Marie LeBlanc’s environmental disability art and advocacy

Marie LeBlanc is an artist and advocate for people with environmental illnesses (chemical sensitivities / environmental sensitivities).

Keywords: Marie LeBlanc, art, film, advocacy, activism, disability, environmental illness, environmental sensitivity, chemical sensitivity, vandweller

Through her art, Marie LeBlanc advocates for a more humane treatment of people with environmental disabilities, especially chemical sensitivities.

She has the disease herself, and lives in a van that is modified to be environmentally safe for her. She camps off the grid in rural areas where the ambient air is free of pollution. The summers she camps in western Canada, the winters in southern Arizona.

Her art includes photography, film, poetry and writing. Her themes include landscapes, social isolation, and political commentary on the plight of people with environmental disabilities.

She has been interviewed on several television and radio stations, mostly in western Canada.

LeBlanc filmed and produced the short film Multiple Chemical Sensitivity & Environmental illness Awareness & Acknowledgement, which has been shown at several film festivals. It won the platinum award for Best Short Documentary at the 2021 Royal Wolf Film Awards in Canada.

Poster for Marie LeBlanc’s short film Multiple Chemical Sensitivity & Environmental Illness – Awareness & Acknowledgement.

The film was screened at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg, Manitoba, during the art show Crip Strength in 2022. It was also screened at the Oral Histories of Environmental Illness symposium at the University of California, Los Angeles, in 2023.

The film is available for free download on YouTube.

About the picture

The picture up front shows LeBlanc in a typical situation, working her camera. Here at an open-air event in Winslow, Arizona, in 2019.

More information

More articles about environmental illnesses on www.eiwellspring.org.

2024