About this person
Sunaura Taylor is an American artist, writer, and disability and animal rights activist. Her work connects disability studies, critiques of animal farming, and environmental justice. She was born with arthrogryposis, which limits the movement of her limbs, and uses her mouth when creating art.
She studied at the University of California, Berkeley, where her research focused on the relationship between the status of disabled people and that of animals. Her work includes drawings, videos, photographs, and texts that examine social conceptions of the body, dependence, care, and normality.
She is the author of Beasts of Burden: Animal and Disability Liberation, in which she connects animal liberation with a critique of ableism. She also published Disabled Ecologies: Lessons from a Wounded Desert, which focuses on the environmental impacts of pollution and the military industry in the Mojave Desert.
Taylor is vegan and openly connects animal protection with bodily autonomy, social justice, and environmental issues in her work. Her writing and public appearances make a significant contribution to critical thinking about relationships between humans and other animals.