Persimmon is a sculptor who has made disability art from the 1970s to now. She started making art as a way through a breakdown in her early 20s, and art and disability have been entwined for her ever since. She's a queer femme with a learning disability, a psych diagnosis and kidney disease. All these things are reflected in her artwork.
Image description: Cappuccino the cat posing on a green mat on top of a purple and pink desk drawer container.
I’m a sculptor who has made disability art since the 1970s. I started making art as a way through a breakdown in my early 20s, and art and disability have been entwined for me ever since. I’m a queer femme with a learning disability, a psych diagnosis and kidney disease. All these things are reflected in my artwork.
The first major work of disability art I was involved with was Still Sane in 1984. This was an art show and later a book. It was made in collaboration with writer Sheila Gilhooley, about the 3 years she spent in mental institutions for being a lesbian.
Another major project was Sunnybrook (a true story with lies), an art show with sculpture and text, and later a book. It was about a job I had, working at Woodlands Institution, where people with intellectual disabilities were locked up. I got the job because I said I had worked at an outpatient clinic where I was actually a patient. The story is about the abuse people suffered in that institution, and how even a well-meaning staff person gets sucked into the institutional mindset.
After that I wrote a novel, Prozac Highway, about a queer woman dealing with depression, and the motely group of psych survivors who help her learn to navigate it.
In 1998 I was invited to collaborate with 27 former inmates of BC’s big institutions for people with intellectual disabilities, on an art show called From the Inside/Out. They made art and audio histories of their lives within the institutions, and in the community after they were finally released. This project was instrumental in winning reparations for inmates of Woodlands.
In 2004, I did a series of sculptural portraits of people with disabilities, using photos and objects that they sent me. In 2010 I did a series called Acrobats, about the hoops people with disabilities have to jump through in dealing with our not-so-accommodating world. More recently, my show Constructed Identities questioned how disability is seen as a tragedy, rather than a central part of everyday life. That show traveled around Ontario and BC from 2015 to 2020. I’m currently working on a show about climate change.
Artwork description: A colour photo of Persimmon Blackbridge looking into the camera, wearing a respirator mask. She is light-skinned person wearing a green crocheted hat, a dark blue knit jacket and has a long braid on her left side with a plum and dark blue fabric woven through her gray hair. Her workshop is out of focus in the background.
Events related to participant.
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Disability Arts &
Activism Archive