Crip Epistemologies constitutes a vital platform for dialogue, education, and creativity centred around the experiences of disabled, d/Deaf, neurodiverse, and sick individuals, particularly within Germany’s cultural context. By emphasizing the often-overlooked voices of disabled artists and activists and by connecting and celebrating disability cultures, this initiative aims to re-write pervasive ableist narratives that marginalize disability.
Curated by Kate Brehme, the programme is disabled-led and, as the fourth part of HKW’s School of Quilombismo project, comprises workshops, lectures, and interventions that encourage in-depth engagement with themes such as producing, sharing, and archiving Crip knowledge. The word ‘Crip’ is derived from a derogatory term used to describe disabled people, reclaimed by many members of the community internationally to reposition disability as a positive marker of identity. Crip Epistemologies seeks to explore the politics of what Claire Cunningham has termed, being Crip and of Cripping, and particularly its complex intersections with disability, race, gender and sexuality in Germany and beyond.