NEWS
A Nonprofit Digest
There’s been some recent news about the state of disability organizations:
Peter Torres Fremlin reports on turmoil at the International Disability Alliance, an influential NGO whose previous leadership was investigated for bullying and harassing Board members trying to carry out their responsibilities under difficult working conditions. Former IDA Executive Director Vladimir Cuk pushed huge amounts of money (720,507 CHF over 4 years) through Board process for unusual expenses, often for personal gain under the pretense of workplace accommodations. At Disability Debrief, Torres Fremlin also reports on what’s next.
Earlier this month, the chair of DisArt’s Board of Directors released a statement through its newsletter about “a challenging period” at the U.S. nonprofit since the passing of its founder Chris Smit in January 2023. “For the next nine months,” the statement said, “we are pausing all but core activities” as its all-volunteer leadership works “to secure the well-being of the organization and those it serves.”
A Media Digest
For Screen Daily, Rebecca Leffler reports on Margault Algudo-Brzostek’s work to model and expand the role of the “accessibility coordination manager” on film sets. Algudo-Brzostek worked on two recent French hits starring disabled people: My Everything and A Little Something Extra.
Love on the Spectrum U.S. won 2 awards at the 2024 Emmys, for outstanding casting and director. Twin Cities PBS was nominated for a regional Emmy for its Art + Medicine: Disability, Culture and Creativity series by Kevin Kling, Prof. Jessica Horvath Williams, and Dr. Tsegaensh Selameab.
Name Me Lawand, part of PBS’s 2024 POV series, follows a deaf Kurdish child’s reunion with his family in the U.K.
UNESCO has released a “practical manual” called “Disability equality in the media: representation, accessibility, management,” along with a “Master Class Video Series” hosted by Sophie Morgan.
New Works
Starting tomorrow, the Access in the Making (AIM) Lab begins a 4-day hybrid “work-in-progress exhibition and event series exploring disability and access to land, water, air, and life at times of climate emergency” called “Ecologies of Access: Disability and Arts in the Anthropocene” at the University of Concordia.
Jen Deerinwater has published “Working For The Economic Well-being of Indigenous Artists” on the National Endowment for the Arts blog.
Voices Embodied: Reverberations, curated by Alex Stark, is in its last few weeks at the Design Museum of Chicago. The show “highlights the collective sentiment around disability and the importance of designing a mutually inclusive world.” Featuring work by Anke Loh, Yimei (Emair) Zhu, David Bobie, Jonas Müller-Ahlheim, S. Proski, Todd Edward Herman, Genevieve Ramos, Julia Aleida González, John "Jahni" Moore, Justin Dougan-LeBlanc, Jorge Bordello, Aaron McPeake, Gordon Sasaki, Dilara Koselioren, Gabriel Chalfin-Piney, Libby Evan, Miles Matis-Uzzo, and Bri Beck.
Nicole Gluckstern celebrates “New Zealand’s Disability-Led Path to Accessibility in the Arts” in a feature for Reasons to be Cheerful.
Margeaux Feldman is publishing excerpts from their forthcoming memoir Touch Me, I’m Sick.
Aaron Rose Philip’s TEDxBerkeley talk about barriers for disabled and Black transfeminine talent in fashion worlds is now on YouTube.
Smoke & Mirrors, “focused on issues of accessibility and featuring the work of artists with disabilities” and curated by Dr. Amanda Cachia, is up at the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University through Dec. 22. Featuring work by Emanuel Almborg, Alt-Text as Poetry, Erik Benjamins, Pelenakeke Brown, Fayen d’Evie, JJJJJerome Ellis, Vanessa Dion Fletcher, Sugandha Gupta, Carmen Papalia, Finnegan Shannon, Liza Sylvestre, Aislinn Thomas, Corban Walker, and Syrus Marcus Ware.
Natural Acts by Perel, with Rita Mazza, premieres this Friday, Sept. 27, at HAU2 in Berlin. The show explores “non-binary and non-linear forms of mourning, searching for strategies to make a sensual experience out of absence and loss.”
In Other News…
Last week, on Sept. 18, was the first-ever Disabled Women’s Equal Pay Day. The National Partnership for Women & Families calculated that a disabled woman makes 50 cents for every dollar earned by a non-disabled man in the U.S.
Grace Dow reports on $251 million that will be awarded to 27 businesses through the Disability Innovation Fund, a project of the Rehabilitation Services Administration in the U.S. Department of Education.
The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid have extended the deadline for the “Medicaid unwinding” process of reevaluating all enrollees’ eligibility until Dec. 31, 2025.
The Los Angeles Times Editorial Board published an op-ed urging California’s disability centers to abide by the proposed Public Records Act and make their documents and processes transparent.
The Arts Commission of Greater Toledo and The Ability Center will conduct an accessibility audit of Toledo’s public art collection.
CALLS
SPACE (Stuttering, People, Arts, Community, Education) is calling on Samsung to stop suppressing and stigmatizing stuttering after the company released the Impulse app without advisement from advocacy communities that oversimplifies what effective help with stuttering looks like. Sign the open letter here.
Debt Collective is seeking people to help in the fight to abolish medical debt. Join here.
The American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD) is seeking applications for its 2025 summer internships. Apply by Oct. 10. More here.
EVENTS
National Endowment for the Arts Disability Arts Listening Session
Monday, Sept. 30, 3:30 - 5:30pm ET, on Zoom
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is seeking input on what artists and other cultural workers with disabilities need to create, learn, and perform in a safe, healthy, and productive environment through access accommodations, adjusted work schedules, adaptive equipment, accessible spaces, and other types of accommodations. Join us for this conversation and share your thoughts and ideas on the barriers, best practices, and ideal working environments for artists to do their best work. Please share this with your networks and feel free to submit comments in writing to accessibility@arts.gov.
Drawing Underground with Sunaura Taylor
Tuesday, Sept. 24, 6pm ET, in-person at The Francis Kite Club (NYC)
Join us to celebrate Sunaura Taylor’s new book Disabled Ecologies: Lessons from a Wounded Desert. Painter and writer Sunaura Taylor will host a night of drawing games and lively discussion as she shares her own artworks on Speculative Aquifers. Art supplies to be furnished! Vegan Pizza Land pop-up by the fabulous musician, writer, and pizza czar, Will Meyer.
Illuminating the Invisible: The Beauty Behind the Pain - Art Exhibit and Community Gathering
Saturday, Sept. 28, 4 - 7pm PT, Pause Meditation Studio (Portland, OR)
Discover the beauty in resilience at "Illuminating the Invisible" – a special event celebrating the artistic talents of those living with chronic pain. Prepare to be inspired by a diverse collection of artwork, each piece offering a unique perspective on the journey of navigating invisible pain. Dive into the stories behind the art with intimate video features from the artists themselves. Engage in thought-provoking conversations during our artist panel, where personal experiences and creative processes take center stage. Plus, try your luck at our raffle for a chance to win exciting prizes! Join us for an evening of connection and celebration.
Kinetic Light LAB Workshop: Pickin’ It Back Up with Adonis Brown
Friday, Sept. 27, 2 - 4pm ET, on Zoom
Often as an artist, some pieces and ideas just don’t feel the same after the honeymoon stage. A project you were excited about, sparkling on the horizon is suddenly collecting dust, an insult to the rest of our work. Sometimes, the purpose of a piece of work is to inform others. But what happens when you can’t forget about it, when it's nagging you from its dusty corner asking if you’ll pick it back up again? Join editor and writer Adonis Brown for a beckoning to those abandoned works that just won’t leave you alone. Talk about how to approach a work from a different angle, give something new life, and aggressively edit that nagging idea.
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