Objects of Access

This project will be a living archive, which will grow and change with time.

These objects represent the ways that we hack the world and invent access in otherwise inaccessible spaces and times. Collaborations might consider how multiple perspectives can and should co-exist around these objects. One goal will be to document the learning experiences we’ve been through to figure out what works and what doesn’t, gathering our collective knowledge to hopefully benefit others in our community and beyond. 

Works might consider:

• The beauty/aesthetics of objects: the DIY, decorated, personalized – how making objects desirable might make them more enjoyable to use;

• The variability of access needs: how we need different objects on different days according to symptoms/capacities/flares, how access needs sometimes contradict one another (access friction);

• Differing perspectives of objects: people needing the same object for different reasons, or different objects for the same reasons, and having different relationships with their objects from one another (eg. happiness, grief);

• Visibility and invisibility of access needs and how these influence use of objects, self confidence, etc.; 

• Bonding over mutual use of objects, the conversations and support born out of sharing these experiences, how we can learn about one another’s access needs by talking about our objects; 

• Raising awareness of objects that aren’t represented as creating access in popular culture; 

• How objects start conversations about access, disability, chronic illness, neurodivergence, etc.; 

• How making art/representation change how we think about these ‘mundane’ or ‘everyday’ objects, and of access as a continual process.