NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ.- This fall, expand your understanding and perception of accessibility through Smoke & Mirrors, opening Sept. 4, 2024, at the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University—New Brunswick. This major exhibition features the work of 14 artists with disabilities from across the globe who conceptualize access through humor, antagonism, transparency, and invisibility.

For the non-disabled museumgoer, visiting an art institution is likely an experience with few obstructions. For visitors with disabilities, however, wayfinding through a museum—not to mention, simply accessing the entrance—is challenging. And the barriers are often invisible.

Organized by guest curator Dr. Amanda Cachia, a prominent disability arts activist and scholar, this unprecedented exhibition showcases work by artists with disabilities, who are underrepresented in museums. It also encourages visitors with disabilities and their allies to become active participants in telling their own stories.

“This exhibition aims to show audiences more expansive encounters with the sensory,” said guest curator Amanda Cachia, an assistant professor at the University of Houston, who has driven initiatives in research and practice to raise awareness of the artistic genre “access aesthetics” over the past decade. “The outstanding work in this show will give audiences more insight into the many innovative ways that disabled artists navigate a world that wasn’t built for them. Innovative sensory engagement is critical to how these artists experience the environment.”

Included are videos, drawings, sculptures, textiles, and multi-media installations by: Emanuel Almborg, Alt-Text as Poetry (Bojana Coklyat and Finnegan Shannon), Erik Benjamins, Pelenakeke Brown, Fayen d’Evie, JJJJJerome Ellis, Vanessa Dion Fletcher, Sugandha Gupta, Carmen Papalia, Finnegan Shannon, Liza Sylvestre, Aislinn Thomas, Corban Walker, and Syrus Marcus Ware.

These artists present an intersectional approach to disability that creates conversations about its relationships to race, gender, sexuality, and ethnicity, generating a more expansive and inclusive understanding of the disabled experience. They create immersive environments for visitors to experience access—or lack thereof—upending traditional ideas of spectatorship. Among their thought-provoking experiences are:

• videos by JJJJJerome Ellis that explore how histories of Black resistance intersect with his experience of having a speech impediment and its impact on how he navigates the world;

• an intervention by Corban Walker, who employs stanchions to reroute space and spread awareness of how movement is often restricted for persons with disabilities; and

• a site-specific work by Finnegan Shannon that provides accessible and therapeutic chairs, addressing the need for ample and comfortable seating in museum spaces.

“This exhibition of contemporary artists with disabilities is central to the Zimmerli's mission of focusing on diversity, equity, access, and inclusion (DEAI),” said Maura Reilly, the Zimmerli’s director. “We always strive to open the museum to new and underrepresented voices and to provide new means of access to reach all audiences. We are equally committed to rethinking the function of a museum to be a responsive and inclusive institution, and Smoke & Mirrors demonstrates that commitment.”