In “Stumbling over History,” Kenny’s essay published by Craft, he writes: “There is a Jewish saying that you die twice. You die once when you die, and again when your name is no longer spoken.” Read the essay, which was once the beginning of Kenny’s forthcoming book, Stumbling over History: Disability and the Holocaust, here.
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“Disability Futures in the Arts," is a series of essays curated, edited, and introduced by Kenny. Over the next 3 years, Wordgathering will publish 15 essays by disabled writers and artists working in different media. The first cohort of 5 essays is now published! Read and/or listen to Kenny's series introduction and essays by Chun-shan (Sandie) Yi, Travis Chi Wing Lau, Sandra Alland, Jerron Herman, and Noa Winter here.
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On the Fulbright Forward podcast episode “Disability and Eugenics Discourse,” Kenny talks with Fulbright EUR Diversity Coordinator Susanne Hamscha about disabiity and eugenics during the Third Reich, when disabled people were systematically murdered in the Aktion T4 program. But eugenic discourses are alive and well, as Kenny explains with reference to the COVID-19 pandemic. Listen here.
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“Access in Content and Form,” a Creative Capital conversation between Kenny and filmmaker/visual artist Alison O’Daniel is now online! As artists who identify as disabled, Kenny and Alison know the importance of access to buildings, sound, films, books, websites and, especially during the current pandemic, protection and care. However, what is most important to their practices is work that focuses on disability in both content and form. Kenny and Alison talk about how their intersectional identities enter their work, the importance of disability representation and role models, and their upcoming creative collaboration on a film based on Kenny’s poem sequence In the Gardens of Japan. The event has ASL interpretation and live-captioning.
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Kenny’s reading with Jayrôme C. Robinet, part of “Queer as German Folk,” a project “celebrating the multilayered histories of Germany’s and America’s diverse LGBTIQ+ communities” is now online. Goethe-Institut in North America in collaboration with its Goethe Pop Ups and the Schwules Museum Berlin (SMU) were hosts for the event, which was moderated by Dr. Robert D. Tobin, Henry J. Leir Chair in Foreign Languages and Cultures at Clark University.
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In “Without Us: Disabled Writers 30 Years after the ADA", Kenny writes “Despite the essential need for disabled writers to transform the understanding of disability and disabled lives, in the thirty years since the ADA’s passage, in literary circles, there remains a lack of representation of disabled people in gatekeeper positions and in our literature’s pages.” Read the full essay here.
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Diversability has named Kenny as an honoree on their inaugural D-30 Disability Impact List. The 30 honorees represent 10 countries; Gender identity: 63% female, 27% male, 10% nonbinary; Black: 33%, non-Black people of color: 47%, LGBTQIA+: 27%.
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Kenny has been awarded a 3-year multi-project grant from the Canada Council for the Arts. He will work on various projects in collaboration with artists and institutions around the world with the goal of using his privilege as a pioneer in disability arts to foster an enduring connection between generations of disabled artists. Collectively, these projects will not only fill historical and cultural gaps but also look at the historical and contemporary importance of disability culture. Kenny says, "This has become a more urgent goal as the current coronavirus pandemic has brought to the surface the vulnerability of those who live with disabilities caused by the lack of knowledge and misunderstanding of disabled lives."
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Kenny has been awarded the Some Serious Business (#SSB AWAY) residency in Tuscany, where he will work on “Annunciations,” an essay that will be part of Frida Kahlo’s Leg: Essays on Disability, Role Models, and Representation.
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