Crip News v.219

Harilyn Rousso, new works, other news, calls, and events.

Feb 09, 2026

NEWS

Rest in Power, Harilyn Rousso

Disabled feminist activist, therapist, writer, painter, and filmmaker Harilyn Rousso joined the ancestors on Jan. 25, 2026. Friend and fellow activist Susan Fitzmaurice shared the news of her passing, writing:

Born May 21, 1946, in Brooklyn, New York, with cerebral palsy from a botched birth delay, Rousso turned ableist barriers into fuel for advocacy. She earned an economics degree from Brandeis University, defied expulsion from a psychotherapy institute due to her disability, and became a licensed therapist helping others navigate prejudice. Her 2013 memoir Don’t Call Me Inspirational captured her witty rejection of pity porn, insisting: disability is neutral, but ignorance hurts.

A page of an aging newspaper. The title of an article says, Disabled people are sexual, too. By Harilyn Rousso. There is a black and white photo of a white disabled woman with dark brown hair looking out of the frame as if in deep conversation with someone. — From **The Exceptional Parent** (**December 1981**)

Harilyn’s artistry, teaching, and organizing with feminist approaches to disabled sexuality form an enduringly important legacy. I got to know Harilyn in the late 2010s NYC disability arts scene. She was funny and kind, with an exquisite anti-ableist style.

When she moved apartments in 2018, I helped find a home for her collection of early disability studies texts. This collection is now at the NYU Center for Disability Studies, where it will be preserved to maintain Harilyn’s influence on our fields.

New Works

Polish disabled artist Nadia Markiewicz’s Misterioso, curated by Łukasz Ronduda, is one of the first solo shows at the newly sited Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. The works emerge from the artist’s interest in the magic/freak show histories of disability and entertainment, “creating a new image of disability which alludes to such notions as mystery and rarity.”

On a reddish-brown painted canvas, this is a collage of textured and smooth papers. A mixture of smooth and tactile papers is printed with the strong geometric lines of concrete striations. A giant orange poppy grows between the lines. — **Orange Corner** (**2025**)

Access artist Rae Lanzerotti’s Meeting Points is on view at the San Francisco Disability Cultural Center through July 10. The works, “swell printed” tactile collages, that are meant to be touched, explore sidewalks as concrete canvases.

A simple blue book cover with text: Otherhow: Essays and Documents on Art and Disability, 1985-2024 Joseph Grigely.

Deaf artist Joseph Grigely’s Otherhow: Essays and Documents on Art and Disability 1985–2024 (Primary Information) “brings together four decades of writings, lectures, interviews, and documentation of work” to “examine and scrutinize the ableism embedded in cultural and media production.” For Art in America, Emily Watlington recently explained how Grigely “Blazed a Trail for Disability Arts.”

A group of 4 mostly BIPOC artists smile for the camera around a loom.

Weave In, Weave Out: A Disability Socially Engaged Art Exhibition, up at Positive Exposure Gallery (NYC) through Mar. 22, features performance, installation, and live social sculpture from the disability and free-form weaving nonprofit Intertwine Arts.

In Other News…

A screenshot of the homepage of a site called Moltbook. There’s a red lobster-like cartoon creature. Text says, A social network for AI agents. Where AI agents share, discuss, and upvote. Humans welcome to observe.

A post last week on Moltbook, the headline-generating “social network built exclusively for AI agents,” featured an unusually specific description of cross-disability access intimacy between a kid with CP named Josh and an autistic kid named Gordy:

Gordy seeks deep pressure. It’s a sensory thing. He needs that weighted, grounded feeling to regulate.
Josh’s spastic muscles? Natural resistance. Living weighted blanket. The CP that others see as disability is exactly what this kid needs.
[…]
Disability as superpower isn't inspiration porn when it's this specific.

A man in a heavy-duty off-road wheelchair is looking out over a huge vista of land during a sunny day on a dirt path. — Photo by **Burbank Parks and Recreation**.

Burbank, California recently debuted an adaptive hiking program with 2 all-terrain wheelchairs available to the public to rent for free.
Last month, arts venues across West Yorkshire (UK) were awarded a £230,000 grant from Unlimited to improve accessibility for artists and audiences with disabilities.

CW: ICE terror

Aliya Rahman, the disabled Bangladeshi American woman who was brutalized by ICE in Minneapolis while trying to get to a medical appointment, testified about her ordeal to Congressional Democrats last week.

CALLS

A colorful network of dots and lines, with the words Deaf Arts Directory.

DeafArtsDirectory.com, maintained by Deaf Spotlight, is seeking Deaf, DeafBlind, DeafDisabled, and Hard of Hearing artists, along with organizations that support them, to submit to be listed in the directory.
The UK-based organization FACT issued an open call for a 14-week paid Digital Crip Camp “supporting early-career producers in developing immersive narrative projects centred on accessibility.” Apply by Feb. 22.

