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Eliza Chandler

Associate Professor
EducationPhD
OfficeSally Horsfall Eaton Centre for Studies in Community Health, Room SHE-523
Phone416-979-5000, ext. 556128
Areas of ExpertiseDisability Studies; Disability arts and culture; Social action and activism; Accessible curatorial practices

Eliza Chandler is an associate professor in the School of Disability Studies, wherein she teaches courses on disability arts and culture, cultural representations of disability, leadership and community building, and intersectional activist movements. Earning her PhD from the Social Justice and Education department at the University of Toronto in 2014, Chandler was dually appointed as the artistic director at Tangled Art + Disability, an organization in Toronto dedicated to the cultivation of disability arts, and the postdoctoral research fellow in the School of Disability Studies from 2014-2016. During this time, she was the also the founding artistic director of Tangled Art Gallery, Canada’s first art gallery dedicated to showcasing disability art and advancing accessible curatorial practice. Chandler is also the co-director of a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)-funded partnership project, Bodies in Translation: Activist Art, Technology, and Access to Life, a seven-year research project that interrogates the close relationship between activist art and the achievement of social justice. Chandler sits on the Board of Directors for the Ontario Arts Council and is a practicing disability artist and curator. She regularly give lectures, interviews, and consultations related to disability arts, accessible curatorial practices, and disability politics in Canada.

Teaching

Teaching Responsibilities:

  • DST 525: Rethinking Images of Embodied Differences
  • DST 509: Crip Culture in Canada
  • DST 508: Cripping the Arts in Canada (a liberal arts course)
  • DST 727: Leadership for Social Justice

Teaching Interests:

  • Disability Studies
  • Disability arts and culture
  • Feminist theory
  • Crip theory
  • Disability history
  • Social movement

Research Interests:

  • Disability Studies
  • Disability arts and culture
  • Accessible curatorial practices
  • Design Fiction
  • Feminist media studies
  • Biopolitics
  • Disability and social change
  • Environmental justice
  • Arts and technology
  • Studio-based research
  • Arts-informed research

Research Projects:

  • Bodies in Translation: Activist Art, Technology, and Access to Life, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Partnership Grant, 2017-2023 (Co-director with Carla Rice)
  • Accessing the Arts: Centring Disability Perspectives in Accessibility Initiatives, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), Insight Development Grant, 2020-2023 (PI)
  • Stretching our Stories: Digital World-Making in Troubled Times, Partnership Development Grant, SSHRC, 2021-2023 (Co-I)
  • Designing Crip Futures, SSHRC Partnership Development Grant, 2018-2020 (Co-PI with Esther Ignagni)
  • Cripping the Arts in Canada, SSHRC Connection Grant, 2018-2020 (PI)

Curated Exhibitions:

  • Bodies in Translation: Age and Creativity, Mount Saint Vincent University Art Gallery, Bedford, NS, September 2017
  • Constructed Identities, Persimmon Blackbridge, Tangled Art Gallery, Toronto, ON, April 2016
  • Strange Beauty, 401 Richmond Arts Building, Toronto, ON, April, 2015
  • Surviving Huronia, Urbanspace Gallery, Toronto, ON, December, 2014
  • Crip Interiors, with Lindsay Fisher, Artscape Youngplace, Toronto, ON, October, 2014
  • In Fragments, New Works by Lindsay Fisher, Open Gallery, OCAD University, Toronto, ON, October, 2014
  • Public Bodies//Hidden Histories, The Berkshire Conference on Women’s History, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, May, 2014
  • Disability Arts Cabaret, Women and Youth Violence Prevention Program, George Brown College, Toronto, ON, January, 2013
  • Disability Arts Cabaret, Equity Studies, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, September, 2012
  • Disability Arts Cabaret. Women and Youth Violence Prevention Program, George Brown College, Toronto, ON, January, 2013
  • What’s the deal with the F word? NSCAD Feminist Collective (Co-Curated with Lyndell Musellman) Exhibited at Anna Leonowens, Halifax NS, June, 2005
  • About 1789: An Exhibition of Prints by Tony Scherman (Co- Curated with Susan Gibson Garvey) Exhibited at Dalhousie Art Gallery, Halifax NS, July, 2005

