Celebrate the ADA with MAC

Disability Justice and the Arts: Listening and Learning for Reinvention

Wednesday July 8th at 3:00pm EDT

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Presented in partnership with A.R.T./New York. As cultural organizations look toward rebuilding after the shutdown precipitated by the pandemic, it is imperative that these organizations listen to the voices of the disability community to make justice part of the design rather than an afterthought. True inclusion and access can only come if organizations engage in Disability Justice. Judy Heumann, a lifelong civil rights advocate for people with disabilities who is featured in the Netflix documentary Crip Camp, will frame the conversation. Then a panel of disabled artists and cultural workers will offer reflections and experiences for growth and change. 

This event challenges the cultural community – arts organizations including theaters, museums, historic houses and concert halls and libraries – to listen and learn from the voices of disabled artists and cultural workers and engage in conversations around disability justice in order to reinvent their organizations as more just institutions. 

Keynote Speaker: Judy Heumann
Moderator: Kirsten Sweeney
Panelist(s):

• Jerron Herman: Jerron Herman is an interdisciplinary artist creating through dance, text, and visual storytelling. He’s based in New York City. 
• Ezra Benus: Ezra Benus is a multidisciplinary artist, educator, and curator who completed his degree in Studio Art (honors) and Jewish Studies at CUNY Hunter College in the Muse Scholars program.
• Alexandria Wailes: Alexandria Wailes is an American deaf actress, dancer, director, and educator. She utilizes the languages of English and American Sign Language and is known for her work with Deaf West Theatre.
• Regan Linton:  Regan is an actor, writer, director, and theatre artist from Denver, CO. She is Artistic Director of Phamaly Theatre Company in Denver, a nonprofit theatre that re-imagines established works while exclusively casting actors with all nature of disabilities.
• Russell Hill is the Administrative Office Assistant at The Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum and Meditation Specialist at JobPath NYC. His meditation work can be seen at Ignite Conscious Gatherings.

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A People’s History of the ADA                                                                                                                                        

Wednesday, July 15th at 2:00pm EDT

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In honor of the 30th anniversary of the enacting of the historic Americans with Disabilities Act, the Museum, Arts, and Culture Access Consortium (MAC) presents a conversation with museum workers, activists, and administrators whose work contributed to the ways that the ADA was adopted by museums and cultural organizations. This early work with the ADA led to the formation of MAC as a space for professional development and access centered conversations for cultural workers who are carrying the banner and advancing accessibility for people with all abilities to this day. 

Moderator: Barbara Cohen-Stratyner

Panelists:

• Anne Pope, Anne Pope is past chair and former member of the board of the Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA); a former member of the HLAA-NYS board; and former chair and honorary board member of the HLAA New York City Chapter. She authored “Hear: Solutions, Skills, and Sources for People with Hearing Loss”. A former human resources executive, Ms. Pope holds a master’s degree in business policy from Columbia University Business School’s Executive Program. She frequently addresses consumers, health professionals, and corporations on the impact of hearing loss and the importance of treatment.
• Francesca Rosenberg, Director, Community, Access, and School Programs, In her 25 years with the Museum of Modern Art, Ms. Rosenberg and her team have won national and international respect for MoMA’s efforts to make the Museum accessible to all. Ms. Rosenberg is a founding member of the Museum Access Consortium and currently serves on its advisory board.
• Pearl Rosen Golden, Pearl Rosen Golden, is an artist, former arts educator, college lecturer, museum professional, and consultant on museum accessibility and exhibition design. For over twenty-five years Pearl developed programs for people with special needs that considers the best ways for them to access and participate in the arts. During her work as Special Education Coordinator at the Queens Museum of Art, Pearl became a founding member of the Museum Access Consortium.
• Jan Majewski, Ms. Majewski has been a member of the Institute for Human Centered Design (IHCD) staff since January 2014.  She manages projects with clients such as the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago; Gallagher and Associates for the US Olympic Museum; the National Air and Space Museum; Shedd Aquarium; and the International Spy Museum. She led the team that wrote the first comprehensive set of U.S. museum exhibition inclusive design guidelines, the Smithsonian Guidelines for Accessible Exhibition Design, the most recommended guidance document in the field.

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Disability Studies and Self-Advocacy in the Cultural Field                                                

Wednesday, July 22nd at 5:00pm EDT

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Moderators:  Danielle Levine, self-advocate, graduated in 2019 from the Melissa Riggio Program at Kingsborough Community College.  She is a self advocate and advocates for job opportunities for people with disabilities.  She had the opportunity to teach classes about self-advocacy and stresses the importance of standing up for yourself, others and the causes you believe in.  Danielle works as an administrative assistant at a doctors office and loves her job

Christopher Leydon: Disability studies in the humanities professor at CUNY SPS.

Panelists:

• Cassandra Evans, CUNY SPS faculty member.  She is teaching disability studies in the Humanities in the Fall.  
• Annie Roos, SPS MA student who graduated in January.  She worked at the Rubin Museum and the American Folk Art Museum and is now on the West coast.
• Kevin Gotkin, In 2016 with Simi Linton, he co-founded the Disability/Arts/NYC (DANT), an activist organization that seeks to advance the aesthetics and artistry of disability in NYC. This work has been funded by the Mertz Gilmore Foundation and the Cultural Agenda Fund administered by The New York Community Trust. The activism can be seen reflected in the city’s first cultural plan, CreateNYC, and in public programming around the city, including “An Etiology of Omission” at The Whitney Museum in the fall of 2017.

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Artist Spotlight