Interview with Grace Macdonald

        Grace MacDonald is an incoming OCAD student whose passion is curatorial practice, & the accessibility to fine arts for all “disabled” and able bodied. She announces how her own difficulties with access to certain museums has aligned this passion, how certain spaces don’t have the accessibility they should. She feels strongly that artists like David Bowie was able to connect to a new demographic, allowing a new kind of accessibility to the word & non binary community that once wasn’t as well established.

Ellie Corfield:Tell us a bit about who you are, what’s your name, what kind of work or practise you’re interested in, and what ideas and questions you’re engaging with.

Grace Macdonald:  Okay, My name is Grace. I’m really interested in curation and making art accessible, but kind of in every way that accessibility can be. Just everything that you can think of when you think of accessible. I think especially because a lot of times I have to use a wheelchair to get around. Which has caused me to face accessibility issues just getting around these spaces, like places like the AGO.

E.C: Oh yea I can imagine the problems getting around Toronto, especially huge places ike the AGO

G.M: There’s so many problems. There was, I remember one exhibit I went to and there were these giant power cords and the covers for the power cords were huge and we couldn’t kept the wheelchair over the power cords. And I kept stopping and kind of tilting forward in a very scary way. So I just had to miss out on this whole exhibition! it happens a lot, so it’s not like I was super devastated but still. I had to miss out on the whole thing. And then my friends were really nice and they’re like, well, if you’re not gonna go and you can’t see that, we won’t either. It was kind of just one of those instances where it wouldn’t have been difficult to do something different to the power cords.

EC: Sounds like they could  have a little ramp, or something.

GM: Yeah! I mean, technically they’re still ramped, but it’s still  difficult to get over. I think it was just one of those things where people who don’t have those issues don’t think about it. I’m really interested in making art accessible in the ways that people wouldn’t automatically think about it, so everyone has the ability to access it.

EC: No, that’s interesting. ‘cause there is this, museum somewhere in Spain, called the Prado Museum. I remember seeing it once on this on an NPR article and basically they remade some of their collections, such as works by Francisco Goya. what they did is, instead of having it flat surface, they moulded it. So it’s 3D and you can touch it, really anyone can, but it was specifically made for people that are blind & able to engage rather than just listening to the audios and using their imagination.

GM: That’s just, that is such a good idea. See that. I love that. That’s what I’m interested in.

EC: My next question. Is there, um, a specific artwork, artist or writer who inspires or influences you somehow or a specific experience that has, um, shaped your path so far?

GM: I’m gonna pick an album cover and an artist. I would have to say, David Bowie was my mom & I’s  favourite rock star. She loved everything about him. When I was little, she basically raised me with his music. I’m an only child. I don’t have any cousins that at least live anywhere close to me. she would work from home when I was little. So she would play David Bowie, I would jump on like a little mini trampoline to get my energy out. It wasn’t until I was older that I understood a lot of the lyrics more and was able to learn more about him.

EC: He was iconic, being a new representative for young queers, one of first non-binary artist mainstream that came out

GM: Exactly, my mom always really taught me about, kind of what he did with gender fluidity.  when he was wearing a dress and makeup and like, how people reacted to that and how like, it was just so groundbreaking and influential and really, and he really wasn’t trying to show people “I’m different”. He was just trying to show people that it doesn’t matter who you are as long as you are kind & treating people with Respect

EC: How do you think that kind of like curates into your own work and how you show yourself to other people, through David Bowie? How does he, inspire your work?

GM: I guess I always feel like he was really about openness. Like, to me, that’s what I see in him. And, um, I try to be a pretty like, open and understanding person, but also in terms of my work, what I’m interested in is making things open to everybody.

EC: So you just love how expressive he is and how he’s, able to communicate himself with everyone else in such a big manner? What about the colours he works with? ‘cause he’s very like, vibrant. I noticed you wearing very vibrant eyeshadows. So when you said David Bowie, I was like, oh, maybe you also like his personal style, or expressions.

GM: I do! It’s very much a child like approach. His fashion was so vibrant, full of life & made him more approachable as a person. But also a lot of what he did was kind of dark. My favourite album is, Zaki Stardust and Spiders from Mars. It’s very dark and it was, you know, it was taken in a storm when he was sick and the lighting was like, it was very just desaturated. I kind of feel like him as an artist, it was interesting that things could be so c yet so dark.colourful I think he was struggling deeply with a lot of things, he was still able, to kind of just impact a lot of people and show a wide range of emotions.

EC: I don’t need to ask any more questions that pretty much solidifies, how David Bowie has really influenced you, which I think that’s great!

GM: Yea he has, I even have a matching tattoo with my mom

EC: Oh wow I didn’t even notice the Lightning Bowl tattoo. It’s cute!

GM: She picked it, but I was very happy with It!

Workcited

Frayer, Lauren. “Do Touch the Artwork at Prado’s Exhibit for the Blind.” NPR, NPR, 26 May 2015, www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/05/26/408543587/do-touch-the-artwork-at-prados-exhibit-for-the-blind.