Art Exhibitions:

  • Catwalk, Eating, Hands and Walk, (solo) Exhibited at the Society for Disability Studies conference, Tucson AZ, June, 2009
  • Physical Identities  (group) Exhibited at Spark Video Canada, London ON, May, 2006
  • Sound Bytes Yer Arse  (group) Exhibited at Anna Leonowens Gallery, Halifax NS, May, 2005
  • Home works  (collaborative) Exhibited at NSCAD Visitors Apartment, Halifax NS, April, 2005
  • NSCAD Graduates  (group) Exhibited at Anna Leonowens Gallery, Halifax NS, April, 2005
  • Laborious Library  (solo) Exhibited at Anna Leonowens Gallery, Halifax, NS, February, 2005
  • NSCAD Sculpture  (group) Exhibited at NSCAD University, Halifax NS, December, 2004
  • Faculty and Staff  (group) Exhibited at Dalhousie Art Gallery, Halifax NS, October, 2004
  • Gesture  (solo) Exhibited at The Lodge Gallery, Halifax NS, September, 2004
  • Instillation Sketch  (group) Exhibited at Khyber Centre for the Arts, Halifax NS, August, 2004
  • Khyber Digital Media Centre Show and Tell  (group) Exhibited at Khyber Centre for the Arts, Halifax NS, May, 2004

Select Chapters:

  • Chandler, E., Rice, C., Lee, S., & Ferguson, M. (in press). Curating together: A tangled, intergenerational, interdependent community of practice. In Curating access: Global exhibitions & creative accommodation. Routledge Press.
  • Chandler, E. (in press). A voracious appetite for decent. In C. Frazee (Ed.), Dispatches from disabled country: Selected writings by Catherine Frazee. Vancouver: UBC Press.
  • Chandler, E., & Rice, C. (2019). Representing difference: Disability, digital storytelling, and public pedagogy. In K. Ellis, G. Goggin, & B. Haller (Eds.), Routledge companion to disability and media (pp. 1-18). Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
  • Chandler, E., & E. Ignagni. (2018). Strange beauty: Aesthetic possibilities for desiring disability into the future. In K. Ellis, R. Garland-Thomson, M. Kent, R. Robertson (Eds.), Interdisciplinary approaches to Disability: Looking towards the future (pp. 254-265). Abingdon, UK: Routledge

Select Journal Articles:

  • Chandler, E., Aubrecht, K., Ignagni, E., & Rice, C. (2021). Cripistemologies of Disability Arts & Culture: Reflections on the Cripping the Arts Symposium. Studies in Social Justice, 15(2).
  • Ignagni, E., Chandler, E., & Collins, K. (2021). Seeing death differently through disability after MAiD. International Journal of Health Trends and Perspectives, 1(3), 336-344.
  • Dion, S., Rice, C., & Chandler, E. (2021). Decolonizing disability arts. Disability Studies Quarterly, 42(1).
  • Chandler, E., & Johnson, M. (2021). Reflections on Crip Imitations as Cultural Space-Making. Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies, 15(4), 383-399.
  • Jimmy, E., & Chandler, E. (2021). A push for a different relationship with time, temporality and acces(sen)sibility. El Alto, 2.

Encyclopedia Entries:

  • Chandler, E. (2018). Disability and museums. In Encyclopedia of Disability and American life (487-490). Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.
  • Chandler, E. (2016). The Disability Rights Movement. The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies.

  • Sue Williams Award for Teaching Excellence, Faculty of Community Studies,  2016

  • Member of the Board of Directors, Ontario Arts Council