PAIN AS A PORTAL

Pain as a Portal opens the space for engaging with our individual experiences of pain, in relation to the social, cultural, and political paradigms of pain. Pain is one of the most common experiences of humanity yet predominant acceptable and believed expressions of pain have been historically relegated to the most privileged. Feel into your physical, mental, and emotional pain and honor the knowledge it gives you on what you need and want. When we can tap into our pain, and honor its role and presence in our lives, we can situate ourselves in grief, empathy, and recognition of commonality. Pain has been utilized and weaponized onto others as justification for causing further cycles of harm, and that is a route of destruction. But here we will try to begin to understand our own pain for the radicality of how pain is a portal for navigating towards a better world for ourselves and others. Reading, listening to music, and looking at art that deals with pain will guide us in exercises of dialogue and expression (drawing, collage, poetry, prose, sound, sculpture) and will culminate in sharing one reflective work on what portal pain has opened up for you, towards where, and to/for what and who.

INSTRUCTOR

Ezra Benus
​I am a disabled artist in pain whose work deals with pain. My experience as an educator is varied; I taught sculpture for three summers at Brandeis University's pre-college program, 2nd and 5th grade after-school Jewish studies program for 3 years, and as an Access and Adult Learning Fellow at the Brooklyn Museum. I have since continued to freelance as an arts educator at various museums and art institutions. As an artist I have also participated in public programs as a panel discussant and curated exhibitions that foreground disability. I am eager to create a space here in which people can lean into pain and feel its breadth and generative possibilities, and at the very least a space to simply honor our pain and be in pain together. www.ezrabenus.com ​@ezrabenus
Image credit: @_cripple_ on IG
Wednesdays, 5:30-7 PM EST
​Online on Zoom
90 minute sessions, 5 weeks
July 31st-August 28th, 2024
$125 - $375 Tuition
Select scholarships and solidarity rate discounts available upon request.