Human Flourishing
Human beings are fragile. All human beings. Because we are fragile, sometimes we suffer.
Because we are human, we are fragile, we can suffer, AND we can flourish.
The Human Flourishing Project began in 2017 when the Canadian Association for Community Living joined forces with an array of Canadian artists and scholars to challenge perceptions of disability, frailty, and suffering with creative expressions of flourishing. Human Flourishing captures that those who flourish can suffer and, perhaps more importantly, that those who suffer can flourish.
The Human Flourishing Project inspires us to evaluate the ‘good life’. It muddles our collective understanding of the insufferable and helps to deconstruct stereotypes and prejudices. The project shines light on the relationships between adversity, community, and voice. It offers a new way to view our shared humanity.
This kind of exploration could be a matter of life and death when applied to Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) policy in Canada. We welcome you to reflect as you browse.
For me, flourishing is complex and means allowing people to celebrate their embodied experience in a way that lets them navigate the world as they are #Flourishing18
— Sean Lee (@seanleelee1) June 9, 2018
A4: It has given me the perspective on how to break down societal and institutional barriers, not only for disabled folks, but for marginalized and intersecting communities #Flourishing18
— Kristina McMullin (@k_mcmulls) June 9, 2018
Partners
Human Flourishing is a project of the Canadian Association for Community Living in partnership with:
Adjacent Possibilities
Catherine Frazee, Professor Emerita, Ryerson University Disability Studies
Institute for Research and Development on Inclusion and Society (IRIS)
Tangled Art +Disability
University of British Columbia (UBC), Centre for Inclusion and Citizenship
Funded by the Government of Canada’s Social Development Partnership Program
