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Walking piece 2015

White Cane Amplified

Carmen Papalia

Carmen Papalia

Artist and Disability Activist (Canada) 
Copyright: WalkingLab
Captura-de-Tela-2025-11-13-as-21.45.43-copiar.jpg
Still from video documentation
East Vancouver, Vancouver, BC, Canada

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White Cane Amplified is Carmen Papalia’s improvised work where he navigates a city using a megaphone instead of a cane, performing the social function of the white cane, asserting agency, and highlighting the challenges of communicating his needs.

White Cane Amplified is Carmen Papalia’s improvised process in which he replaces his white mobility cane with a megaphone as he navigates an unfamiliar route in the city. White Cane Amplified is one in a series of related projects in which the artist temporarily adopts a new system for his mobility in an effort to reclaim a sense of agency while distancing himself from institutional support services. A demonstration, primarily, of failure, White Cane Amplified depicts Papalia performing the social function of the white cane, speaking into a megaphone as he stumbles to find the words to communicate his nuanced and emergent needs.

Papalia has shown White Cane Amplified as part of exhibitions in New York, Dublin, Chicago, San Diego, Toronto, and Vancouver.

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Information available on Walking Lab’s website.

Credits

- Collaboration with Sara Hendren’s Adaptive and Assistive Technologies Lab at Olin College of Engineering.
- Papalia’ enacted White Cane Amplified for WalkingLab in July, 2017 in Vancouver.

APA style reference

Papalia, C. (2015). White Cane Amplified. walk · listen · create. https://walklistencreate.org/walkingpiece/white-cane-amplified/
Submitted by: Dani Spadotto

wander lines

The term “lignes d’erre” which was developped by Fernand Deligny who followed autist children in their shift had been taken up later by G.deleuze.

About wander lines: https://forumviesmobiles.org/points-de-vue/12619/surexpression-wander-lines

Added by Beatrice Didier
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