{"id":188673,"date":"2016-12-25T20:59:26","date_gmt":"2016-12-26T04:59:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/?p=188673"},"modified":"2026-02-12T17:22:22","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T01:22:22","slug":"dvp-interview-anthony-tusler-and-fran-osborne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/2016\/12\/25\/dvp-interview-anthony-tusler-and-fran-osborne\/","title":{"rendered":"DVP Interview: Anthony Tusler and Fran Osborne"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">Fran Osborne interviewed Anthony Tusler for the Disability Visibility Project\u2122 at StoryCorps San Francisco on June 16, 2016. In this clip, with text transcript below, Anthony and Fran talk about their thoughts on disability art and its use as tool to challenge assumptions, explore new ideas, and ultimately change the world.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"embed-soundcloud\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1360\" height=\"400\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?visual=true&#038;url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F299618013&#038;show_artwork=true&#038;maxwidth=1360&#038;maxheight=1000\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<h3>Text Transcript:<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\"><strong>Anthony Tusler<\/strong>: You know, I ran into Larry Paradis who&#8217;s with the Disability Rights Advocates, and he asks me,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">[Music 01 starts, free jazz, solo bass]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\"><strong>Anthony Tusler<\/strong>: \u201cOh, oh, your photography&#8217;s your passion, Anthony!\u201d And I said, \u201cwell, not really.\u201d He said, \u201cyou must really enjoy it.\u201d I said, &#8220;not really. No&#8221; [laughter]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">[Music 01 transitions into speed drumming]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\"><strong>Anthony Tusler<\/strong>: I think art is cruel. \u2018Cause I always feel like I&#8217;m just, I&#8217;m getting close, but I can&#8217;t quite get it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\"><strong>Fran Osborne<\/strong>: Yeah. \u2018Cause you have to dig so deep into, something. You don&#8217;t know what it is. And you never know whether you&#8217;ve got there or not. So, all you can do is just, do the work and put it out there.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">[Music 01 gradually increases in volume]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">[Music 01 ends]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\"><strong>Anthony Tusler<\/strong>: I&#8217;m afraid that we&#8217;re letting disability art, the concept of disability art, get away from us. I&#8217;m afraid that it&#8217;s becoming diluted and that it&#8217;s becoming some kind of bastard hybrid. I mean, on one hand, you know, my wanting to see disability portrayed, and use the arts like the African American community&#8217;s done, Latino community, the women&#8217;s community. I mean, I look back at Judy Chicago&#8217;s plates exhibit. Very radical, still radical today, you know, to be displaying women&#8217;s vaginas on plates, place settings. I mean, it&#8217;s mind blowing! And yet, it changed how women were viewed, and how art was viewed. And we don&#8217;t have anything like that in the disability community. So, I&#8217;m worried about that in the broad sense, that we&#8217;re not seeing enough disability art. And we&#8217;re not defining it. We&#8217;re not grabbing it, we&#8217;re not saying, &#8220;this is ours. This is what needs to be.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">[Music 02 starts: free jazz, rhythmic tin percussion with wind instrument]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\"><strong>Fran Osborne<\/strong>: So tell me more about the Opulent Mobility project, \u2018cause that sounds very exciting.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\"><strong>Anthony Tusler<\/strong>: Opulent Mobility. I saw the first call, and so I contacted Laura Brody, and we started talking, and so I helped her with the show last year that showed at Northridge. And it looked interesting because \u201copulent mobility\u201d is kind of a non-sequitur.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">[Music 02 transitions with added bassline]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\"><strong>Anthony Tusler<\/strong>: We can take disability art in all kinds of directions, and one of the directions we can take is, why not talk about a piece that&#8217;s luxuriant, you know, rather than hard edge? Why can&#8217;t we talk about something that is opulent, that has kind of a Victorian Edwardian kind of sense to it. I mean, I see my wheelchair as a tool. Whereas what I think Laura&#8217;s trying to do is to kind of, break-down our ways of looking at disability as utilitarian. And to say, why not have something that is aesthetically pleasing?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">[Music 02 ends]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\"><strong>Anthony Tusler<\/strong>: But the arts to me right now is the most fruitful, the richest area, it seems to me, to work in, to bring about a strong sense of disability identity and pride.