Crip News v.191

New works, new books, calls, events, and a tribute to Patty Berne.

Jul 07, 2025

New Works

The world premiere of Kinetic Light and Double Eye Studio’s territory will take place as part of an “Extended Reality Salon” at Jacob’s Pillow (Becket, MA) this weekend. The work is “an immersive virtual reality experience centered in a futuristic post-apocalyptic disabled world.”

A vibrant, stylized illustration divided into three vertical panels, each evoking different sensory and emotional experiences. In the left panel, an elderly South Asian woman in a flowing peach sari sits in a wheelchair under an ornate, sky-blue archway. She smiles gently as she cradles a content orange-and-white cat in her lap. The background is soft and dreamlike, dotted with glowing stars, suggesting peace and warmth. The narrow center panel features symbolic elements stacked vertically: a red-orange flame, a melting ice cube, and a cloud raining blue droplets — visually representing contrasting sensations like heat and cold, dryness and moisture. The right panel shows a dreamy, abstract figure with dark green skin and pink, cloud-like hair lying serenely with eyes closed, holding a red rose in her palm. Thought bubbles and swirling lines float above her, interwoven with green leaves, blue sky, speech bubbles, and fragments of a vibrant landscape. The imagery suggests imagination, memory, and connection to nature, identity, and inner voice. The entire artwork uses bold lines and saturated colors, blending narrative, emotion, and symbolism to convey themes of disability, aging, memory, and embodied experience.

The Re•Vision Centre for Art and Social Justice at the University of Guelph has launched the Worlding Difference Knowledge Platform, a free collection of interactive learning modules featuring “multimedia art and book-length courses on non-normative bodies and minds as studied in various fields, including disability, aging, neurodiversity, d/Deaf, fat and aging activist arts and culture and more.”
Researchers at the University of Toronto and the Patient-Led Research Collaborative recently published an article in PLOS One that applies the “Episodic Disability Framework,” derived by people living with HIV, to Long Covid.

A quilt with a purple haired creature and puppet hands that extend off the surface.

Luckiest Little Freak by Emma Singer opens this week at Summertime Gallery (Brooklyn, NYC). The artist’s first solo show features soft sculptures combining “quilting with puppetry’s spirit of improvisation and play.” On view through August 9.

Dan Bowhay’s “slow cinema” video work Between These Times will be on view starting this week as part of the Arts University Bournemouth (Poole, England) Undergraduate Summer Shows 2025. The piece is drawn from footage of the 850 miles Bowhay traveled on buses across England “to highlight the challenges faced by disabled bus pass users.”

New Books

A cover of a book with a green background, white and yellow text, and two illustrations of the Disability Pride flag.

Ramping Up Rights: An Unfinished History of British Disability Activism by
Rachel Charlton-Dailey is out from Hurst.

The title and author in pink text on a black background with a grayscale image of a spoon morphing or melting at the ends.

Love, Money, Duty: Stories of Care in Our Times by Rachel Adams is out from Columbia University Press.

An illustration of a group of disabled people of color, including a Black girl using a powerchair and Black woman with a cane and service dog. The book’s title is in speech bubbles.

All of Us: A First Conversation About Disability by Dr. Megan Madison with Jessica Ralli and illustrated by Jonathan Eden, is out as part of Penguin Random House’s First Conversations series.

CALLS

Black Disabled Lives Matter organizer Jermaine Greaves is booking a film tour for Jermaine Greaves, a film by Gil Rios. Greaves is available for in-person or virtual screenings or other speaking events.

Tangled Art + Disability is accepting applications to exhibit artwork at Tangled Art Gallery (Toronto). Submit by August 8.

A black and white photo of white disabled protesters in front of a bus.

Shape Arts is seeking submissions of artwork “which responds imaginatively to themes of rights, protest, power, and the state of the British welfare system” for its annual Shape Open 2025. Apply by July 27.
Visual AIDS (NYC) is hiring an Archive Fellow. Apply by July 31.

EVENTS

Bed-In: STOP RFK Jr's Autism Registry
Saturday, July 12, 1 - 4pm ET, on Zoom
Disability Community for Democracy, Inc. is hosting a virtual protest of RFK Jr.’s proposed autism registry.

