Faces of Michigan

Sarah “Sadie” Miro Wilcox: Graduate Student Is Creative, Tireless Advocate for the Disabled Community

Sadie Miro Wilcox—2007 recipient of the James T. Neubacher Award, conferred by the U-M Council for Disability Concerns—is a Master of Fine Arts candidate in the U-M School of Art and Design. Her research and artwork take many different forms from painting and drawing and video, to developing a computer interface for disabled artists, and participating in disability studies and conferences. Severely injured in a house fire in 2002, Sadie herself is a tireless advocate for the disabled community, particularly burn survivors, and she is an inspirational model for others. Her long list of community service over the years is evidence of her commitment to helping others; but it is her ability to transform her experience and that of others that makes her stand out. She uses video to create visual and physical illusions of impossible movement; for instance, in one piece she appears to traverse a cage—like room by walking on both her hands and feet simultaneously in a very slow and labored performance. Her pieces explore alternative types of motion. She recently videotaped spectacular footage of herself crawling, rolling, and running through a large, black gravity—free space—using this footage to great effect in several video installations to describe her own hospitalizations and dreams of mobility. She has received numerous grants to develop adapted-technologies to enable people with spinal cord injuries to create art with computers. Sadie has volunteered at Paul Newman’s The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, and has worked as an art instructor at a children’s home in Capetown, South Africa. She regularly attends burn survivor conferences and is invited to speak at both national and international disability conferences. Sadie, by any measure, is an outstanding artist, student, and citizen who works wholeheartedly and tirelessly on behalf of the disabled.

Reprinted with permission from the Council for Disability Concerns and the James T. Neubacher Award .