View from the floor

5 MINUTES

Mindie is a talented singer. She also doesn’t have legs. As a teen, it got complicated

The Seattle-based artist Mindie Lind grew up ‘obsessed with the stage’, and today has a prominent voice in the Pacific Northwest as a musician and writer on disability and beyond. However, as she explores in View From the Floor, it took some time for her to realise that, because she was born without legs, the wider world – and especially media – was often more interested in her as a vessel for ‘inspiration porn’ than her actual talents. Centred on her three now-regrettable appearances on an infamous, nationally syndicated tabloid talkshow in the 1990s, the short animation features Lind reflecting on how it wasn’t so much her disability that complicated her life, but the ‘exploitation pickles’ the outside world forced her into because of it. Harnessing Lind’s natural storytelling talents, the US filmmaker Megan Griffiths – who co-directed the film with Lind – and the US animator Joe Garber help bring her story to life with verve and humour, while deftly grappling with larger questions of self-understanding.

PERSONALITY DISABILITY MEMOIR

Directors: Megan Griffiths, Mindie Lind

Animator: Joe Garber

Website: View From the Floor

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