Join us for a conversation between poet ofi davis and artist Alex Dolores Salerno, moderated by artist Francisco echo Eraso in conjunction with Alex Dolores Salerno’s exhibition Greenness on view at Real Art Ways. Greenness, a show dedicated to disabled ancestor Mel Baggs, frames being in relationship with the earth as an access need. ofi and Alex will share poetry by Mel Baggs along with their own work. This will be followed by an intimate conversation foregrounding autistic access intimacy, friendship, and an exploration of the ways that their practices are inextricable from their lived experiences.

Register Here

Participants’ Bios:

Alex Dolores Salerno (b. 1994, homeland of the Nacotchtank, Anacostan and Piscataway people colonially known as Washington D.C.) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Lenapehoking, colonially known as Brooklyn, NY. Informed by queercrip experience, community, and culture, they work to critique standards of productivity, 24/7 society, notions of normative embodiment, and the commodification of rest. Salerno received their MFA from Parsons School of Design and their BS from Skidmore College. They have exhibited at the Museum für Moderne Kunst (Frankfurt), Espacio de Arte Contemporáneo de Castellón (Castellón), ARGOS centre for audiovisual arts (Brussels), Art Windsor-Essex (Windsor), The 8th Floor, the Ford Foundation Gallery (NYC), among others. They have been awarded a Wynn Newhouse Award (2022) and an Art Matters Foundation Artist2Artist Fellowship (2023). Recent publications include Panorama: Journal of the Association of Historians of American Art and Art in America. Salerno has been an artist in residence at Art Beyond Sight’s Art & Disability Residency (2019-2020), the Artist Studios Program at the Museum of Arts and Design (2021), the Visual Artist AIRspace Residency at Abrons Arts Center (2022-2023), and they are currently in residence at BRIClab: Contemporary Art Residency Program at BRIC (2023-2024). Visit Salerno’s website HERE for more information.

ofi davis (he/they) is a two-spirit poet, access worker and educator accountable to the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. his work has been published in Everybody Press Review and he is a proud contributor to Queer Earth Food Vol. 2 (Combos Press), among others. while originally born and raised in the south, he is now living and working in Lenapehoking — colonially known as new york city. ofi is an alumni of NYU and is currently studying poetry at Columbia University.

(Moderator) Francisco echo Eraso (he/él) is a disabled, trans, Colombian-American interdisciplinary artist, educator and access consultant. Eraso received his BA/BFA from Parsons, The New School in Visual Studies and Fine Arts (2018). Eraso has received the Wynn Newhouse Award, the Kennedy Center LEAD award, and has been a call to action speaker for Art-Reach Conference on Arts, Culture, and Disability. He has worked in arts access at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Ford Foundation and consulted with various arts organizations including the Shed, New Museum and Museum Access Consortium. He has been an artist-in-residence at Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts SHIFT residency for arts workers, FABSCRAP, Textile Arts Center, 77Art and Art Beyond Sight’s Art and Disability Residency. He has exhibited at EFA Project Space, Westbeth Gallery, Chashama Space Gallery, Ford Foundation Gallery, Amos Eno Gallery, Flux Factory and Sheila C. Johnson Gallery in New York, Mead Museum and A.P.E. Gallery in Massachusetts, The National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts in Cincinnati, among others. Eraso is currently pursuing his MFA in Fine Arts from the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

Event is free and open to the public.
ASL and live captions will be provided.
Please email accessibility needs as they relate
to this event to francisco@proclaimingdisabilityarts.org.