Bay City News / P360P
The performance "We love like barnacles, Crip Lives in Climate Chaos", presented by Sins Invalid, is a show that explores the impact of climate change on the disability community.
According to the Sins Invalid performance project's website, the show is "a performance that centers our communities in the midst of climate chaos and our dying planet".
From the storms that batter our coasts to the fires that threaten our homes, the social, political and economic disparities faced by disabled queer and trans people of color put our communities on the front lines of ecological disaster."
For Maria Palacios, who performs under the name Goddess on Wheels Goddess in the performance, with climate change have come more hurricanes and fires, and disabled people are being left behind.
Mother Nature is angry," he explains, "for this year's program, the narrative has become survival. It has become resilience. It has shifted to realizing that our lives are in danger, that disabled people are in danger of dying when the world around us comes to an end?
According to Palacios, the word "crippled" in the title of the program is controversial, and even within the disabled community itself, due to the negative connotation of the word, as it has been used as an insult.
But ?in the world of disability culture, especially among people who are artists or activists, and who have become comfortable enough with our disabled bodies, we embrace the word crippled as something powerful, something that represents our reality, as something that represents and explains the oppression we have survived?
When we say crippled as part of our identity, we do it with power; we do it with love. We may have to explain the word crippled to others, but we don't have to deny it. We do it without shame.
Sins Invalid is a justice-based performance project that supports people with disabilities, with a particular focus on LGBTTTIQ+ and Afro-descendant artists.
The organization has been at the forefront of disability justice advocacy since its founding in 2006. It offers creative workshops and political education, and promotes leadership opportunities for people with disabilities.
