Ramp is a Red Carpet
Toronto, Ontario
Presented by
Harbourfront Centre
This family oriented drop-in workshop will work with textiles to create a giant carpet.
Facilitated by CoMotion Artist-in-Residence Jenni-Juulia Wallinheimo-Heimonen, participants will be working with textiles, weaving and interlacing strips into a mesh fabric by hand to create one long carpet displayed in the room.
For Wallinheimo-Heimonen, accessibility is not a special arrangement – it’s more like preparing in advance, both individually and as a society. We can eat healthy food, play sports and avoid risky behaviour, but then the COVID-19 pandemic appears. Accessibility improves our chances of coping with change. It is a toolkit and a mindset that increases our ability to be flexible. Accessibility is priceless and should never be considered a concession. Convenience is a visual message of values in our local community. When we see a ramp next to the stairs or braille text on elevator buttons, we celebrate that we are safe and that we live in a place that protects all its citizens.
Jenni-Juulia Wallinheimo-Heimonen is a State Prize-awarded multidisciplinary artist whose short film Reflector of Living Will won the Best Screenplay at the Pisa Robotic Film Festival in 2018. Her work deals with disability politics, aesthetics of assistive devices and gender issues related to women with disabilities. Wallinheimo-Heimonen has facilitated social art workshops in Finland, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Estonia and China and participated in exhibitions in Finland and abroad. She received a three-year grant from the Arts Promotion Center Finland for her project Empathy Objects 2019 –2021. She has osteogenesis imperfecta as a piquant characteristic.