Illustrated banner for an event titled “Reclaiming Our Legacy: Disability Action & Joy.” The left side shows two wheelchair users in front of the U.S. Capitol, one holding a “504 Now” protest sign. The right side features three diverse disabled individuals: one using a wheelchair holding a “Hands Off Medicaid” sign, one walking with a white cane and sunglasses, and another with a prosthetic leg raising a disability pride flag, accompanied by a guide dog. Center text reads: “Save the Date — Friday, July 11, 2025, 3–7pm. Celebrating Disability Pride and the 35th ADA Anniversary.” Location: Ed Roberts Campus, Outdoor Grounds on Adeline St. The background features a bold color split from blue to white to blue.

Reclaiming Our Legacy: Disability Action & Joy
Friday, July 11, 3 - 7pm PT, in-person at the Ed Roberts Campus (Berkeley, CA)
A coalition of racial justice and disability rights & justice organizations are hosting a protest-meets-celebration event that centers cross-movement solidarity, political power, and disability joy and resistance.
Disability Pride, Disability Joy Exists
Sunday, July 13, 11:30am – 1:30pm ET, in-person at the Whitney Museum (NYC)
An artmaking program celebrating Disability Pride Month led by Annie Nishwani Lachhman, a disabled artist, and Lakshmee Lachhman-Persad, an educator on disability inclusion and accessibility. The workshop invites participants of all ages and backgrounds to learn about the progressive Disability Pride flags, explore various aspects of disability, and create their own art.

A digital flyer has a lineup of disabled artists: D.J. Demers, Tina Friml, Josh Blue, Adam Keys, Kathy Buckley, Stephen Framil, Mandy Harvey, Lachi, WAWA’s World, Kodi Lee, Omnium Circus, and Sho Roc.

WAWABILITY 2025
Friday, July 11 & Saturday, July 12, in-person at The Anthem (Washington, DC)
An inaugural festival from Warren WAWA Snipe celebrating 35 years of life changing impact made by the ADA with two nights of entertainment performed by the trailblazers who shattered limits and rising stars who are just getting started.
Disability Unite NYC
Saturday, July 13, in-person at the Central Park Bandshell (NYC) and live-streamed
Join the sixth annual Disability Unite Festival to mark the 35th anniversary of the Americana with Disabilities Act, including the Disability Hip-Hop Jam.
Storm the Mic: Pride Dammit
Sunday, July 12, 6pm CT, on Zoom
An open mic space presented by Thunder & Lightning Poetry Collective designed to support storytelling that speaks to the Disability experience, that center Disability Pride.
Disabilities in Film: The Impact of Representation
Friday, July 11, 12pm PT, in-person at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures (LA)
Join the Academy in conversation with Easterseals Disability Film Challenge Filmmaker and Deaf Creator Chrissy Marshall, Co-Founder of the 1N4 Coalition and Founder and Executive Artistic Director of The Miracle Project Elaine Hall, and Easterseals Disability Film Challenge Filmmaker Lee Pugsley as they explore the impact of authentic disability representation in film, the current state of disabled talent in front of and behind the camera, parts of the industry that need improvement in accommodating people with disabilities, how to support the disabled community, and more. This conversation will be moderated by Academy Vice President of Member Relations, Global Outreach, and Awards Administration Rose Wuyts-Wilson.

There’s a tilted horizon and thin lines that shoot out from a vanishing point like a sunset (the usual Crip News header) except the colors are inverted and it’s a black background with white lines, like nighttime. Big text floats over the land-line: INTENSITIES BELOW. Smaller text under: we could breathe, hold the breath and let it out slow, mist the plants, or notice a sensation, get water, leave the screen entirely, nap

Rest in Power, Patty Berne

Patty Berne joined the ancestors on May 29, 2025.

In a statement, their kin said they passed “with peace and grace surrounded by chosen and birth family in a space filled with tenderness, grief, and immense love.”

Patty was a luminary of Disability Justice, one of the people who built the framework used around the world today. They co-founded Sins Invalid and served as the organization’s longtime Executive and Artistic Director.

Patty’s influence is impossible to describe or contain. The artistry they created and supported in others, their curricula and trainings, their documentaries, the networks they cultivated and maintained are all living testimonies to their loving stewardship of a radical call to liberation.

Sins Invalid asks us to stay tuned in the weeks and months ahead for opportunities to hold spaces to honor and celebrate Patty’s world-shifting legacy.

Brown letters on a pink background. Patty was skin, tooth, and bone. Now, she is starlight. May her brilliance continue to guide us. Mordecai, Karina, Jen/Eleana and Sucia, on behalf of the Sins Invalid Team.