Screening: Who Am I To Stop It
This film is followed by a panel discussion with Co-Directors Cheryl Green and Cynthia Lopez. This program is a collaboration with museum’s Object Stories exhibition – Invisible Me.
About the Film
“Who Am I To Stop It” is documentary on isolation, art, and transformation after brain injury. It is not designed to be inspirational simply because it features traumatic brain injury survivors. Instead, we look at very difficult questions around loneliness, stigma, poverty, and how people find their way in the world again. The film centers on art not as rehabilitation but as a tool for personal growth, meaningful work, and social change. The film will take an intimate look at life and art with brain injury through witnessing the lives of the artists as they create art, interact in their communities in the Pacific Northwest, and go about their daily lives.
This film has Open Captions and Audio Description available for all.
About the Directors
Cheryl Green MFA, MS integrates her training in Performance As Public Practice and Speech-Language Pathology to explore how story can be used to break down stigma and barriers. After decades of repeated sports concussion and a series of mild traumatic brain injuries in 2010 and 2011, she began making films that combine personal narrative and activism to create dynamic, artistic tools to challenges misconceptions and stereotypes of disability while celebrating pride in disability experiences. She is on the board of Disability Art and Culture Project and served on the boards of Brain-injury Information Referral and Resource Development (BIRRDsong) and Oregon Cultural Access. She volunteered with National Black Disability Coalition consulting on media and technology. Her artistic goals focus on making media accessible, cross-disability collaboration, and building equity.
Cynthia Lopez, MA, MUS, is interested in how we express values through narrative forms. She made her first film on Super 8 at age eleven in a llama pasture and soon thereafter began documenting the world around her with tools such as a cassette tape recorder and her parents’ VHS camera. She worked toward a career as a qualitative researcher who was deeply interested in exploring ethnographic methodologies, but found that the medium of film was more suited to her desire to create visual narratives. She currently produces documentaries and educational videos through Eleusis Films.
Reserve Tickets
Accessibility
The Portland Art Museum is pleased to offer accommodations to ensure that our programs are accessible and inclusive. All spaces for this program are accessible by wheelchair. Assistive listening devices are also available for lectures. All restrooms have accessible stalls but no power doors. There are single-stall all-gender bathrooms available. Please ask staff for directions.
We will do our best to accommodate your needs when you arrive, however, we need 2-3 weeks advance notice for some specific requests. Please email requests to access@pam.org, or call 503-226-2811.