September 27, 2023 (Zoom): Cross-Pollinations
Join the League of Canadian Poets, the Health Arts Research Centre, and the Canadian Association for Health Humanities for the next iteration of the Cross-Pollinations Virtual Rounds Series.
September 27, 2023
The September 27, 2023 Cross-Pollinations event featured poet Therese Estacion and historian/museum worker Shaelyn Ryan discussing the themes of amputation and disability. Therese Estacion read from her first poetry collection Phantompains which explores her experience of multiple amputations after surviving a rare infection. Meanwhile, Shaelyn Ryan presented on work from her Master's thesis on amputee and disability history in Canadian archives and museums.
Therese Estacion is part of the Visayan diaspora community. She is an elementary school teacher and is studying to be a psychotherapist. She lives with a physical disability, and in Toronto/ Tkaronto. Her first collection of poems, Phantompains, was published by Book*Hug. Phantompains was a finalist for both the 2021 Indies Foreword Reviews and 2021 CLMP Firecracker Award. She has been a guest editor for ARC poetry’s issue on Disability Desirability, co-organizes Smutburger’s 2023-2024 series.
Shaelyn Ryan is a historian and museum worker with a background in medical and disability history in Canada. Her Master's thesis, "Missing Parts: A Critical Analysis of Amputees and Disability History in Three Canadian Archives and Museums" examines the ways historical disability is dealt with in a series of Canadian archives and museums, as well as how we can take steps forward to equitably archive and display disability history in these institutions. She currently works as Assistant Curator of the Medical Artifact Collection at Western University in London, Ontario.
Recordings from past events can be viewed on YouTube.