Access Test Kitchen: A Workshop Series on Disability Justice and Aesthetics
Staci Bu Shea, Mira Thompson

“Access Test Kitchen” is a series of immersive workshops created by long-time collaborators and friends Staci Bu Shea and Mira Thompson. Over the course of five workshops, you will engage with texts and concepts centered around Disability Justice, Activism, Art and Literature. With support of the kitchen, cooking and eating as metaphors, our focus material and discussions will support the development of “recipes” that practice accessibility from a disability-centric perspective. Students from all departments are welcome to join us along with their various media interests and diverse artistic practices.

Throughout our time together, we will explore questions that challenge conventional narratives around access and ableism. How do our ideas and dreams about disability reshape our understanding of the physical spaces we inhabit? What transformative possibilities arise when we conceptualize access not merely as a challenge to be addressed, but as a rich aesthetic experience to be celebrated? This is where our “test kitchen” comes in. We respond to these questions by experimenting with the creation of recipes, meeting access as cravings to be met and collective desire for sharing food together around the table.

Together, we will investigate the interplay between ableist structures and the artistic expressions that emerge from them, seeking to navigate and redefine these dialogues through creativity and collaboration. What do we carry into our shared spaces when we embrace a social understanding of accessibility—one that encompasses not just physical access, but also emotional, intellectual, and social dimensions? We’ll riff off of existing recipes, create new ones, and recreate them to define our situated, collective taste.

To participate in the workshop series, you’ll already have a proposal in mind for a recipe. By the halfway point of the series, you’ll have an idea for how you will choose to share your recipe (some might be theoretical sketches while others “fully cooked”). We’ll consider what our test kitchen will look like as a hospitable support structure wherein each participant will feature their recipe as a unique contribution and determine this together. Each participant’s voice and experience is vital as we craft a collective narrative that transforms challenges into artistic and meaningful expressions. Let’s reimagine what it means to be together in spaces that honor and celebrate our diverse identities and abilities.

The Access Test Kitchen workshop will culminate in a collaborative and collective presentation, part of the Rietveld Uncut exhibition at Stedelijk Museum.