LEE, Sean

Almost audio described
beginning May 22
online

Almost audio described is rooted in Lee Wen’s methodology of working with a loose structure to respond more spontaneously. Using the disabled body as a site of spontaneity, Sean Lee’s response to Lee Wen’s Almost Untitled: End of the World Stories employs audio description as an action of cross disability solidarity. Although audio description is typically polished, pre-written and recorded through multiple takes and edits, this piece challenges the performer to take on audio description as a gesture of endurance.As someone with limited mobility, Wen’s 45 minute performance challenges Sean’s own physical stability, prompting raw, unscripted audio description, with mistakes, stutters, extraneous noises and bodily responses, in real-time. As the performance unfolds, Sean’s discomfort intensifies, reflected in the physicality of his movements, tapping the rod in his back, shuffling on the chair in place, and the evolving and degrading quality of the audio description.

Sean Lee (he/they) is an artist and curator exploring the assertion of disability art as the last avant-garde. His methodology explores crip cultural practices as a means to resist normative idealities. Orienting towards a “crip horizon,” Sean’s practice explores the transformative possibilities of access aesthetics as an embodied politic that can desire the ways disability disrupts. Sean is currently the Director of Programming at Tangled Art + Disability. He holds a B.A. in Arts Management and Studio from UTSC. Sean is also an independent curator, lecturer, and advisor, adding his insights and perspectives to conversations across Canada, the US, and internationally. Sean serves on the board of the Toronto Arts Council and CARFAC Ontario, and is Chair of TAC’s Visual and Media Arts Committee.