Quipowanie muzeum: O wystawie Queering the Crip, Cripping the Queer w berlińskim Schwules Museum

Abstract

Quipping the Museum: Queering the Crip, Cripping the Queer at Berlin’s Schwules Museum The article analyzes Queering the Crip, Cripping the Queer (Schwules Museum, Berlin, 2022/2023) – the first international exhibition which centred on the intersections of queer and crip history, culture, and activism. Drawing on the theoretical framework of cultural disability studies, Ojrzyńska examines its key thematic areas, such as inclusion, aesthetic beauty, history, and resistance. Informed by the minoritarian ethics of representation, Queering the Crip… showed how a museum exhibition can serve as a site of inclusivity and a resource for inclusive practices, nurturing solidarity and a sense of connection across various categories of social exclusion, invisibility, and marginalization, with major focus on “quip” identities, to use the neologism put forward by Quiplash. It expanded the Schwules Museum’s reach beyond those members of the queer community who fit in the bodily and mental “norm” as well as stimulating reflection on the place and role of disability in culture and society. In fact, the exhibition presented disability and queerness as identities and alternative ways of being in the world that can intersect and have a strong subversive political, ethical, and aesthetic potential.