“Redefining beauty”: L gallery exhibit spotlights spina bifida

The L gallery at Humber College Lakeshore is known for holding a wide range of different art exhibitions. The most recent exhibit, Spina Bifida “Front to Back” by photographer Steve Kean was on display from January 9th to the 27th.

Kean is a disabled artist who has spina bifida.

The L gallery works with different academic and departmental groups on Humber campus. Kean’s exhibition was brought to the gallery and supported by the Centre for Human Rights Equity and Diversity.

Kean has long wanted to create work about Spina Bifida and has been developing his ideas behind this project for more than three years. The subjects for the pieces were found and agreed with little hesitation to be part of the art.

“Spina Bifida ‘Front to Back’ is a passion project. These people and the ideas I want to get across and for people to think about are very important to me,” Kean told Skedline in an interview.

Kean hopes the exhibit will make people stop and think about beauty. Even possibly by asking themselves, “what does it mean to say that someone is beautiful?”

“Helping define the definition of beauty, to be stretched beyond what media and the public opinion say because it opened up a deeper appreciation of the human body himself,” he says. “Our form has been a subject of art since the very beginning of art. Spina Bifida Front to Back was the beginning of what I hope will be a life’s work in redefining beauty and trying very hard to show it.”

With his hope of the art making a difference in viewer’s eyes, Kean hopes the resulting joy and fulfilling feeling will extend to the people who worked with him. The exhibit shared the words of the participants next to their photos.

There are no plans for where the exhibit will be going next but Kean does want to continue to create and share this kind of art.