Access Riders Fireside Chat with Carly Neis
Carly Neis, a playwright, actor, and advocate for inclusive arts, reflected on her journey as a neurodivergent creator living with Cerebral Palsy. She shared her transition from community-based theatre to professional production during the pandemic—a period that provided the necessary stillness to investigate her own requirements for a sustainable creative practice.
She highlighted the reluctance many disabled creators feel when requesting support, often fearing they are consuming too much space or emotional energy. Neis posits that true accessibility is rooted in the philosophy that “care is access and access is care,” positioning it as a fundamental communal responsibility.
Central to her presentation was the concept of the Access Rider. This dynamic professional tool details everything from sensory and communication preferences to logistics like travel, equipment, and financial arrangements. Neis advocated for these riders as evolving documents that enhance the working environment for every collaborator, extending benefits far beyond the individual disabled artist.
from 18 minutes
Biases in Art: Provocations and Questions by Brooke Leifso
Brooke Leifso, disabled/Crip performance producer, Expressive Art Practitioner and academic, presented a performance lecture that questioned assumptions surrounding disability, professionalism, community art, and artistic value.
She distinguished among three overlapping categories: therapeutic art, community art, and professional art, arguing that these distinctions often become hierarchical rather than descriptive. She challenged the tendency to dismiss community-based and disability-led practices as amateur or therapeutic.
Leifso explored how disability shapes aesthetics.Shaky voices, different camera angles, plain language, varied sensory experiences, slower pacing, and alternative storytelling logics are all forms of crip aesthetics rather than deficits.
Finally Brooke posed difficult questions about who gets recognized as an artist, whose bodies become political simply by appearing, and whether disabled artists are allowed to make work beyond disability itself.
From 46 minutes
Accessibility Best Practices by Aynaz Raoufian
Aynaz Raoufian, interdisciplinary artist and Smartwear Revolution research assistant, presented research on accessibility guidelines and inclusive open calls. She framed accessibility as the ability to participate, understand, and belong, emphasizing that artists have always practiced forms of access through attention to lived experience.
Raoufian analyzed twelve accessibility toolkits and found that they transform accessibility from an abstract principle into practical questions. She organized accessibility factors into four categories: venue, presentation, programming, and communication and marketing.
The second half of her presentation examined thirty-seven arts open calls. She argued that open calls function as “front doors” to organizations and should reduce barriers throughout the application process, not merely at the event itself.
Aynaz Raoufian (she/they) is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher whose work centers on cancer patients, caregiving, grief, and memory; shaped by her lived experience as a caregiver to her sister during cancer treatment. Through the integration of multiple disciplines and art methods, she explores alternative modes of expression and ways of confronting personal experience, unsettling assumptions about how illness and grief ought to be faced. Raoufian holds a BFA in Sculpture and a Master of Art Research from the University of Tehran and is currently pursuing an MFA in Intermedia at the University of Alberta, where she works as a graduate research assistant on the Smartwear Revolution project, conducting a literature review of Disability Arts best practices.
from 1h 8 minutes