Artist Joan Tysinger was delighted on the day she received her wheelchair, one year ago. She explains that she was excited to finally have the chance to enjoy being outdoors, not having to drive everywhere. Joan says that her first thought upon arriving home was, “Finally, I’ll be able to do what all my neighbors do – just walk to the Flying Biscuit [a restaurant located not far from her house] for dinner.” So, she called her nephew and arranged to do just that -the pair planned to stroll to the neighborhood hang-out to celebrate.
What should have been an easy ten-minute walk turned into an hour of circumventing over-flowing trashcans left on the sidewalks, looking for curb-cuts, and finding routes around cars that blocked the walkways. The trip was so needlessly difficult that Joan and her nephew considered simply returning to the house. When they did finally reach their destination, Joan had made her decision – this was something that she was going to talk about in her art.
The result of that decision is a series of short films entitled Wheelchair Diaries, which document Joan’s travels around the sidewalks and streets of Atlanta.
As Cathy Fox of the Atlanta Journal Constitution aptly puts it:
Joan Tysinger’s video “The Wheelchair Diaries” brings home the perils of taking a wheelchair “walk” on city streets. The piece, pairing two perspectives — the view from her chair and the same path shot by friends who walk with or behind her — creates a queasy sensation, which aptly complements her experience.
Tysinger narrates as she goes, revealing the countless decisions and disappointments she faces as she negotiates an obstacle course of fractured sidewalks, missing curb cuts and lightning-quick green lights. You come away not only with a vicarious experience of the abstract term “wheelchair accessibility” but also with admiration for a true road warrior.
Here’s a brief clip:
I caught up with Joan for an interview after the Decatur Film Festival, where Wheelchair Diaries won the Audience Award for Best Documentary.
Habladora: Did the film end up being what you’d expected? Did anything about what you’d captured on video surprise you or make you view your own experience differently?
Joan: I didn’t realize how close the traffic is in some parts of the city. It sounds odd, but I guess I’ve gotten used to it. Seeing it on film actually makes me realize – those cars are really close! On the narrowest stretches of sidewalk, you’re barely out of their path.
Habladora: During the screening, you mentioned recognizing in other people’s habits some things that you used to do that you didn’t realize at the time caused accessibility problems. I was wondering if you could give some examples?
Joan: I have a short driveway, and I used to tell visitors to park behind my van, even though their car would then block the sidewalk. If I was having a dinner party, I would pull my car way up close to the house, so that as many guests could park behind me as possible. Now I don’t do that. If I’m having company, I pull my car back a bit, so that they can’t park behind me and the sidewalk stays clear. I also wouldn’t pay much attention to where I put the garbage [for collection]. It might start on the curb, but end-up blocking half the sidewalk. This is a big problem. One moment that you don’t see in the film is when I was coming home, and an entire apartment complex had put their garbage cans in the sidewalk. There was no curb cut there either, so the way was completely blocked.
Habladora: Do you think that people behave this way out of apathy or out of ignorance?
Joan: They just don’t know – how could they know? And they’re never going to know if no one tells them.
Habladora: Have you found people to be ready to change their unhelpful behaviors, once they do know, or are they dismissive?
Joan: I believe that people are generally nice. I just think they don’t know that some of their habits cause problems, and it is up to people who do know to help them understand. Now, I will say that sometimes ‘not knowing’ can be thoughtless or even crossover into intentional disregard. I was at an arts festival last weekend where one of the vendors – a beer concession stand – had set-up right in the middle of the sidewalk. He did it to be in people’s way, to attract business. He still would have sold beer if his stand had been four feet back, where I could get around it. An official should have said something. That one guy’s stand was positioned so that I had to loop all the way around the street to get around it, and I couldn’t see the art.
Habladora: Have you found government institutions and corporations to be responsive to concerns you raise?
Joan: Mostly the people in government institutions try to be accommodating. When I worked with Fulton County doing a grant, for example, people were willing to adjust schedules and locations to make sure that I could attend. Builders, though, still don’t make buildings to accommodate wheelchairs. There should be first-floor apartments in every building. Why can’t the wider, wheelchair-accessible door be the standard one? We keep building multi-story buildings because we think they look elegant or expensive, but in a few years the baby boomers who can afford those places might need assistance walking themselves. I’m not saying that every house has to give someone like me access to every room, but I should be able to get inside, visit, and go to the restroom.
Habladora: What are some of the basic shifts in attitudes that you’d like to see people make?
Joan: The first thing to realize is that everyone is just a person, and just because they’re in a wheelchair doesn’t mean they’re nice or want to be your friend. I once saw a lady get yelled at by a woman in a wheelchair after trying to hold the door open for her. I could tell she was really shocked, so I went over and assured her that being nice is good, she’d just had an experience with one person who’s attitude doesn’t represent everyone’s. Not everyone is nice, so not everyone in a wheelchair is nice. On the other hand, don’t look away when you see someone with a disability – don’t be afraid to treat them as a person. Sometimes children in grocery stores will stare at me or try to ask questions about my chair, and what it can do. I hate it when their parents tell them “don’t stare” or try to shut them up. It implies that being different is something to be ashamed of, that there is something wrong that they shouldn’t talk about. We’re all people, and we all want to be seen as who we are.
Habladora: What are your hopes for the film?
Joan: I want to make a full-length documentary. I’m continuing filming. Next I want to go to the grocery store, where even when they say they’re accessible you often can’t get through the aisles or around the displays, and to the mall. Just to see what happens.
Habladora: What’s your next project going to be?
Joan: I’d like to design a series of crazy or exotic ramps for houses that present challenges for people in wheelchairs. I’d like to use interesting materials, like glass, or incorporate pulleys. I want to show that making buildings accessible doesn’t have to be limiting, it can be very creative and artistic.
