Persimmon Blackbridge (born 1951)[1] is a Canadian writer and artist whose work focuses on feminist, lesbian, disability and mental health issues.
Her novels follow characters that are very similar to Blackbridge's own life experiences, allowing her to write honestly about her perspective.
[3] Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Blackbridge moved to British Columbia with her family as a teenager, and has worked and resided in Canada ever since.
[6] Doing Time was Blackbridge's 1989 exhibition at the Surrey Art Gallery, created in collaboration with ex-prison inmates Geri Ferguson, Michelle Kanashiro-Christensen, Lyn MacDonald and Bea Walkus.
[7] Incorporating twenty-five life-sized cast-paper figures of the four women, the installation also included texts written by the participants.
"Crip aesthetics" consider both the outsiders view of disabled bodies as other in both social and political realms as well as the intersectional aspects of that individual's identity.
[12] Blackbridge's sculptures in her Constructed Identities exhibition explores her own intersections as a lesbian woman with a learning disability.
[14] Blackbridge's art work bridges this gap, the content of her Constructed Identities sculptures embraces the aesthetics of disability and various types of bodies while placing this exhibition in a fully accessible gallery.
Blackbridge had her first mental breakdown when she was nineteen years old, after a realization about her sexuality and thus her struggle with what society was telling her about how to be a woman.