Visual artist Charmaine G.
Brown has been awarded a Quality of Life grant by the Christopher Reeve Paralysis
Foundation in conjunction with VSA arts of New Mexico. This grant will be used to produce
Ms. Brown’s project titled: Discards – A Postcard Campaign.
In this Discards project, the traditional design of a deck of
playing cards is metaphorically and humorously altered into postcard format to develop
disability awareness and provide information through the term “DIS-CARD”
(DIS = disabled, CARD = postcard). The
postcards will be mailed to individual residences throughout the country.
The artworks, images and texts created for this project will educate
a general public audience about issues related to physical disability culture. The
postcards will provide education, information, reference resources, and advocacy that can
improve the daily lives of people living with a disability, specifically wheelchair users.
“This project raises awareness that can reduce fears associated with disability and the disabled, which may reduce discrimination of the disabled,” says Ms. Brown, “without discrimination, the disabled gain social equality, greater access to communities, and fuller participation in the whole of society.”