Curating Access Disability Art Activism and Creative Accommodation

This book is an interdisciplinary collection of twenty-four essays which critically examine contemporary exhibitions and artistic practices that focus on conceptual and creative aspects of access. Oftentimes exhibitions tack on access once the artwork has already been executed and ready to be installed in the museum or gallery. But what if the artists were to ponder access as an integral and critical part of their artwork? Can access be creative and experimental? And furthermore, can the curator also fold access into their practice, while working collaboratively with artists, considering it as a theoretical and practical generative force that seeks to make an exhibition more engaging for a wider diversity of audiences? This volume includes essays by a growing number of artists, curators, and scholars who ponder these ideas of ad-hoc, experimental and underground approaches within exhibition-making and artistic practices. It considers how, through these nascent exhibition models and art practices, enhanced experiences of access in the museum can be a shared responsibility amongst museum workers, curators, and artists, in tandem with the public, so that access becomes a zone of intellectual and creative "accommodation," rather than strictly a discourse on policy. The book provides innovative case studies which provide a template for how access might be implemented by individuals, artists, curators, museum administrators and educators given the growing need to offer as many modalities of access as possible within cultural institutions. This book shows that anyone can be a curator of access and demonstrates how to approach access in a way that goes beyond protocol and policy. It will thus be of interest to students and scholars engaged in the study of museums, art history and visual culture, disability, culture, and communication.

Introduction: Committed to Change—Ten Years of Creative Access Amanda Cachia Part I: Curatorial Reflections in the Age of COVID-19 Chapter 1 The "Swell": Disability Arts in the Time of COVID-19 Faye Ginsburg, Mara Mills, and Rayna Rapp Chapter 2 Becoming Indisposable: Curating Disability in a Time of Pandemic Jessica A.Cooley and Ann M. Fox Chapter 3 Connect2Abilities: Staging Virtual Intercultural Collaboration during COVID-19 Boram Lee, Ruth Rentschler, and Shin-Eui Park Part II: Curatorial Reflections Chapter 4 Disabled Artists, Audience, and the Museum as the Place of Those Who Have No Part Jennifer Justice Chapter 5 Generative Forms of Experiential Access Liza Sylvestre Chapter 6 From Dust to Dust: Hallucinating the Absent Exhibition Fayen d’Evie Chapter 7 Perspective: Highlighting Disabled Experience through an Interdisciplinary and Socially Engaged Art Project Molly Joyce and Sandy Guttman Chapter 8 Unseen Journeys Made Visible: Using Socially Engaged Art to Cross Boundaries and Create a Universally Enriching Experience Jean Cathro Chapter 9 Human Threads: Altered States Nicola White and Alison Stirling Chapter 10 Incarnate Experiences: Learning to Curate Exhibitions for Disabled Bodies Maite Barrera Villarías Part III: Access Critique Chapter 11 On Brand: When Design Museums Discover Disability Liz Jackson and Bess Williamson Chapter 12 Accommodating and Enabling Anxiety Disorders and Agoraphobia in Digital Access Systems for Cultural Heritage Johnathan Thayer and Erik Pagan Chapter 13 Do You Hear My Point? Addressing Accessibility Issues within Spatial Audio Jesse Austin-Stewart Part IV: Collaboration & Conversation Chapter 14 Codesigning Access: A New Approach to Cultures of Inclusion in Museums and Galleries Janice Rieger, Bree Hadley, Sarah Barron, Sarah Boulton, and Catherine Parker Chapter 15 Desiring Disruption: Experimental Approaches to Audio Description Ramya Amuthan, Emily Cook, Sean Lee, Andy Slater, and Aislinn Thomas Chapter 16 Curating Together: A Tangled, Intergenerational, Interdependent Community of Practice Eliza Chandler, Carla Rice,Sean Lee, and Max Ferguson Chapter 17 Networks of Care: Collectivity as Dialogic Creative Access Amanda Cachia Part V: Artistic Access Praxis Chapter 18 Troublesome Access in Pope.L’s Instigation, Aspiration, Perspiration Christopher Robert Jones Chapter 19 "My Practice is Staying Alive": Critique and Care in the Sculptures of Emily Barker Brandon Sward Chapter 20 Considering Amanda Coogan’s Performance Art as an Accessible Practice Caitlin Swindell Chapter 21 Open Access: Accessibility as a Temporary, Collectively Held Space Carmen Papalia Chapter 22 Alt Text as Poetry Project Bojana Coklyat and Shannon Finnegan Chapter 23 Disability Access Rider Johanna Hedva Chapter 24 A Primer On Working With Disabled Group Members: For Feminist/Activist Groups and Organizations RA Walden Index

Amanda Cachia is an independent curator and critic from Sydney, Australia. She received her PhD in Art History, Theory & Criticism from the University of California San Diego in 2017. Cachia has curated approximately 40 exhibitions, many of which contain social justice themes and content. Her research interests include contemporary art and disability, decolonizing the museum, and accessible curatorial practices.