When actions challenge theories: the tactical performances of Sue Austin

The paper attempts to highlight the pedagogical level of certain performances. In particular, at the core of the analysis there is Sue Austin's production, who is a multimedia, performance and installation artist who transforms her life experience in a wheelchair into dramatic codes. The main hypothesis of this reflection is that her performances become a potential “teaching and educational moment” for the spectator, because they rewrite the meaning of disability, by processing, comparing, deconstructing its social images. In fact, her performative practices could be considered as an occasion, first, to take Disability itself as critical aesthetics concept (Siebers 2010) and, secondary, to reflect pedagogically on some of the epistemological categories introduced by the artist in the field of the performing arts.