A place in the world: Deaf artist hopes mural at D.C. Starbucks sparks conversations about inclusion, accessibility
The latest work by New York City-based artist and professor, Ryan Seslow is a permanent installation at the first Starbucks store designed using new Inclusive Spaces Framework.
Ryan Seslow, a New York City artist and college professor of digital art and design, always knew he wanted to spend his life making art.
Seslow, who identifies as Deaf and hard of hearing, fondly remembers Saturday mornings growing up – eating a bowl of cereal, watching cartoons alongside his brother and putting tracing paper on the television screen and trying to draw what he saw. Later, he was inspired by artists like Pablo Picasso, Louise Bourgeois and Fernand Léger.
One of his latest works is a wrap-around wall mural at a new Starbucks store in Washington D.C. The store, which opened Feb. 16 in the Union Market neighborhood, is the first built using Starbucks new Inclusive Spaces Framework, that will start to guide all new store construction and renovation in the United States going forward. The store has a number of features designed to make it more accessible to customers and Starbucks partners.
“We don’t have all the answers, we’re not going to solve all of the problems that we have around inclusion, accessibility, disabilities, all in one mural, obviously.”
Seslow’s piece features people who experience the world in a multitude of ways – including someone who uses sign language, another who uses a wheelchair and another with a service dog – and how they integrate into the world at large. They’re coming together to enjoy coffee. It’s designed to help spark conversations around disability, accessibility and inclusion – conversations he himself has had around topics like understanding his place in the world. He lost his hearing as a child and now uses hearing aids, which he estimates help him hear at about a 30 percent level.
“If I’m by myself and I’m out in the world, I generally turn hearing aids off and I don’t use them because it feels like it’s my most natural, authentic self. But if I’m with hearing people, then it makes sense to participate and allow myself to be in that world as well.
“It’s something that I’ve always struggled with, trying to find my identity between Deaf culture and hard of hearing culture and hearing culture. And where do I fit in? So a lot of that translates through my art, in the form of either frustration or trying to find harmony in chaos.
“We don’t have all the answers, we’re not going to solve all of the problems that we have around inclusion, accessibility, disabilities, all in one mural, obviously. But it will create conversations and it will create a space and it can create a dialogue. And that in and of itself is really important. And that’s a great starting point.”
For more information about the artist, please visit www.ryanseslow.com