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\"><strong>Fran Osborne<\/strong>: That was one of the questions I have, which is, how aware were you of photography as a powerful medium and a kind of art medium? Because, when I think of 504 photographs that you took, there&#8217;s something um&#8230; not, I mean&#8230; there&#8217;s a lot of respect in there for what was going on. And I&#8230; you know, I still don&#8217;t know quite what to say about it, really.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\"><strong>Anthony Tusler<\/strong>: Um, there is an affection. And what Lisa Van Arragon said &#8211; she&#8217;s a&#8211; she teaches art and visual media, is that, there&#8217;s a certainty in the people in my photographs. \u00a0In the demonstration. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">[Music 03 begins: Ambiant electronic, calm]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\"><strong>Anthony Tusler<\/strong>: There&#8217;s like &#8212; of course we&#8217;re gonna get our rights. We believe in them. They are inevitable. If it doesn&#8217;t happen today, it&#8217;s going to happen next week, next month, next year. I&#8217;ve always been concerned&#8230; I want the world to change. And so, that&#8217;s what I want my art to be.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">[Music 03 fades out]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">[Music 01 fades in and fades out] <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">Music Credits:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">Music 01: \u201cTrack 2\u201d by Cex Fucx (Licensed under <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc\/3.0\/\"><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">Music 02: \u201cTrack 3\u201d by Cex Fucx (Licensed under <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc\/3.0\/\"><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">Music 03: \u201cWhat True Self? Feels Bogus, Let\u2019s Watch Jason X\u201d by Chris Zabriskie (Licensed under <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/\"><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">Attribution License<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">)<\/span><\/p>\n<p>*Source: Freemusicarchive.org<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align:center;\"><b>Support Disability Media and Culture <\/b><\/h2>\n<h2 style=\"text-align:center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/donate\/\"><b>DONATE<\/b><\/a><b> to the Disability Visibility Project\u2122!<\/b><\/h2>\n<h3>Suggested Reference<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">Disability Visibility Project\u2122. (2016, December 25). DVP Interview: Anthony Tusler\u00a0and Fran Osborne. Retrieved from:\u00a0http:\/\/wp.me\/p4H7t1-N57<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>Image Description<\/h3>\n<p>A photo featuring Anthony Tusler and Fran Osborne taken on June 16, 2016: Two people sitting next to each other. The woman on the left is Fran Osborne who appears to be white. She has long dark hair pulled back, with eye glasses on top of her head. She is wearing a black and white striped shirt with an orange scarf tied around her neck. The man on the right is Anthony Tusker who appears to be white. He is wearing a light blue button-down shirt with a black t-shirt inside. He is smiling, and his hair is white and combed back.<\/p>\n<h3>Credits<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">Produced for the Disability Visibility Project\u2122 by Geraldine Ah-Sue and Alice Wong with interviews recorded by StoryCorps, a national nonprofit whose mission is to provide Americans of all backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity to record, share, and preserve the story of our lives. For more: <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.storycorps.org\"><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">www.storycorps.org<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight:400;\"> and <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.disabilityvisibilityproject.com\"><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">www.disabilityvisibilityproject.com<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fran Osborne interviewed Anthony Tusler for the Disability Visibility Project\u2122 at StoryCorps San Francisco on June 16, 2016. In this clip, with text transcript below, Anthony and Fran talk about &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/2016\/12\/25\/dvp-interview-anthony-tusler-and-fran-osborne\/\" class=\"read-more\">Continue Reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">DVP Interview: Anthony Tusler and Fran Osborne<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":188779,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[548705951],"tags":[6722,5967,177,1907,17715812,1337,109289,40576,10372239,2005041,2185238,55897910,4572256,436],"class_list":["post-188673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dvp-interviews","tag-activism","tag-advocacy","tag-art","tag-artists","tag-becoming-disabled","tag-california","tag-creative-process","tag-disability","tag-disability-community","tag-disability-culture","tag-disability-history","tag-disability-identity","tag-disabled-artists","tag-photography","post-has-thumbnail"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/sfb003673_g1.jpg?fit=5184%2C3456&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4H7t1-N57","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}