Rachel D'Ambruoso

Rachel D'Ambruoso
BA Studio Art in Digital Media Design
Minor in Computer Science

This piece concentrated on using collage to visually manifest intangible concepts and experiences related to disability. This objective was addressed through the techniques used in the piece’s subject matter and its physical construction. The main concept behind this collage was inspired by contemporary philosopher Elizabeth Barnes who among other researchers, has argued that disability should in no way be considered as a sub-optimal lifestyle, but maintains that in and of itself, disability causes some level of harm to an individual. This collage illustrates a common experience associated with attention deficit disorder in which one misinterprets information because they didn’t slow down enough to fully process its meaning before attempting to understand it. In order to express this experience to the viewer, I chose to illustrate the transition between an original source of information into an alternative interpretation a person's mind may assign to it. Here, I relied on a personal anecdote to fill in the original source of information and the subsequent transition into my alternative interpretation of it. I experienced this once when I was in fourth grade playing in the woods with a pair of binoculars. I heard a sound and was convinced I saw it come from a man wearing orange gloves clapping in the trees. After excitedly sharing this with my Dad, he explained that the sound was actually coming from a woodpecker. In this experience, I had witnessed visual and auditory information and assigned it meaning before I could truly interpret what I saw and heard. In reference to this experience, the literal depiction of this collage shows a woodpecker making sounds in the woods and transitioning into a man clapping in the tree while wearing orange gloves.