October is National Blind Awareness Month, and Portland State University is proud to announce the upcoming 7th annual Mobility Matters Summit will be held on February 29, 2024. Registration is now open for the all-virtual global event, themed “Navigating Knowledge: Pathways to Inclusive Libraries and Literacy.”
Braille and tactile literacy expert Dr. Judith Dixon will be the keynote speaker, sharing her decades of knowledge of information access to web and print materials for persons with blindness and visual impairments. The 2024 Mobility Matters conference will also feature award-winning new speakers such as multimodal graphic zine artist Rae Lanzerotti.
Image description: This is a black line drawing by Rae Lanzerotti. Three self-portraits gaze at the reader. The first has glasses with the right lens partially blocked, with text below reading, “I block the right lens with tape.” The second shows the artist’s double image, with text reading, “to prevent seeing double.” The third wears a right eye patch, and text below reads “an eye patch works too.”
Exciting new ideas
Mobility Matters welcomes new disciplines to the 2024 summit, represented by speakers such as Rae Lanzerotti, a low vision artist of prizewinning and innovative comics, who will present, “New Dimensions in Graphic Narratives.” Their “audiographic” work mixes sound, text, and somatic media, winning the 2022 Accessible Comics Design Competition and inspiring curiosity about accessible comics design at the 2023 Graphic Medicine Conference.
PSU has an international reputation for educational innovation and civic engagement, highlighted by Mobility Matters guest speakers, panelists, and attendees. Every attendee is an important part of this conference and the significant work being done at Portland State to become a leader in social justice, equity, diversity, inclusion, sustainability and service learning.
Growing readers, writers and artists
For Rae Lanzerotti, sudden vision loss led to an unexpected connection with comics and graphic narratives.
“I navigated over to the local branch library, with my white cane, to look for large print books,” says Lanzerotti, “and I noticed a section on comics. Not long after, to my surprise, I started making my own memoir comics about sudden vision loss in the early pandemic. This is how it started.” Lanzerotti brings enthusiasm for the possibilities of expanding access, saying, “When people who are low vision and blind enjoy reading and creating new forms of comics, this has change potential. It invites interdisciplinary creativity, foregrounds disability justice and welcomes more readers.”
History
Mobility Matters began as an on-campus conference seven years ago with the goal to support inclusive innovation that helps people experiencing disabilities, such as blindness, to navigate the world. Today, this is an all-virtual conference gathering people from around the world and across many disciplines and industries. Our speakers and attendees are thought leaders, scientists, artists, activists, educators, students, journalists, designers, planners and accessibility professionals.
PSU’s Visually Impaired Learner program began on this campus in Portland, Oregon, 60 years ago. In 1964, it was one of the first three in the U.S., and the Orientation and Mobility program in the College of Education is an extension of this. PSU is proud of the award-winning research and collaboration of Dr. Amy Parker and Dr. Holly Lawson in this field. Their leadership guides this summit, along with a cadre of experts building community and momentum for an international dialogue about inclusive literacy and improved accessibility.
Register
Register for Mobility Matters 2024 to join the event on February 29, 2024, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. (Leap Day!), for the 7th annual summit. Discussions will center around inclusive literacy, technology, and access and navigation to libraries.
Early Bird pricing is available until December 1, 2023, so don’t delay!
Email omsummit@pdx.edu about group registration options or organizational sponsorships!
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By Sherron Lumley
College of Education 