There’s a new addition to Carleton University’s tunnels: a bright, colourful mural near Nideyinàn, courtesy of the Carleton Disability Awareness Centre (CDAC).
The mural features a power wheelchair user and someone with a hidden disability amid a backdrop of green, red, blue and yellow. It was created by an anonymous community member and selected through a blind vote on CDAC’s Instagram page.
Griffin Obright, a CDAC co-ordinator said the inclusion of the power wheelchair user and the person with a hidden disability are both firsts for Carleton’s tunnels, marking a step towards inclusion of all members of the disabled community.
Obright, who is a power wheelchair user, worked with fellow co-ordinator Carys-Anne Starling to paint the mural.
“There’s a few murals on campus that do have visible disabilities showcased, but they are all manual wheelchairs and the majority of wheelchair users on campus are power chair users because … campus is so hilly,” Obright said.
Obright said the inclusion of other disabilities is important to paint an accurate picture of the disabled community.
“Our understanding of disability has evolved and grown over time,” said Bruce Hamm, director of the Paul Menton Centre for Students with Disabilities (PMC). “Right now, we’re recognizing, and it’s something that we’ve recognized in the PMC for a very long time, that the majority of people with disabilities have invisible disabilities.”
Obright said the mural aims to highlight to students that disabilities exist in many fashions and not exclusively in people who use manual wheelchairs.
“When I started using a power chair, I had a lot of issues with my self-image, because it is not showcased in media at all,” Obright said.
The prime location of the painting in the tunnels has caught the attention of many passers-by of all ability levels, including first-year student Ava Foster who had never heard of the disability centre prior to seeing the mural.
“It’s nice to see inclusion on campus,” Foster said. “Carleton should be a welcoming place for all, including the disabled.”
The inclusion of the disabled community as a pivotal part of the Carleton community is incredibly important to many, according to Hamm. Carleton University is considered one of Canada’s most accessible universities having launched the Canadian Accessibility Network and having worked on the Coordinated Accessibility Strategy to create a more accessible campus.
Hamm said that having students with disabilities represented “signals that they are a part of our community.”
“Our community is not whole without them,” he said.
The phrase on the mural, “Nothing about us without us,” has long been a phrase used by the disabled community to advocate for making decisions on their own behalf, Obright said.
“A lot of times disabled peoples’ decisions were made for us,” they said.
To combat that reality, Obright said CDAC hires co-ordinators who have disabilities to manage the centre.
Hamm said it’s also important that people with disabilities are represented in the decision-making process for legislation impacting disabled people.
“For the longest time, it’s [been] people without disabilities making decisions on policies that directly impact people with disabilities. It’s high time that we make sure that the groups that are able to make those decisions are inclusive,” Hamm said.
The mural is part of Obright’s mission to make the voices of people with disabilities feel heard at Carleton.
“We never know what things are going to look like in 10 years, so it’s just about showing that disabled students were here and we were constantly working for ourselves to make our lives better.”
Featured image by Syd Robbescheuten/The Charlatan.
