Access Manifesto for “Undue Burden”
An Access Manifesto, from the artists of Undue Burden:
This is an Access Portal.
We are access artists.
Beyond legal mandates, compliance, afterthoughts,
Access is Art!
Access space.
Many millions of people are newly disabled.
We meet this emergency with emergence.
We build ramps over stairs.
We bust through doors of rooms that were not built for us (or crawl through back windows!)
We make art from bed and make being in bed our art. We dissolve boundaries between the physical and the virtual.
We shift tables, chairs, and paradigms to claim our space.
Allow your needs to expand and contract like bodies and brains.
Access time.
We slow down, we speed up. We stop. We rest with ease and without fear of penalty. We reject productivity. We celebrate the late and the unfinished.
We grieve. We are always in process.
Rearrange time. Break time.
Access rage.
We are brutalized by the carceral state, inaccessible spaces, forced poverty, and the medical industrial complex.
We have been abandoned by our government, our doctors, our families, our schools. We demand to be witnessed and not surveilled.
Refuse to be small and quiet. Be big and loud.
Access care.
We honor our differences.
We care radically. We reclaim our care as sacred.
We ask for what we need without apology.
Demand a world where our care is loved work, and our care workers are cared for.
Access imperfection.
We hurt each other. We listen.
We experiment, we mess up, we try again and again.
Promise to practice and grow.
Access pleasure and comfort.
We choose families, partners, intimacy, and love.
We are sexy!
We make sensory spaces, textured art, handmade cushions, and hand-tufted rugs. We wear our art, we let art wear us out. Art makes us sweat!
Access feels good.
We hold our art. Our art holds us.
Celebrate disability.
Access abundance.
We are flexible and compassionate. We create endless options. We marry ourselves!
We value disabled work and rest.
Pay. Us. More!
We reject the myth of scarcity and the supremacist hierarchies that support it.
Build a world where access is unlimited.
The stories in our archive are by us and about us.
We document Disabled art.
We document Disabled love, rage, exclusion, and belonging.
We document stories that have been ignored and silenced.
We are here.
Access artistry will not be gatekept.
This is an Access Portal.
We are access artists.
You are an access artist.