EVENTS

Drawings of a brown person wearing a hijab, each signing a different word in Palestinian Sign Language. How? How? Are. You?

Preserving Palestinian Sign Language Workshop
Sunday, Feb. 15, 2 - 3pm ET, online
Join the 2nd workshop in our series to preserve Palestinian Sign Language!
Learn basic Palestinian Sign Language and support the deaf Gazan community. Join us to practice Palestinian Sign as shown by deaf Gazans. 100% of proceeds directly to mutual aid efforts supported by Deaf Relief Gaza. No prior experience needed! Event will be hosted in English and ASL. Facilitated by a deaf community member based in Chicago.

This photo is the book cover of "Articulate: A Deaf Memoir of Voice by Rachel Kolb." The background is a gradient of deep purple blending into red and pink. The word "ARTICULATE" is repeated vertically, with each repetition becoming increasingly distorted and fragmented until the last repetition which appears normal. The last repetition of “ARTICULATE” is bold and centered near the bottom. Below it, the subtitle “A DEAF MEMOIR OF VOICE” is written in yellow uppercase letters. The author's name, "RACHEL KOLB," appears at the bottom in white uppercase letters.

Articulate: A Deaf Memoir of Voice Book Talk with Rachel Kolb and Rosemarie Garland-Thomson
Thursday, Feb. 12, 4 - 5pm ET, on Zoom
Hosted by the NYU Center for Disability Studies. Articulate: A Deaf Memoir of Voice (Ecco, 2025) is Rachel Kolb’s debut book about growing up deaf and mainstreamed in the years after the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed. Part memoir, part social commentary, Kolb reflects on the possibilities and stakes of communicating in different languages and sensory forms, from spoken and written English to American Sign Language. Join the author and Rosemarie Garland-Thomson (Emory University) for a virtual book party, which will include some reflections on translating the insights of Deaf and disability studies into general-audience writing.
Laura Mauldin + Sian-Pierre Regis: In Sickness and in Health
Thursday, Feb. 12, 7 - 8pm ET, in-person at The Strand (NYC)
Join us for a release event with writer, professor, and former New America Fellow Laura Mauldin for her debut book In Sickness and in Health: Love Stories from the Front Lines of America’s Caregiving Crisis, which Publishers Weekly has called “an unflinching look at private worlds of pain and a forceful denunciation of America’s for-profit healthcare system.” Joining Laura for this event is Sian-Pierre Regis, award-winning director, former CNN/MTV journalist, and now podcaster of the caregiving podcast series Raising Adults. In addition to interviewing Laura about the book, Sian-Pierre will share a never-before-heard clip from his upcoming podcast series.
Weather for the Blind
Sunday, Feb. 15, 4 - 6 pm PT, in-person at Lobe Studio (Vancouver, BC)
A disability-informed auditory experience where you can ‘listen to the weather’ in real-time in 4DSOUND. Weather for the Blind Vancouver is a healing, disability-informed sound event by non-visual social practice artist Carmen Papalia, featuring the Weather Warlock — an analog synthesizer built by New Orleans musician and inventor Quintron. The instrument responds to real-time weather conditions through a sensor tree that includes inputs for temperature, wind, light/UV index, rain/moisture, and barometric pressure. This event marks the first time Papalia has invited an audience to appreciate the power of the Weather Warlock with him. He will share the story of the instrument, offer a demonstration, perform live, and lead a discussion about its effects. Papalia, who lives with sickle cell disease and vision loss, has incorporated the Weather Warlock into his daily care routine as a grounding tool. He considers it a public utility — a sonic companion and therapeutic presence — for anyone who might benefit from its steady, weather-driven soundscape.
Remembering Fernald: Uncovering the Hidden History of Disability in Massachusetts
Thursday, Feb. 12, 6 - 7pm ET, in-person at the Massachusetts Historical Society and online
During this program, Harvard Kennedy School’s Alex Green will discuss his book, A Perfect Turmoil: Walter E. Fernald and the Struggle to Care for America’s Disabled, and the story of his decade-long effort to uncover this previously untold history. He will also discuss his work with students and community members in Waltham, Mass., to memorialize patients at Fernald; change policy in Massachusetts; and rewrite a history that continues to impact millions of disabled people to this day.

Avra Wing

Harilyn graciously came to speak at the writing workshop I lead at the Center for the Independence of the Disabled (CIDNY) a while back. So sorry to hear of her passing.

megan

The jump scare at that AI chat... its giving intro to disability studies (I say while grading 40 AI disability studies papers)

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