Kaitlin Stober promotes disability inclusion and disability rights through art
If you walk down Chicago’s Magnificent Mile, a stretch of Michigan Avenue between the Chicago River and Oak Street, you will see 51 6-foot-tall lighthouse sculptures that celebrate access and inclusion for people with disabilities.
One of those sculptures is painted with patches of dandelions growing against a crumbling, multi-colored brick background — it was designed by DHD research specialist Kaitlin Stober.
Stober says that viewers of her sculpture should consider the images of dandelions growing out of an aging brick wall as a metaphor.
“When I tell people my favorite flower is a dandelion, I’m often corrected,” Stober said. “I’m told, ‘Dandelions aren’t flowers. They’re weeds.’ Despite similarities to other commercial desirable flowers, these ‘weeds’ are seen as nuisances, they are devalued.”
She says the dandelions on her lighthouse illuminate the experiences of some people with disabilities who “have historically been uprooted, discarded, segregated and excluded from society.”
“Many people with disabilities have been left to force their way into the consideration of nondisabled peers who dominate, and generally equate disability with deficiency and burden, rather than strength and value,” Strober said.“Just as the label ‘weeds’ prevents the profitability of dandelion bouquets, so does the stigma of varying disability labels cloud our appreciation for what this substantial community of people has to offer the world,” she said.