Beyond the Obvious is an exhibition designed for Art Space 200, a small gallery in the University of Michigan medical school designed to use art as a tool to expose medical students to the humanistic aspects of medicine. Instead of art that deals with science, Art Space 200 uses art that reveals the patient's experience. For this exhibition the gallery invited the Progressive Art Studio Collective (PASC) to exhibit. PASC is a professional exhibition and studio program that works with individual artists with different types of disabilities. PASC prides itself on representing the artists it works with as professional artists building their careers in the artworld. In this way PASC supports the social model of disabilities vs the longer standing medical model. The social model suggests disabilities are caused by how society is organized or the barriers society builds against people with disabilities. By removing barriers disabled people are given greater independence and equality in society. The Medical model looks at disabilities as something wrong, ill or broken about a person, which should be fixed or changed by medical or other means. In the context of the U of M Medical School PASC artworks in their brilliance, ingenuity and vitality, are a unique flashpoint to a more humanistic understanding of difference, allowing students to see beyond the diagnosis through the value of another’s artistic perspective. This exhibition takes place as the medical establishment is opening up to combine the medical with more social models of diagnosis and treatment.  The exhibition will run through October, to celebrate disability pride month.

PASC was launched in January 2021 as the first progressive art and design studio, and exhibition program, in Detroit and Wayne County, dedicated to supporting artists with developmental disabilities and mental health differences to advance independent artistic practices and build individual career paths in the art and design fields. PASC is a program of Services to Enhance Potential (STEP) a non-profit service organization, founded in 1972, that provides services and supports for 1300+ individuals with disabilities and mental health differences in Southeastern Michigan.  

www.progressiveartstudiocollective.org