Dancing with Petra Kuppers:
A Review & Tribute of Eco Soma
I’ve spent a great deal of time with Petra Kuppers’ book Eco Soma.
I have danced while using my Lofstrand crutch with this book against my back separated only by a small piece of leather.
I’ve brought these pages into one surgical waiting room,
dozens of doctors appointments.
I lost a dear friend, a Disabled man named Jesse Goldstein.
In the time that I have spent with this book, so much has occurred
and I am grateful to be able to read it a page at a time.
I have been making people uncomfortable for as long as I can remember.
Nearly 2 years ago I began a project where I explored my identity
using photographs on social media.
So many people have looked at the time since the beginning
of the pandemic as a time of waste.
I’ve heard person after person discuss gaining too much weight
as I was having feeding tubes sewn and stapled into my body.
Most Disabled people I know felt differently as we were already
apart from the world, “othered “in many ways.
Kuppers has been making people uncomfortable with her existence
for her lifetime as well.
Her witnessing, her journey through life and the worlds — both
Queer & Disabled — she inhabits and explores
joy, trauma, beauty, heartache —
It brings about a feeling in me that I don’t have a word for.
Maybe that word is community.
The community I longed for decades ago already existed,
but in a pre-Internet world there was no way to know what one was doing in Michigan and another was doing in California unless letters were written or long phone calls ensued.
She not only invites the reader to join her in uncomfortable spaces,
but she gives permission to those of us who might be hesitant.
I was not raised in nature.
Quite the opposite I was told “something could happen” more times
than I could possibly say as I laid in bed looking longingly out at the trees.
My access to nature was at times just a cracked window, the smell
of the snow, the crackle of the ice as the cars hit it when I was young.
I relied on familiar sounds to keep me safe so nature was off-limits.
To go “out there” was quite literally risking my life —
as a Queer person, as a Disabled person.
Observing, watching, witnessing — these are not new concepts
as they were to so many as the pandemic began.
Other artists for many many years have been documenting it in many ways.
Kuppers does it in a way unlike all others.
Reading this book at this specific time is truly transformative.
Kuppers gives the reader courage and permission.
Whether that is permission to perform or to watch is up to you.
She goes from Canada to Australia and back again.
She instructs the reader to watch a performance piece,
“Journey to the Holocaust memorial in Berlin,”
and witness the pain of those denied access to a space
that should be undeniable.
Finding nature with and within.
Disabled bodies and access to nature by Disabled people is still
a pretty radical concept.
I could recall the same feelings 35 years ago that I feel now
when not being able to physically access so many spaces
the pandemic made accessible.
I could now attend the screening room that I couldn’t before
and look at animals and wildlife on cameras across the world.
I could ride a bike.
Kuppers doesn’t ask for an invitation and I marvel at that.
I have always taken up space without asking but
also often without intention.
Eco Soma has allowed me to learn more about intentionally taking up space in my Queer Disabled body by following Kupper’s lead
and whatever that entails.
I’m ready for the discomfort , finally.
