Ball, We Show it All!

Collin Walsh

This lecture will explore how art, craft, and design can be used as an outlet for coping with the daily realities and struggles of chronic illness. The artist will share their own struggles with disability, stories about how it has impacted their life, as well as how art, and glass in particular, has become an incredible catharsis while adjusting to the rhythms of living with chronic illness. The artist will showcase how their studio practice attempts to spread awareness and create conversations about disability & illness, and how glass is used to highlight and illustrate the shared and fragile nature of the soft machines we inhabit.
Struggles with illness, chronic or acute in nature, are a common and universal part of human existence. Unfortunately, this plight is one that is all the often forgotten- especially when these struggles may not be immediately and visually apparent. Art can help to showcase the viscerally intense nature of these struggles, reminding both viewer and maker to be patient with themselves and each other as we bear in mind the brittle and delicate anatomy of the human body.

Lecture: Art & Disability - Coping With Chronic Illness Through Creative Expression

Artist Bio: Born, raised, and still residing in southern Ontario, Collin Walsh began working with glass in 2013. His perennial fascination with the macabre, the surreal, and the beautifully grotesque has led to an artistic career dedicated to exploring the aesthetics of disgust and achieving "resplendence through repugnance."
Through his work, Collin hopes to provoke a confrontation with uncomfortable, often visceral emotions and sensations, in order to confront deep-seated biases and promote conversations about sensitive topics like illness and disability.