Disability Arts is a multiformat book of art, a groundbreaking web site, and an expansive community and field-building initiative.

Our project presents dynamic and provocative writing, imagery, and performance from disabled artists across a wide spectrum of geographies, backgrounds and training. This content is being produced in several accessible formats, designed to engage a multitude of bodies, senses, and cognitive styles. Disabled artists can explore the many forms of Disability Arts to ground their practices in a rich artistic landscape and legacy that they have been systematically denied.

With funding from The Mellon Foundation and The Ford Foundation, our team of disabled creatives has assembled and edited content for two volumes of Disability Arts. We are now developing our cutting edge web site: a radically accessible digital arts publishing platform and community building space. Historically, technology access practices have placed the burden on disabled users to adapt to barriers. Our web site is being built with the latest accessibility tools at the center of its design, with room to grow as technology evolves. The site will be a gathering space for sharing work, exchanging ideas, and for sparking collaborative endeavors between art lovers across the globe.

The book will be published in two volumes, each filled with diverse artwork and unique sensory experiences. Volume I is being prepared for publication, and is set to be released in late 2026; Volume II will be released in 2027.

Economic access to Disability Arts is essential to our project. Our free distribution plan assures that people who are geographically, economically, or culturally isolated, and those living in carceral or other restricted environments will be intentionally included. Our publisher, Clovernook Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired will sell volumes online and in museum book stores.

Innovative artistic forms of access are central to the ethos and aesthetic of our endeavors. We view accessibility as an artistic method, an intellectual framework, and a cultural practice. In keeping with this, we have developed a multi-format publishing schema for our book.

The physical volumes of the book, designed with tactile graphics and braille text, will be packaged as boxed sets and produced by our publisher. Sets include:

• Printed books: with select braille pages, tactile graphics, and 3 dimensional models of art work
• Books fully in braille: with select tactile graphics and 3 dimensional models of art work

Our web site and its source code will be publicly available and free to use. It will host the free ebook version of each volume and selected book content in multiple accessible formats, including:

• Audio content featuring voices of our contributors
• Videos of poetry and other selected writings presented in American Sign Language (ASL)
• Digital braille (readable by refreshable braille displays) with voice control options
• Audio descriptions of imagery and sound
• Selected content translated into Plain Language
• Rich sonic landscapes incorporated into the web site

We are now poised to focus on the core purpose of our project: the community and field-building initiative. This initiative is designed to reach disabled artists, their allies, community centers, advocacy organizations, health care facilities, libraries, carceral and other residential institutions, schools, and related entities, with the purposes of sparking conversation, collaboration, and, significantly, connection to the broader Disability Arts community across the U.S.