Bibliographic Reference

This article argues that avant-garde exhibition design was at the forefront of constructing elastic worlds for bodies of all shapes, heights and sizes, and yet there is a dearth of scholarship that recognizes what these innovations mean for addressing diversity in the museum. The work of designers like Frederick Kiesler offers excellent templates for thinking outside of the frame, paving the way for exhibition design to be more cognizant of a greater variation of embodied experiences in museum architecture. And yet, museums still lag behind in thinking about this plethora of needs. In the current moment, it is contemporary disabled artists who are at the forefront of demonstrating how exhibitions can be designed so that they consider the needs of disabled visitors first. Artists such as Finnegan Shannon design and produce art hand-in-hand with thinking about crip comfort as bodies navigate exhibitions through the spaces of the art gallery or museum. Disabled artists are the best resource for designing exhibitions and way-finding techniques for a greater spectrum of audiences given they bring intimate knowledge and lived experience of disabled body-minds.