Accessibility and non-ableist design workshops with MELT

October 4th, 16.00 - 20.30

Counting Feelings: Collecting Data as a Counter-Practice

A workshop to question what data is in order to speculate towards what more just data (and data aesthetics) could be.

In this speculative design workshop we will conceptualize and visit the "Autistic and Trans* Coalition Data Center" which holds and collects data sets that lovingly engage with autistic and trans*gender experiences. This data center has been built on the premise to only store data that is of use to Trans* and disabled people. It is driven by a curiosity to learn about our shared and plural patterns of experience, access to health care and diagnosis, and provides information on personal and medical statistics and experiences that cannot be otherwise found. We will narrate, write, predict and solve puzzles together to work with our collective experiences of joyful resistance against foreclosure.

October 5th, 10.00 - 13.30

Sparking up Accessibility: Institutional practices towards Disability Justice 

Let’s learn about access as a source of creativity and change-making in this workshop by the arts-design duo MELT. MELT works against exclusions by uplifting and upholding our beloved disability communities, and by disrupting systemic ableism in cultural institutions. In this workshop on sparking up accessibility we will unfold what we mean when we say ableist conditions. What is systemic ableism? What are different models of disability? What roles can cultural workers take in solidarity with disabled people and what are their legal obligations? What kinds of access requests can cultural workers prepare to care for and structurally implement when changing practices in your institution? MELT will introduce their speculative design project ACCESS SERVER, which takes disability justice principles as a generative and change making operation. ACCESS SERVER is a speculative prototype email server that anonymizes, collects and financially compensates access requests that disabled people send towards cultural institutions. Access requests explain what any disabled person needs to attend spaces, be they online or physical. ACCESS SERVER empowers and pays disabled people for their labor and empowers institutional workers to change normalized oppressions and respond with care. Finally we will do a short research together considering what accessibility information is already on our websites, and what is needed to be implemented in a short form action, getting the wheels of access making going now. 

"Cultures d’avenir" is a programme led by Centre Pompidou, Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) and Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB), with the support of the Franco-German Youth Office (FGYO).