Exploraring Accessible Design as Creative Medium
Accessibility considerations are typically tacked on to existing architectural spaces, exhibitions, and works of art to accommodate people with disabilities as a corrective to preexisting ableist cultural norms. In my own art practice, I ask, what might happen if accessibility were itself centered as creative medium?
Ekphrastic poetry and image description for blind/ low vision audiences both rely on vivid descriptive writing. When treated strictly as an accommodation, image description has tended towards the practical and illustrative, but In this workshop we will emphasize our own creative voices as being in direct conversation with contemporary art. Using the rhetorical strategies common to ekphrastic writing, we explore the generative and pedagogical possibilities that emerge with writing supporting texts that illuminate works of art rather than simply inform. Through the imaginative process of reflecting on an artwork, we can engage with it on a more intimate scale, amplify, or expand its meaning.
I also share how universal design considerations guide my art practice.
Recent workshops held with community and graduate programs at Monash University, the California Institute of Integrative Studies, and the Palo Alto Art Center. I am available for in-person and online guess lectures for your community, class, or institution.
These workshops originated during courses taught at the University of California Berkeley, Art Practice and Disability Studies.
Accessibility considerations are typically tacked on to existing architectural spaces, exhibitions, and works of art to accommodate people with disabilities as a corrective to preexisting ableist cultural norms. In my own art practice, I ask, what might happen if accessibility were itself centered as creative medium?
Ekphrastic poetry and image description for blind/ low vision audiences both rely on vivid descriptive writing. When treated strictly as an accommodation, image description has tended towards the practical and illustrative, but In this workshop we will emphasize our own creative voices as being in direct conversation with contemporary art. Using the rhetorical strategies common to ekphrastic writing, we explore the generative and pedagogical possibilities that emerge with writing supporting texts that illuminate works of art rather than simply inform. Through the imaginative process of reflecting on an artwork, we can engage with it on a more intimate scale, amplify, or expand its meaning.
I also share how universal design considerations guide my art practice.
Recent workshops held with community and graduate programs at Monash University, the California Institute of Integrative Studies, and the Palo Alto Art Center. I am available for in-person and online guess lectures for your community, class, or institution.
These workshops originated during courses taught at the University of California Berkeley, Art Practice and Disability Studies.
Students navigate a network of string with handwritten notes tucked into the web-like installation. Some hold votive candles and look up to read the messages in the web.