The Aesthetic Model of Disability

This chapter explores the questions of how and why certain behaviours are perceived as an expression of a disability – and not, for example, as an mic expression – and what role art can play when it comes to constructing and (re) framing disability as a phenomenon. The chapter is based on three field studies conducted at the NewYoungArt [NyUngKunst] festival in Northern Norway during the period 2017–2019, and uses dissemination methodology derived from art-based research and performance ethnography (Denzin, 2003; Haseman & Mafe, 2009; McNiff, 2007). The authors’ purpose is to present the “aesthetic model of disability”. This is a new model that clearly deviates from the medical model, but which complements the social model of disability and the Nordic GAP model (Owens, 2015; Shakespeare, 2004). The theoretical framework consists of Rancière (2012), Seel (2003) and Dewey (1934), among others. With this chapter, the authors wish to contribute to cultural democrac