hello from last week! i guess i’m always coming to you from the past (even when i’m finishing the issue just before it lands in your inbox). but this week i’m a bit further back. right now i’m off in the woods conjuring access magic and celebrating the spring rite of beltane. so instead of the usual link round-up, i thought i’d offer more of a letter than a news roundup.
one of the things i’ve been thinking about a lot lately is how conceptualizing access as magic can help us put creativity and relationality at the heart of accessibility. this feels like a way to move past the constraints of compliance and liability. so i’m thinking: what if the increasingly institutionalized form of the “access check-in” at the top of events could become an “access spell”? i’m communing with some powerful witches as you read this, so stay tuned.
and come this summer, you can join me to continue this work during an evening of access magic that i am curating at lincoln center on july 16th! more to come, but expect workshops, installations, and a big dance party that centers and celebrates disability culture.
but if you don’t want to wait that long for a dance party, you can join the closing celebration for the crip ritual exhibition hosted by the Doris McCarthy Gallery, Tangled Art+Disability, and the Critical Design Lab on friday, may 6th.
there’s another major magical event taking place this weekend. it’s the world premiere of Wired by Kinetic Light at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. since i started organizing with the company in october, i have been amazed at the craft, the monumentality, and the complexity of this piece. i have been piloting ways to enter and support disability arts communities in chicago (so chicago-based folx, say hey!) and i am learning a lot. if you’re not based in chicago, you can join for the livestream premiere on saturday, may 7th at 8pm CT. congratulations to the entire KL team!
thank you, as always, for being here with me in this newsletter space. wishing you all the best, most radical dreams this may day.
kevin ❤️🔥
Thank you for this letter and magick.
On 6 May 2022 at 12:00 PM PST / 1300 1PM MST / 1400 2PM CST / 1500 3PM EST there is a scheduled Zoom event titled Building Disability Communities Online where there will be a discussion on how the pandemic fostered a boom in online community-building for disabled folks, what it’s like to create disability justice spaces within a realm so rife with racism, homophobia, and ableism, and what online community means to the speakers. Link below, thank you!
https://sfsu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_6shC5cn5RRO--oU_JyFRQA?fbclid=IwAR2SeNeAbP7Nr2jrVdiR_O47jUQ0vUHZHnOQGc41WMmkCyHCjNVON9-5dLw