Dominika Bednarska and Diane “Hugs” Hugaert

Dominika Bednarska is a disabled femme queer academic, writer, performer and activist. She is currently a doctoral student in English and Disability Studies at the University of California Berkeley. Her writing has appeared in What I Want From You: An Anthology of East Bay Lesbian Poets, Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity and most recently in the Bellevue Literary Review.

Diane Hugaert was a disabled lesbian activist, writer, athlete and member of the disabled women’s performance troupe Wry Crips in the 1980′s.

From Diane Hugaert’s Archive

TALK (2009)
Live performance and text poster

“I wanted to construct a piece that reflected a dialogue between my writing and Diane’s writing around issues of disability. I chose excerpts from her journals to respond to and combine with my own writing. I see this piece as ongoing and definitely something that can be expanded and used for performance.

“We might have flirted if I knew you when you were alive. Now I am a kind of extension cord into the present for some kind of work or struggle or insight, and that is something that neither starts or stops with me.” – Dominika Bednarska