- A professor decides at the last minute to add several videos and visual resources to one of his lessons for the upcoming semester. He is searching the web to find something appropriate quickly. To find the right material, he needs to be able to filter his search by theme, access, methodology, length, trigger warning, running time, topic (like TED), geography, and artistic medium. He would also like to know if the work he wants to use is copyrighted, if he needs to pay the artist, if he will have to pay to transport the work or if there is any form of acknowledgement or attribution that needs to be done. However, the results from his web search are either poor quality, they don't have clear usage information, and/or they are not fully accessible. He comes across the knowledge platform and looks into the large collection of photos and videos on the site. He narrows down his search by specific topics, themes and methods and is able to find several good quality videos that can be reused for non-commercial purposes. All video pieces are also clearly labelled with run time. He copies the link of a few videos and images and will embed them in his presentation. With all the information provided on the platform, he is able to appropriately cite each piece of work.
- A teacher has found a very interesting and relevant video on the knowledge platform for one of her lessons. The language of the video is Ojibwa and it is about 15 minutes long. However, the teacher only needs a short segment (about 2 minutes) of the video and would like to check the possibility of translating that section into English. Through the platform, she is able to connect with the artist and have a conversation with him regarding usage rights, segmenting the video, and adding English captions. The artist gives her permission to use any segment of the video, however, he argues that the video should not be translated into English. To bridge this gap, they work together to prepare an audio description for the video to help a larger audience access this video's content. The artist also provides an artist statement in English to facilitate understanding the symbolism captured in the video.
- A researcher is looking for artwork/exhibitions from a specific time period, in the global context. She is hoping to use them as resources and references in her current research project. She goes to the website and looks through the large variety of disability art listed on the knowledge platform as well as the archive section. First, she narrows down her search criteria by time periods, however, she still comes across a large collection of art pieces. To better refine the results, she also adds filters for location and type of artwork. She finds a collection of art pieces created during her specific time period. Each piece includes information about the artist, date of production, medium, usage permission, etc. Depending on the usage permission for each piece, she is able to select a piece and either directly use it in her research project or provide a link to the knowledge platform site.
- An inclusive designer would like to learn more about disability art to open her mind to what is out there and what is possible. She often visits the platform to check out current exhibitions, featured works, watch artist interviews and look for upcoming events about non-normative and disability art. Through this platform she has been able to connect with several artists and learn about their work in detail. As a part of her professional practice, she regularly leads workshops about inclusive design. For each of those workshops, she needs to prepare a presentation that is contextually relevant and inspiring for a particular community. She often uses the platform to find content for her presentations, as most images and videos included on the platform are fully cited and they have clear usage rights information. She has been able to share a couple of her presentations in the education section on the platform to contribute back to the resources being generated on this platform.
- A student is working on writing an essay on the intersection of accessibility and culture. He goes to the website and looks into the section that describes non-normative and disability art. He also looks into the definition section and watches several artist interviews. He is able to find information that he wasn't able to access in his university's library or any other online art history resources or archives. He is also inspired by the works of art showcased in the exhibition section. He is particularly impressed by the work of one of the artists in a recent exhibition on the platform. He finds the artist's contact info on the site and sends her an email to request an interview and learn more about her work.
- A Deaf visual artist who only relies on visuals and is looking for inspiration comes to the knowledge platform site to look for images that are not associated with any textual, verbal or musical information and they are just visual resources. On this platform, he has access to ASL interpretation for different sections and visual representation for each function or feature on the site. He selects the option for visual search. He is presented with a variety of visual tags to help him filter his search results. He also uses the “reverse image search” option to upload some of his favourite images from his visual archive and find similar material. Each image found on the platform includes information about the creator/artist, medium, time, location, usage right, etc. and this information is presented in different languages including ASL.
- A dancer/scholar who advocates for movement uses the knowledge platform to expand her understanding of dance as non-normative and a way to access. Through her work, she intends to question mainstream definitions about dance, body movements and access. She is looking for resources and collaboration opportunities on the knowledge platform. She hopes to find collaborators who can join her to create meaningful change. Through the artist database, she is able to find several artists whose work centres around human body, movement and dance. She is also able to post a call for collaboration opportunities on the site. She also looks into the list of current and archived exhibitions and the non-normative and disability art archive to find inspiration and to connect with other artists working in this area.
- A Deaf filmmaker is looking for deaf actresses. She uses the knowledge platform to search for actresses from the Deaf community. She also looks into the artist database and uses different tags to find the right candidates. To make sure this film is accessible for a larger audience, she is also planning to add captions to her film. She looks into resources related to video accessibility and captions on the site. She would also like to get advice from other filmmakers and other artists who add captions and audio/visual descriptions to their work. Thus, she posts a question on the open discussion forum regarding captioning and audio/visual description and hopes to be connected to people who can help and have experience in these areas.
