Process and Presence: Art and Disability

Whenever I’ve described an art exhibition as accessible, I usually just mean that it’s pleasantly unburdened by the tedious anti-magic of philosophic, academic pretention which seems to actively try to make art incomprehensible to the viewer. But the exhibition Process and Presence: Contemporary Disability Sculpture offered an entirely different meaning to the term in showcasing work by artists with disabilities, and displaying it in such a way as to be, quite literally, physically accessible to anyone. In addition to heightening our awareness of the disabled community, the show offered innovative suggestions for how to make the museum experience more inclusive for the disabled and, by extension, other routine tasks that most of us take for granted, like simply navigating a doorway, an ATM machine, or a set of stairs.