ABSTRACT
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.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part I|44 pages
Curatorial Reflections in the Age of COVID-19
chapter Chapter 3|14 pages
Connect2Abilities
part II|84 pages
Curatorial Reflections
chapter 60Chapter 4|13 pages
Disabled Artists, Audience, and the Museum as the Place of Those Who Have No Part
chapter Chapter 7|12 pages
Perspective
chapter Chapter 8|10 pages
Unseen Journeys Made Visible
part III|38 pages
Access Critique
chapter Chapter 12|11 pages
Accommodating and Enabling Anxiety Disorders and Agoraphobia in Digital Access Systems for Cultural Heritage
chapter Chapter 13|11 pages
Do You Hear My Point?
part IV|50 pages
Collaboration & Conversation
chapter 182Chapter 14|13 pages
Codesigning Access
chapter Chapter 16|13 pages
Curating Together
part V|68 pages
Artistic Access Praxis