- An artist who advocates for disability art intends to contribute to the definitions of disability and non-normative art from his perspective and through his work. He reviews the current definitions in the co-create definitions sections, suggests several edits and submits several of his art pieces as visual examples for the textual definitions. He also looks into the section for disability and non-normative art collections and submits several new textual and visual tags to support searching for specific themes/topics.
- A Deaf artist aims to build partnership opportunities between the Deaf community and the disability community in order to exchange tools/knowledge and build accessible means for showcasing their artwork. The Deaf community is quite small and she needs the support of the non-deaf folks to pull off successful art events. She needs allies to attend their art events to increase knowledge, empathy, understanding, awareness of Deaf culture and their access needs in order to navigate the society. She uses the knowledge platform to provide access to any current events and exhibitions by the Deaf community. She is always looking into the funding resources section to be able to fund low-cost/free accessible events for the Deaf community in varying locations where members of the Deaf community feel safe and welcomed with the ease of communication access. She has also found the section about accessibility of art venues and events very useful and uses that as part of her training process when recruiting volunteers for setting up an art exhibition.
- An artist is looking to use the networks on the knowledge platform site. She looks into the Artist Connection and the artist database section to find other artists who can collaborate with her and jointly co-curate an exhibition. Right from the start, she uses the accessibility section to make sure different aspects that can make their artwork accessible are integrated into their work. While working on their art pieces, she often checks the funding resources and the curators database to find resources and people who can promote their work. Once they are ready to have an exhibition, she posts something about their upcoming event in the exhibitions section.
- A visual artist is interested in learning about creative ways to incorporate different modalities into her art, in ways that the different modes are an integral part of the art or act to enhance or extend the meaning of the art (in addition to any translations such as text-based descriptions). She'd like to be able to search for art and artists that have this type of practice, as well as scan through images of art from other artists in general. She often checks the Disability and Non-normative art collections as well as the education section to find varying resources, such as courses, presentations, articles and research projects, etc.. These resources help her to see examples of how other artists have done this, and how different scholars, researchers and educators are addressing this topic in their work.
- An artist who does not identify with having a disability is interested in using the knowledge platform and connecting with this community. However, she is thoughtful about how to connect with the community, how to be a good ally, and in what capacity she should/could be involved. She looks into the Bodies in Translation guiding principles on the platform's main page and the website's code of conduct document. She also looks into the accessibility section to learn more about ways she can support different communities. Scanning through specific conversations on the open discussion forum can also help her better recognize values and sensitives within different groups.
- An artist would like to connect her online catalogue to the knowledge platform. She is able to build a profile and add a link to each of her art pieces on the site. During this process, she is requested to add metadata to her work to increase the accessibility as well as find-ability when searching for an item. For each visual art piece, she is asked to add textual/audio descriptions. She is also given several options to determine the usage rights for her work. She can either fully lock her work so no one is able to reuse that piece or she can indicate specific types of licenses, for example creative commons. She can also indicate if she prefers any specific form of compensation or recognition by users of her work. There is also an option for enabling others to submit interpretations and descriptions of her work. She activates this option and looks forward to reviewing different interpretations of her work and adding them to her pieces. Once she is settled on the platform and has linked her work there, she is able to track who is using her work and how it's being used.
- A curator is planning an exhibit and she is looking for talented artists. She uses the artist database to reach out to larger, broader audiences, and searches for emerging, and mid-career as well as established artists. She also needs to know about the geography of those artists in order to find out whether they are local, national or international. Through this database, she can also learn about their artistic medium for their work and find any essays or reviews written about their past exhibitions. In addition to searching the database, she is going to participate in the open discussion forum as well to connect with different groups and possibly find the artists she is looking for.
- A curator is looking for consultation on accessibility of his upcoming show. He also needs to find and recruit interpreters that can help during the show. He needs to design accessible interfaces, didactic displays and tours for deaf and blind visitors and coda (child of deaf adults). He is also looking for interpreters/describers in the context of visual design, video, text and audio. He is going to create a post in the forum to start the conversation with the community and get advice/feedback about accessibility of his future show. He also checks out the resources available on the knowledge platform site about accessible curation and different aspects that curators should consider when planning the show.
- An art lover comes to the site to find out about current exhibitions, where they are happening and when they are happening. She generally works in fibre and is passionate about experimenting with new techniques to expand her work. She often visits the site to learn about new workshops and classes and get inspiration from the work of other fibre artists on the knowledge platform.
- A medical student is doing research on Obesity. He would like to learn more about obesity from different aspects of this topic that are not solely medically focused. He comes across the knowledge platform and starts searching about Obesity. His search brings up results about fat activism and many other related creative projects. He finds a link to an archived photography exhibition about the same topic. He is able to find a link to the artists pages and connect with them for further discussion about Obesity from their perspective. Through searching the knowledge platform, he has found a wide range of resources that have deeply impacted his thinking and perspective on obesity as a medical student.
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