“Curating Access” explores how artists, curators, and institutions reshape cultural spaces to center accessibility and challenge inequities in museums, galleries, and performance venues. Inspired by Amanda Cachia’s 2024 book The Agency of Access, the discussion will highlight Cachia’s critical interventions in art history and museum studies alongside Philadelphia initiatives by Temple’s Institute on Disabilities and Art-Reach, a coalition advancing disability-led inclusion. We’ll examine how curatorial practices employ access as methodology, creating multi-sensorial, genuinely inclusive experiences.

Amanda Cachia: Curator, consultant, writer and art historian specializing in disability art activism across intersectional axes of difference, including gender, race, and sexuality. Amanda is Professor of Practice in Museum Studies at the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, Arizona State University. Cachia is the author of Hospital Aesthetics: Disability, Medicine, Activism (2025), and The Agency of Access: Contemporary Disability Art and Institutional Critique (2024). She also edited Curating Access: Disability Art Activism and Creative Accommodation (2022).

John Orr: Executive Director of Art-Reach in Philadelphia, a disability justice and accessibility advocacy organization driving community-driven change in the arts. Last year, more than 360,000 people experienced the arts in an accessible way through Art-Reach programs. John serves on the PA Developmental Disabilities Council and the Board of PA Humanities. John identifies as neurodivergent, and as a native Philadelphian, is committed to making his city one of the most accessible arts cities in the country.

Lisa Sonneborn: Director of Media Arts & Culture for the Institute on Disabilities, Temple University. Her work engages communities in conversations around disability, the preservation of disability history, and cultural access. Lisa leads teams of artists, people with disabilities and families in developing of cultural programs that model inclusion, authentic voice, and accessibility.