Professor David Simmonds

My Home, My Rights is a Canadian Artist Collective and Participatory Research Co-Research Team. Together we're creating a series of photographs, publications, presentations and exhibitions that explore how photography might contribute to how we understand human rights (CRPD) in the context of Community Living.

Co-researching alongside Principal Investigator, Professor Sheila Wildman (Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University), our photographic work explores the potential of participatory and co-created photography as an inclusive research method. We work together to think about what collaborative critique looks like, and to investigate how our photography can help change how people think about persons with disabilities.

Some of the questions we ask include:

• Can photography help recognize persons with intellectual disabilities as experts in our own lives?
• Can participatory research empower persons with intellectual disabilities to be leaders in advocating for our human rights?

My Home, My Rights in a work in progress. As well as our photography, we create drawings, make art, create videos and exhibitions and host conference and workshop presentations.

Acknowledgements

My Home, My Rights wants to thank our friends, families, and carers for supporting us in our work. We also thank the SSHRC for their support through a Partnership Engage Grant; The Nova Scotia Association for Community Living; the Disability Rights Coalition; the Schulich School of Law (Dalhousie University); NSCAD University; the Club Inclusion, and the Faculty of Arts at the University of Calgary. 

We are grateful to the many people within and external to these organizations for their ongoing support. 

You know who you are, thank you everyone!