Accessibility – Berlin Art Link

Choreographing Language: An Interview with Rita Mazza

Alison Hugill — Tue, 29 Oct 2024 07:59:29 +0000

This article is part of our feature topic Accessibility. Rita Mazza is a Berlin-based performance artist, artistic director and Sign Language choreographer in visual sign performances for Deaf and hearing audiences. Their recent research revolves around ways to enrich Sign Language by combining it with dance movements, thus expanding the modes of expression of the Deaf community in a new form of…

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Labors of Love: Carla Abilés’ Slow Embroideries

Alison Hugill — Fri, 25 Oct 2024 07:04:51 +0000

This article is part of our feature topic Accessibility. “I MIGHT BE THE ONLY BROWN PERSON IN THIS ROOM” read the black block letters meticulously embroidered on unbleached cotton, whose unfinished edges recede into the white wall of the gallery. Reading these words, I immediately recognize that I myself had brought Carla Abilés into many such rooms, in which she noticed something that I did not.

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Beyond the Skin Line: An Interview with Raquel Meseguer Zafe

Alison Hugill — Fri, 11 Oct 2024 11:18:07 +0000

This article is part of our feature topic Accessibility. Access in exhibition-making is often reduced to accommodations considered after the creation and installation of work rather than as an integral part of the artistic process. In her introduction to ‘Curating Access: Disability Art Activism and Creative Accommodation’ (2023), curator Amanda Cachia categorises creative access as a…

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Expanded Time: An Interview with Mari Katayama

Alison Hugill — Fri, 04 Oct 2024 12:14:01 +0000

This article is part of our feature topic Accessibility. Japanese multimedia artist Mari Katayama creates striking self-portraits and soft sculptures that incorporate her body alongside hand-sewn objects, fostering a thoughtful dialogue around society’s normative ideas about what is natural, artificial or correct. Katayama was born with a congenital limb condition known as tibial hemimelia…

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The School of Lovers: An Interview with melanie bonajo

Alison Hugill — Fri, 27 Sep 2024 10:20:27 +0000

This article is part of our feature topic Accessibility. melanie bonajo is a video artist, somatic practitioner and sex coach whose works have incorporated a wide range of aesthetic and social discourses. bonajo, alongside Yanna Rüger and Daniel Cremer, and Theater HORA—an ensemble of stage actors and artists based in Zurich who also live with cognitive impairments—recently created the work…

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Collective Unlearning: Ciara Barker’s ‘Libraries of Rest’

Alison Hugill — Fri, 20 Sep 2024 12:41:24 +0000

This article is part of our feature topic Accessibility. The topic of rest, or rather the lack of it, has become ubiquitous. If you asked friends, colleagues or even strangers on the street about their daily lives, a common theme would likely emerge: most people are tired and not getting the rest they need. Neoliberal values prioritize constant work and efficiency over leisure and the ability to…

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Letter from the Editor: Accessibility

Alison Hugill — Fri, 13 Sep 2024 09:01:44 +0000

This article is part of our feature topic Accessibility. The question of “access” is a far-reaching one—it can be as simple as the architecture of an entry-way or as complex as the many invisible barriers put in place to reinforce institutional hierarchies. In art spaces, artists and visitors constantly encounter issues of accessibility, from the legibility of a press release to the font size of…

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Designing from Difference: An Interview with DisOrdinary Architecture Project

Alison Hugill — Fri, 18 Dec 2020 12:28:08 +0000

The DisOrdinary Architecture Project is a UK-based practice that seeks to develop new processes of spatial design and spatial justice in the built environment. Founded by Jos Boys, a researcher and educator, and Zoe Partington, an artist whose work is informed by her experiences with sight loss, DisOrdinary works with students, Deaf and disabled artists and institutions to challenge the ableist…

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Drag Syndrome: An Interview with Artistic Director Daniel Vais

Intissare Aamri — Fri, 11 Dec 2020 09:24:51 +0000

Culture Device is an artistic venture revolutionizing normative definitions of art and beauty through its projects. One such project, Drag Syndrome, acts as an inclusive performance platform for exceptional artists with learning disabilities. Founded by artistic director Daniel Vais in 2018, Drag Syndrome is the world’s first collective of drag queens and kings with Down Syndrome.

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Combatting Institutional Ableism in Germany: An Interview with Berlinklusion

Alison Hugill — Fri, 04 Dec 2020 10:56:23 +0000

Self-described as a strong network of artists and art mediators eager to counter mainstream ableist narratives and work towards inclusivity in arts and culture, Berlinklusion organizes a myriad of events and workshops and offers consulting to a number of art institution clients on how to achieve holistic accessibility. With their extensive network of artists passionate and involved in disability…

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Contexts of Trust: An Interview with Sickness Affinity Group

Noelle Buabbud — Fri, 27 Nov 2020 08:47:46 +0000

When we consider the “art world”—names and institutions celebrated, flows of capital—we must also consider the often invisible labor of cultural workers. Contemporary cultural production is upheld by structures that are exclusive, extractive and exhausting. Artists and cultural workers internalize the harmful and delusional ideas that, in order to participate in a creative field…

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Art Beyond Labels: An Interview with Manuel Solano

Alison Hugill — Fri, 20 Nov 2020 10:37:26 +0000

The creation of art is often dialogic. An artist establishes a connection with the material world or an interior discourse and produces a work in response. The work of the Berlin-based Mexican artist Manuel Solano is dialogic in both this metaphoric sense of the term, but also, often, more literally. Solano became blind at the age of 26 as a result of a treatment regime for HIV-related illness.

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