Visitor Talk: Shannon Finnegan

Through their art practice, Shannon thinks about how we can move towards better and more nuanced approaches to access. Instead of focusing on compliance and doing the minimum, what if we approach access creatively and generously, centering disability culture? How might we make spaces and experiences that disabled people not only can access but want to access?

Bio:

Shannon Finnegan is a multidisciplinary artist. Some of their recent work includes Anti-Stairs Club Lounge, an ongoing project that gathers people together who share an aversion to stairs; Alt-Text as Poetry, a collaboration with Bojana Coklyat that explores the expressive  potential of image description; and Do You Want Us Here or Not, a series of benches designed for exhibition spaces. They have done

projects with Banff Centre, the High Line, the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and Nook Gallery. Their work has been supported by a 2018 Wynn Newhouse Award, a 2019 residency at Eyebeam, and a 2020 grant from Art Matters Foundation.