An exciting update:
When I won just won the Best Canadian Feature award at the 2013 Hot Docs Film Festival in Toronto. You cannot believe how excited I was. It’s been quite the journey to get to this point, and the recognition of the quality of When I Walk really is something special.
Check out the CBC Newsworld coverage on this accomplishment.
More so, this moment really taught me that I strive to leave evidence of myself as a filmmaker, as an artist, as a person with a disability who a creator. I feel like this is a small piece of retribution, recognizing the struggle and challenges of spreading the word about our struggles as people with disabilities. Hopefully this gets the word out more!
I think about the importance of leaving evidence, and I’m inspired by the  Bothwords of Mia Mingus, disability writer and activist on her blog.
I hope that this is just the beginning and I can be part of serving a new era where voices of disability community are heard independently, not spoken for, and are part of mainstream society as everyone is.
Here is a photo of our Question and answer period after the film screening on April 27th.

Now that the film is finished and the premier happened…

What comes next?

I love New York. When I was younger, the city was my playground. You could find me on any given weekend catching brunch with a friend at a cafe, going to an East Village restaurant for dinner and then hopping the subway to a nightclub in Chelsea. But at age 25, nine years ago, I was told I had multiple sclerosis, and I saw my freedoms slowly vanish. I grew up quickly, learning to plan daily activities with precise schedules and strategies for getting from one place to another, while trying to maintain some semblance of the life I’d enjoyed. It’s not M.S. that exhausts me, it’s the barriers that prevent me from conducting my daily activities. Public-transportation challenges have turned my playground into a sand pit.

While New York prides itself on being forward-thinking, I’m surprised that it lags behind other cities in accommodating its disabled population. I’ve traveled to London, Vancouver, Toronto, San Francisco and Washington, and basked in their accessibility options. Ramps! Wheelchair taxis! Accessible trains! Fully accessible buildings! Oh, the luxury! Then, back to New York, where, although public buses are accessible, most transportation for me ranges from difficult (like the East River Ferry, which runs at different intervals, depending on the time of day) to feeling as if we’re in the Dark Ages. Of course, upgrading facilities or taxis is expensive, and change takes time, but the question is, how much time? How long do we have to wait? People with disabilities should enjoy the freedoms that everyone in society deserves. This is a human rights issue.

This Op-Docs video really just looks at New York’s transportation issues. I’ve been working on finding solutions to the larger, overwhelming issue of inaccessibility and building design. In response, I’ve created AXS Map, a crowd-sourced accessibility map that gives freedom to people with mobility challenges, their friends, family and supporters. I hope it’s a small contribution to the community I am now a part of, and helps make New York a little bit easier for us to live in.

A few years ago, I started using a power scooter. All of a sudden, my world became much smaller. I could only get into a handful of places that I used to get into. Traveling from Brooklyn to Manhattan has become taxing it near impossible. I created an Op-Doc the New York Times website.

My b day! MS or no MS…

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Small odds!

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I could’ve never imagined why I gone through in the past seven years. My thoughts turn towards questions of what will I leave behind and thoughts of legacy.
Getting my film into Sundance makes me realize the importance of the creative work that I’m doing and will try to continue to do.
I think about the works have done before and how they were just preparing me for the patients in creative spirit that I continue to have.

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