You can learn more about Joan Tysinger, her art, and the Wheelchair Diaries at her website.
Oh, Lord, do I have sympathy for this woman. I have lived in Atlanta for about 15 years now and have never owned a car: I go everywhere by bike or rollerblade. And the sidewalks are absolutely the worst. The neighborhood she’s in (Candler Park) is especially horrible. The streets aren’t any better: whenever there’s a pothole, which is like always, the city covers it with an inch-thick steel plate that will shatter your bike’s wheel. I have a hell of a time getting anywhere, and I can walk: it makes me shudder to even think about what it’s like for someone who can’t.
I think that one of the things that most struck me about talking with Joan was the uncomfortable realization that I do some of the things that cause problems – I’ve left the tail-end of my car hanging out of my driveway into the sidewalk, and I’m sure I’ve left my recycling bins in the sidewalk as well.
Atlanta, like a lot of cities in the U.S., also seems to have a somewhat hostile attitude towards bikers and pedestrians – I’ve seen some near-misses as drivers speed past bikers. I even saw one guy get clipped by a SUV’s rear-view mirror, but when I asked if he wanted me to stay as a witness if he called the cops, he said that sort of thing happens so often that it wasn’t worth the bother.
In my city, if it weren’t for federal lawsuits filed under ADA, there wouldn’t be as many wheel chair curbs. And many of the ones that were intitially done were faulty and had to be rebuilt. The city fights the lawsuits tooth and nail but ultimately settles. But at the same time they’re fighting it, they’re talking about how great they are.
As a Canadian citizen the issue of accessibility really hit a nerve with me last winter. When the snow is really deep and people do not clear their sidewalks all pedestrians are forced unto the road. I recently developed an illness which has forced me to walk with a cane. I have really noticed how my mobility has been impacted. I am still able to move around but having to climb throw a huge pile of snow to get to the street so that I can continue to walk is not only dangerous for me it risks further injury.
There is this assumption that everyone is able bodies in this society. We don’t think about how our behaviors impact others until we are directly confronted with it. Kudos to her for putting the issue out there. When others make even the smallest changes to their lifestyle it greatly improves the lives of others. To all of you who live in snowy areas Please, Please shovel your sidewalk
My husbnd and I rented a wheelchair for the weekend just so we could spend my birthday doing stuff.
Wow, has this turned into a major drama.
All the little shops I love to wander aroud in that he’s never been able to come into with me? Either have steps to get into or have their displays so close together you can’t shop in them if you’re in a wheelchair.
The sidewalks in our nieghbourhood are a nightmare.
Trying to get UP the bloody hills that make up Halifax? Nearly impossible.
I just wanted to spend a day with my husband going for a walk. That’s it. It took three days of planning, a trip out to the hospital, and in the end we ended up coming home really early so I could sleep – pushing him up those hills was exhausting.
Just so we could spend my birthday together not in the flat.
And yeah – people get into arguments with me all the time about whether someplace is accessible. Clue: When you’re not in a wheelchair and don’t know anyone in a wheelchair, and someone who does fit into either of those categories says “this isn’t accessible”? They are NOT LYING.
I knew this was about Atlanta when she mentioned the Flying Biscuit. Benjamin Smoke aka Opal Foxx waited tables there oh so many years ago.
Candler Park, the area where she lives, is within the limits of the city of Atlanta but it is a small area that lies in Dekalb County, as opposed to Fulton County which is largely Atlanta. The bulk of Dekalb County that surrounds Candler Park is the city of Decatur. As such, the differing jurisdictions constantly battle over budgeting for street and sidewalk maintenance and who is responsible for what.
In many areas, the sidewalks are not the square slabs to which most are accustomed, rather they are hexagonal plates with roughly a one foot diameter and decades old. Everything from tree roots to frost have lifted the plates to form rather jagged obstacles. Even as a pedestrian, I had to often walk in the street because the sidewalk was so bad.
addendum: To add to the jurisdictional woes, I believe the street on which the Flying Biscuit is located is also a state highway.
As a Canadian citizen the issue of accessibility really hit a nerve with me last winter. When the snow is really deep and people do not clear their sidewalks all pedestrians are forced unto the road. I recently developed an illness which has forced me to walk with a cane. I have really noticed how my mobility has been impacted. I am still able to move around but having to climb throw a huge pile of snow to get to the street so that I can continue to walk is not only dangerous for me it risks further injury.
There is this assumption that everyone is able bodies in this society. We don’t think about how our behaviors impact others until we are directly confronted with it. Kudos to her for putting the issue out there. When others make even the smallest changes to their lifestyle it greatly improves the lives of others. To all of you who live in snowy areas Please, Please shovel your sidewalk
A friend of mine had great success with encouraging people to shovel their sidewalks simply by printing out the section of the city code that says “you have to shovel your sidewalks or your ass will get fined” and leaving it in offender’s mailboxes. : )
One of my cousins is in a wheelchair, so I’m aware of some of this stuff (the thing about parking cars in/on the sidewalk drives me batshit insane), but I definitely never thought about the recycling bins thing.
Quick question for anyone who might be able to point me in the direction of good information: my apartment building, which is not handicapped accessible, is getting some minor renovations. I was under the impression that when a building was renovated, the owner was required to make it ADA-compliant. Am I just making that up? Or does it only apply to commercial buildings and not residential? Does anyone know offhand or can point me towards some information? (I’m trying to read the guidelines on access-board.gov but my brain is melting.)
[...] interviewing Joan for this piece in Feministe, I was surprised have to confront my own privilege. When Joan mentioned how difficult it can be [...]