Events

Film Screening and Panel Discussion: Crip Camp

Down the road from Woodstock, a revolution blossomed in a ramshackle summer camp for teenagers with disabilities, transforming their lives and igniting a landmark movement.

“Crip Camp is both a gripping look at the history of the disability rights movement and a timely call to action, urging us to explore our own duty to fight for the dignity of all people.” – President Barack Obama, Executive Producer

Please check out the film trailer here.

The screening will be followed by a conversation with leading figures in accessibility studies:
Ignacio G. Galán
Robert McRuer
John Peterson

Ignacio G. Galán (pictured right) is an architect, historian, and educator at Barnard College, Columbia University. His work is concerned with the ways in which architecture participates in the articulation of societies—attending to questions of residence, nationalism, migration, and disability cultures. His scholarship has been published in JSAH, JDH, JAE, modernism+modernity, and the volumes Italian Imprints and Architectures of Care amongst others. He is a co-editor of the volumes Radical Pedagogies and After Belonging and his monograph Furnishing Fascism is forthcoming (University of Minnesota Press). His work has been exhibited at the Venice Biennale (2014 and 2021) amongst different venues; has been featured in major platforms including Architectural Record and Domus; has received awards by ACSA, Dezeen, and AN; and is part of the permanent collection of the Pompidou Center.

Robert McRuer (pictured left) is Professor of English at The George Washington University, where he teaches disability studies and queer theory. He is the author of Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability (NYU, 2006) and Crip Times: Disability, Globalization, and Resistance (2018). With Anna Mollow, he co-edited Sex and Disability (Duke, 2012). He is the general co-editor, with David Bolt, of the six-volume series, A Cultural History of Disability (Bloomsbury, 2020).

John Peterson, (pictured center) architect, educator and activist, is Curator of the Loeb Fellowship at Harvard Graduate School of Design. Peterson is the founder of Public Architecture, a national nonprofit organization based in San Francisco. The organization’s work has been showcased at the Venice Architecture Biennale, MoMA, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, the Benaki Museum in Athens, and the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam. Public Architecture’s 1+ program challenges architecture and design firms to pledge a minimum of 1% of their time in pro bono services to nonprofits in need and has attracted participation from over 1500 firms nationwide. Public Architecture’s projects have been covered by national and international media; its ScrapHouse, a house built from only salvaged materials, was the subject of a National Geographic Channel documentary. The organization was a Harvard Business School case study in 2010 and has been supported by a long list of major funders. Peterson’s work has appeared in several books and publications, including The Resilience Dividend: Being Strong in a World Where Things Go Wrong, The New York Times, Architectural Record, Architect, Metropolis, and the Chronicle of Philanthropy. He has contributed to books such as Expanding Design, Urban Interventions, and The Power of Pro Bono. Peterson led the architectural practice Peterson Architects from 1993 to 2010 and has taught at the University of Texas at Austin and California College of the Arts. A recipient of numerous design and social innovation awards, Peterson has played an important part in defining the concept of “public interest design.” He holds degrees in fine arts and architecture from Rhode Island School of Design and was a Loeb Fellow in 2006.

Suggested Readings: Ignacio G. Galán, "Disabled Domesticities and the Politics of Restrooms. Architectural Enactments of Interdependence” in Architectures of Care: From the Intimate to the Common, Brittany Utting ed. (New York: Routledge, 2023), 15-33. Robert McRuer, "Keywords for Radicals: The Contested Vocabulary of Late Capitalist Struggle".

This film screening and panel discussion will be in person and is part of the Spring 2024 Sciame Lecture Series, titled "Access and Beyond: Architecture and Disability."

"Access and Beyond: Architecture and Disability" answers the call for disability justice in our time. Architects, designers, and scholars, inspired by critical disability studies, make up the distinguished roster of speakers who situate disability, ability, and access in pointed, specific critiques of design, culture, and power. This series invites practitioners to probe assumptions embedded in universal design, to center belonging in design practice, to critique technology in relation to inclusion, and to apprehend the rich contribution of difference in the sensorial experiences of places.

This film screening and panel discussion is free, open to the public, and held in the Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture Sciame Auditorium. Live captioning and ASL interpretation will be available upon request. For access requests or questions, please contact ssadean@ccny.cuny.edu. 

See https://www.ccny.cuny.edu/return-campus for current requirements for in-person visitors.

This lecture series is made possible by the Spitzer Architecture Fund and the generous support of Frank Sciame ’74, CEO of Sciame Construction.