About Performance and Exploitation.

In generating this archive, a seemingly insoluble barrier preventing any ethical treatment of these artifacts that exploit the anomalously bodied was faced. Inherent in any question regarding the presentation of ethically dubious historical material is the possibility that in doing so we inadvertently continue historical systems if oppression merely under the guise of well-intentioned academia. In the broadest of terms collection and presentation of these historical materials is an artificial encounter with anomalously bodied individuals for a purpose determined by a curatorial framework. In a sense, then, this collection is another circus. What must be submitted for interrogation is the experience of viewing. What ought not to be elicited is a wide-eyed stare at sights not normally seen–anomalously bodied people made all the more mysterious by the distance of time. Staring may happen, but ought to pass into attention. A gaze which attends to exploitation belied by taking ordinary activities as exemplary simply by virtue of the bodies performing the everyday. For what does it mean that individuals with dwarfism and individuals with gigantism are presented in roles typically considered foundational to the state, as in, the parent, wife, husband, and soldier? Are we meant to gawk at them as they simply do what everyone else does? Why does anomalous embodiment turn the everyday into performance for someone else’s ends, whether those ends be wealth or the satisfaction of feeling allied with the political advocacy of disability rights. Our purpose is to ask how the gaze, in its passing between staring and attention, can be interrogated to reveal the prejudices which still single out the anomalously bodied for the simple reason that they appear different from the normally bodied in their own ways of living. In working to establish a positive framework surrounding the anomalously bodied, sensitivity was something that was incredibly important. The lives experienced by these people go unknown, and the question of consent of their exploitation becomes raised. In order to mitigate the negative connotations of the jarring labels originally assigned to them, an attempt to approach the images with a higher level of respect was made. This archive is comprised of people with dwarfism as well as a few who had giantism. In examining this archive, it is significant to notice the way people with dwarfism are dressed (almost as if they are children’s toys). One thing is clear, these people were not seeking to be pitied. While this may be your initial reaction (as Saurana Taylor would imply) the encouraged challenge is to look at these performers as people, and approach their images with dignity, involving an awareness of their exploitative nature.