Hannah Layden (b. 1987) is an artist living and working in New York City. She received a BFA in Printmaking and Painting from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2009 and an MFA in Printmaking from Pratt Institute in 2012. She has been an Artist in Residence at AS | Epic Epoch Artists Studios Residency (2015), Vermont Studio Center (2016) and The Millay Colony for the Arts (2017). She has also exhibited consistently in the New York metropolitan area.
My siblings and I were born with a rare physical disability. Our shared history is the foundation of my work and its mission: to
understand why disabled people are still not free in our society. Covid-19 continues to disproportionately decimate the disabled community, and that very fact is fuel used to justify non-disabled freedom. As long as we are the ones dying, life goes on. And it has. The world reopened with a vengeance and we were left to disappear. We locked ourselves away, hid from the virus and those who might carry it. I watched as people and places I thought I knew rejoiced in a new world order that didn’t include me. So I looked for an escape, a place where I knew people like me would be respected. The work selected is this place. I built an environment for bodies like mine, not in spite of us. I created a space where I’d feel at ease. It is easier for me to pretend a ‘land’ like this exists, rather than accept the reality of our cruel world, one that watches my people die. Choice is my power. I choose to believe, above all else, that we can and will find a better place to be.
The place I’m talking about has no resemblance
to our world,
-it isn’t meant for you and I
Even if you wanted to find it you couldn’t,
they made sure of that.
We underestimated their survival,
our abuse guaranteed we’d never see
them again.
But now we need them back,
we can’t live without them
and I know it’s too late
We are dead without the disabled.