Sami Schalk | Indisposable: Tactics for Care and Mourning

Sami Schalk, #QuarantineLooks: Embracing the Fabulously Mundane, 2020 C-print, Courtesy of Sam Waldron/Dutcher Photography 24 x 36 inches each

Sami Schalk, Becoming a Pleasure Artist: Pleasure is the Point, 2022 C-print, Courtesy of Sam Waldron/Dutcher Photography 24 x 16 inches each

Click the button below for the audio and text of the VISUAL DESCRIPTION for Sami Schalk, #QuarantineLooks: Embracing the Fabulously Mundane and Becoming a Pleasure Artist: Pleasure is the Point:

sami schalk | visual description
Quarantine Looks Series Sami Schalk, a fat light skin Black woman with short curly pink hair, poses in an empty parking lot leaning over the handle of a grocery cart. She wears a long sleeve, multi-colored sparkly jumpsuit and a pink sequin face mask. Though her face is covered, it’s clear she is smiling as she looks up toward the camera. Sami Schalk, a fat light skin Black woman with short curly hair and glasses stands at a blue gas station pump putting gas into a light blue SUV. She wears a full length silver formal gown with off the shoulder sleeve cutouts and a matching silver sequin face mask. Sami Schalk, a fat light skin Black woman with short curly hair and glasses, stands by 3 green dumpsters in front of a brick wall with trees in the far background. She wears a sleeveless cornflower blue formal gown and a mask covered in large blue sequins. She is shown mid-action, hands in the air, throwing a bag of garbage over her shoulder toward the dumpster behind her. Boudoir Series Sami Schalk, a fat light skin Black woman with short curly hair, smiles, looking slightly to the left in a medium shot from the chest up. She sits in a peacock style wicker chair wearing a faux leather and mesh bralette, a leather kitten mask, and red lipstick. Sami Schalk, a fat light skin Black woman with short curly hair and glasses stands in front of a dark floral background. Shown from the thighs up, she poses with one hand to her chest and her head turned to the left with a slight smile. She wears a black lace cutout bodysuit with black straps at the waist and hips underneath a black lace duster. Sami Schalk, a fat light skin Black woman with short curly hair and glasses, poses sitting in a rust orange chair in front of a dark floral background. She sits in the chair looking up and smirking slightly at the camera. She wears a dark floral bra with straps over the chest, fishnet stockings, and a black velvet duster with fur trim collar and sleeves.
Sami Schalk “#QuarantineLooks: Embracing the Fabulously Mundane,” 2020, C-print, Courtesy of Sam Waldron/Dutcher Photography, 24 x 36 inches each Sami Schalk “Becoming a Pleasure Artist: Pleasure is the Point,” 2022, C-print, Courtesy of Sam Waldron/Dutcher Photography, 24 x 16 inches each

Sami Schalk (b. 1986) (she/hers) is a pleasure artist and an associate professor of Gender & Women’s Studies at University of Wisconsin-Madison who celebrates and centers pleasure as a tactic for healing and liberation. Her scholarship focuses on disability, race, and gender in contemporary American literature and culture. Schalk’s newest book, Black Disability Politics (Duke UP 2022) focuses on disability politics in Black activism in the post-Civil Rights era.

How does disability create knowledge essential to surviving a global pandemic? One answer: joy. As an act of pleasure activism and self-care during the pandemic lockdown, Schalk began posting images of herself on social media with sparkly new hairstyles, outfits, and facemasks. The act of dressing up to handle ordinary tasks such as walking the dog or taking out the trash sparked delight and connection with strangers and friends. In her words, “joy begets joy begets joy.”

Photographs from Sami Schalk’s #QuarantineLooks: Embracing the Fabulously Mundane (2020) and her boudoir series Becoming a Pleasure Artist: Pleasure is the Point (2022) insist on joyful visibility for her fat, Black, queer, femme body. They likewise challenge what depression looks like and interrogate what it means to look well or unwell. Melding the politics of both public and private space, Schalk asserts that wherever there is pleasure there is power. Here, pleasure activism is underscored as a tactic for care and resistance.

For Chapter 2 of Indisposable: Structures of Support After the ADA, Schalk created a video essay based on her original “lewks” entitled #QuarantineLooks: Embracing the Fabulously Mundane. During the chapter, Schalk and scholar Jina Kim discussed the importance of pleasure activism and modeled several different looks of their own. They also invited audience members to share ideas about what brings them joy during pandemic, and to show off their own fabulous fashion choices. Comic artist MK Czerwiec live-illustrated the event, adding to the exuberance of the occasion.

Instagram:

@pleasureisthepoint @fierceblackfemme 

samischalk.com