NEWS
New Works
Healing Justice Lineages has launched a new website featuring an archive with 35 oral testimonies from organizers, health care workers, healers, spiritual practitioners and more, as well as political education tools and a resource library.
Portraits and Portals/Retratos y Portales, created and curated by Justice Shorter, is “an artistic initiative designed to illuminate the profound and often overlooked impacts of disasters and crises on people of color with disabilities.”
Queer disability media arts collective Cuéntame is organizing Facestrapped, an “access-centered rave,” at Judson Memorial Memorial Church (NYC) this Friday, September 5. Featuring DJs Queer Shoulders, Slic, Gatite Gangster, Wytheda, performers Octavia Rose Hingle, The Evening Star & Saira Barbaric, Kevin Quiles Bonilla, design of the “Rejuvination Space” by Alex Dolores Salerno, and visual artistry by Nat Decker.
The Arts & Culture Accessibility Hub, created by “a majority-disabled team of cultural access experts” and support from Boston’s Open Door Arts, is a collection of tools, training, and guidance for arts organizations.
In addition to the many kinds of disability artistry that took to stages at the recently concluded Edinburgh Fringe Festival, an intergenerational Deaf duo Mary and Danielle performed Deaffy Drag Queens: Glitter, Gags and GSV as part of the work to keep gay sign variant, a version of British Sign Language, alive.
It’s the final week of Greenwich+Docklands International Festival in London, with a program featuring wheelchair dance artistry from the first wheelchair user to perform with the Royal Ballet, Joe Powell-Main, StopGap Dance, and Australia’s Restless Dance within an unusually robust set of access offerings.
kevin gotkin (😘) was recently a guest on Cat Tyc’s Missives to the Ether radio show discussing spirituality and ecologies of access in nightlife.
In Other News
Among the 4 senior officials who resigned in protest last week from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, a longtime queer public health advocate. One essential part of his resignation letter seems to be overlooked by most of the media outlets covering his departure:
”Eugenics plays prominently in the rhetoric being generated and is derivative of a legacy that good medicine and science should continue to shun.”On a recent episode of PBS’s American Masters: Creative Spark podcast, actress Natasha Rothwell (who plays Belinda in The White Lotus) talks about discovering herself as a neurodivergent artist.
A new student housing building at UC Berkeley set to open in the fall of 2027 will be named the “Judith E. Heumann House,” after the late disability rights alumna.
CALLS
![Graphic by Finnegan Shannon with a white background and black text. Below is a QR code and hashtag #DisabledRage. Text reads, MEDICAID CUTS [arrow] REDUCTION IN HEALTHCARE [arrow] MORE E.R. VISITS AND WORSENING CONDITIONS](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Cbj_!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F28aa92d1-6eff-4c73-9568-c6cde9ac99ca_1024x792.jpeg "Graphic by Finnegan Shannon with a white background and black text. Below is a QR code and hashtag #DisabledRage. Text reads, MEDICAID CUTS [arrow] REDUCTION IN HEALTHCARE [arrow] MORE E.R. VISITS AND WORSENING CONDITIONS")
Alice Wong and Finnegan Shannon have released text-based graphics about “Disabled Rage” to activate disabled people and accomplices to take action against US fascism. They ask “What enrages you? Use the hashtag #DisabledRage and share your thoughts.”
Applications are open for a Research Associate to join Dr. Louise Hickman’s Algorithmic Kitchen: Recipes for Disability-Led Health Technology Design project at the University of Cambridge. Apply by October 5.
As part of Art & Mind: COVID, Climate & Our Future! taking place virtually on Sept. 25, Sista Creatives Rising is organizing a paid masked fashion competition. Submit your look by September 12.
New Disabled South is hiring a Contract Grant Writer.
Sick Magazine is raising funds for its 7th issue through orders of a “SICK” dad hat and other goodies.
Viz-Ability, a pop-up exhibition at the Radford Studio Center (Studio City, CA) is seeking mid-to-senior level disabled filmmakers and partners/sponsors for the show. Apply by September 5.
EVENTS
Grief & Gratitude Circle
Tuesday, Sept. 2, 5 - 7pm ET, online
Sins Invalid invites our beloved community to join us in grief and celebration as we honor the life and world-shifting legacy of Disability Justice leader and Sins Invalid’s Co-founder and Executive and Artistic Director, Patty Berne. This Grief and Gratitude Circle will center art and creative expression to hold our grief, our love, and our memories of Patty. Together, we will carry forward the loving labor of Disability Justice that is a powerful part of Patty’s legacy. We will mourn, we will honor our ancestors, and we will center our crip brilliance and artistic vision.Understanding Fascist Disability Policy with Esther Warwick
Thursday, Sept. 4, 4pm ET, online
Part of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network’s Back to School Learning Sessions. Defending Democracy and Disability Rights helps people understand: What is white nationalism and fascism; What white nationalists think of people with disabilities and disability rights; How we can fight fascism and fight for our rights.Open Invitational
Sept. 4 - 7, in-person at 356 Broadway (NYC)
A new fair dedicated to progressive art studios showcasing the work of artists with disabilities, with the aim of building our artists’ careers and in the process dismantling outmoded hierarchies in the contemporary art world.