Envisioning New Meanings of Difference— Carla Rice, Hilde Zitzelsberger, Wendy Porch, Esther Ignagni & Loree Erickson

This paper describes theoretical frameworks and experiential aspects of Building Bridges, a project designed to explore everyday experiences and creative capacities of adult women with physical differences and disabilities. Recognising there are few spaces for women to examine the influence of challenging cultural images and social encounters, we undertook to develop workshops for participants to expand their knowledge and skills and envision new meanings of difference. We emphasise key components of the project, focusing on feminist and narrative informed methods and expressive art activities, to illustrate the ways in which women revisit and reinterpret the meanings and significance of living with physical differences and disabilities. We invite discussion about the ways that women generate communities across difference and disability through critical questioning of cultural messages as well as creative imagining of new possibilities for ways of seeing themselves.