In a DC Library, Students with Disabilities’ Joy Is on Full Display

In the sunlit windows of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in downtown Washington, DC, stands an exhibition created by Georgetown students.

It's filled with paintings, photography, doodles and notes, embroidery and sculpture, animated videos, made by students involved in Georgetown's Disability Cultural Center (DCC).

"Not Without Us: A Celebration of Disabled Joy,"a new partnership between the DC Public Library and DCC, invites visitors to explore the question students answered through their art: What does "disability joy" mean to you?

Bakary Koné (C'27), a junior in the College of Arts & Sciences, visited the exhibition alone near closing time one night. He wanted to see the two photos he had contributed, a passion project he had mostly kept to himself.

Bakary Koné's two photographs, "Untitled" and "In Motion," are displayed in the DC Public Library's exhibit.

The photos, one of a woman half-shaded in darkness, the back of her head illuminated, represented the parts of Koné that he keeps hidden and shows to the world, he said.

"I grew up in the Ivory Coast, and the culture doesn't really understand what it means to be dyslexic or disabled," he said. "They default to what they've known for centuries, which is this might be some type of spiritual thing, an unknown disease, or the kid's faking it or not being smart or applying himself. I was applying myself the whole time. I was just struggling a little bit.

Koné first started taking photos while walking around Newark, New Jersey, where he moved with his family at age eight. He fell in love with photography even more after taking a class at Georgetown.

In taking courses about disability at Georgetown and joining the university's Disability Cultural Center(DCC), Koné found he better understood his own disability - and could connect his personal experiences to the images he took, light and darkness, what's hidden and exposed to the world.

"Sometimes when I am in a room, people don't realize that I am dyslexic, but the whole time I am. People see the illusion that I put on. But people don't actually see me. And that's kind of it," he said of his art in the exhibition.

For Koné, disability joy has meant accepting all parts of himself.

Amy Kenny (left) speaks at the Oct. 7 celebratory night for the exhibit with Jenny Cavallero (right), manager of the Center for Accessibility at Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library.

"It took me years to finally be comfortable with making jokes about my dyslexia, letting people know that I'm dyslexic, and that's disability joy - being happy with all parts of yourself," he said. "Disability joy means existing and being proud of all your identities and living in all of your truth."

Amy Kenny, director of the DCC, pitched the exhibition to the DC Public Library. She invited students and the Georgetown community to participate. This fall, DCC hosted workshops at the university's Maker Hub, where Hoyas carved wooden blocks, painted, sewed and drew images sharing what disability joy means to them, featured in a multimedia piece in the exhibit. She hopes visitors to the exhibit reflect on the same question.

"Disability is a culture, a community, a way of being and a creative force," she said. "It's multifaceted. There are aspects of being disabled that are difficult, and there are aspects that are vibrant and exciting. I hope that the exhibit demonstrates a variety of those experiences and invites people to consider how disability joy is already a part of their lives."

Daniyal Nisbet (C'26), a senior in the College of Arts & Sciences, also appears in the exhibit in a music video. In the video, he plays the darbuka, a Middle Eastern hand drum, in Georgetown's Bioethics Library with Shreya Dudeja (H'25). Nisbet and Dudeja used a call-and-response technique to improvise and respond to what the other person played.

"One of the beautiful things about call and response in music is how people get time and space to express themselves individually within a piece," he said. "It's this idea of listening and then responding, I hear you. Let me give you a piece of something I've experienced. You're depending on the other person literally to play what you need. There's uncertainty … but you have people to lean on."

Shreya Dudeja (H'25) and Daniyal Nisbet (C'26) pose with the music video of their performance in Georgetown's Bioethics Library.

For Nisbet, celebrating disability culture means expressing his love of music as a way to come together and lift up others.

"We have different experiences in life, but we can come together and we can share art," he said. "If my art is serving a purpose to help someone or others feel and have a voice, then that's amazing. [Music] is a beautiful way to uplift people."

Nisbet recently performed again in DCC's annual Art Celebrating Disability Culture showcase. This time he improvised with Anna Holk (C'27), a fellow percussionist in the World Percussion Ensemble group, in front of a live audience.

Kenny said she intentionally chose to host artistic events during Disability Cultural Month. A few professors at Georgetown are bringing their students to the exhibit to discuss art, disability, representation and creativity in the classroom, she said.

"Art is transformative, and it allows us to experience someone's inner world that we don't get a chance to share with one another," she said. "I think art can be really joyous, deep and meaningful, and share some of our tensions, traumas, and hopes for the world. Creating these art events feels like one way we get to imagine the accessible future that we hope for."