there's a photograph i read frequently — Write or be Written Off, 1988, from the British artist & activist Jo Spence (1934 -1992) \ it's a small portrait oriented photograph \ a vintage C-type print with muted colours
the photograph centres a foreshortened body laid on a gurney \ the body is mostly shrouded by a light-coloured wrinkled sheet that leaves the bottom of the feet visible & a toe tag with the name Spence, ( J) \ above the body is a hand written sign WRITE or be WRITTEN OFF
the photographer, Jo Spence, has collapsed the positions of object & subject, occupying & challenging both… i likely came across this photograph in the early 90s & it's stayed with me
there are moments when i am stuck in an image or phrase & it will become my companion for days as we walk with S along the trails \ i read & re-read \ listen & listen & listen to songs & words & images on repeat \ Joan Kuyek's Unearthing Justice: How to protect your community from the mining industry, is close to hand \ my location leads me to particulars like Kuyek's book – i live on stolen & unceded lands alongside the Nashwaak River which flows into the Wolastoq \ these rivers & their kin are subject to the desires of the current federal government's proposed major projects one in particular being a mine \ the success of these types of extractive project suggest the lands & all life sustained thereby become sacrifice zones… my reading of Unearthing justice is joined by images from The shape of loss by artist Louise Noguchi \ Daphne Marlatt's Steveston & two books by Alice Oswald, Dart and Memorial
& finally back to Jo Spence - i'm still trying to figure out what it means to "write or be written off" \ who writes & who is written off… these words accompany me on the trails \ walking with S \ listening to the river
— nancy viva davis halifax is a white \ queer \ crip settler who embodies disability & chronic illness \ their writin is oriented as an activist & embodied practice — of the body & responsive to wounds written on bodys \ they resides on the unceded & unsurrendered territories of the Wəlastəkwiyik, Mi’kmaq and Peskotomuhkati Peoples.
You can read Leanne Charette’s poem "her long neck & nervous body" in Issue 308 (Summer 2026) Disability: The Revolution. Order the issue now:
Order Issue 308 (Summer 2026) Disability: The Revolution (Canadian Addresses)
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