I’m so happy to bring you the next interview in our Crip Media series, with Alexander Ogheneruemu, fellow of the Disability Justice Project (DJP). Disability Justice Project is a global non-profit promoting disability-led storytelling. Founded by Human Rights filmmaker Jody Santos, the DJP provides training and filmmaking equipment to disabled activists and journalists living in countries where the issues facing local disabled populations are too often ignored by mainstream media. I came across their work last year and was taken aback by their short films on issues surrounding climate change in Uganda and Samoa. I reached out to Jody to discuss the project, and she connected me with Alex, a Deaf documentary filmmaker, writer and activist from Nigeria, about his latest film projects on deafness and disability in the conflict-affected region.

I highly recommend checking out their website or YouTube channel to watch all of the videos they have published, and to discover the incredible array of filmmakers they support.

Claudia: Hi Alex! Can you tell us about your work and background before joining DJP as a filmmaker?​

Alexander: Before joining the DJP, I had stints in education, focusing on Deaf learners. I also freelanced for a few online media platforms, including Peter Fremlin’s Disability Debrief in the UK. Much of my writing centred on disability, and I sensed a strong calling there. Meanwhile, I was (and still am) quietly doing disability advocacy in Faith spaces. I actively volunteer with a local Deaf NGO, Voice for the Deaf Foundation, in a Bible translation ministry. We are rendering the bible into native sign language for Deaf folks, and I am in the exegesis group.

How did your collaboration with DJP come about?

Alexander: Each time I think about how I began contributing to the DJP, I see the power of community and connections. It started with my work for Peter, whom I connected with on LinkedIn. We struck a great working relationship, and he made a couple of introductions. One of them was Priti Salian. At that time, Priti managed the Disability Justice Media Network for the DJP, organising workshops and webinars. Priti added me to the group, where I decided to share a personal writing piece which Jody personally complimented. Jody is a beautiful soul to work with – a great encourager and motivator. In a private chat, she shared links to the DJP’s website with an opportunity to contribute. That was my chance, and since then, there has been no looking back. It has been a great experience of learning and growth.

What has been the biggest benefit of working with DJP? Was it access to the technology? Or something else?

Alexander: Access to the technology, such as the two Google Pixel phones I was able to record the footage and use live transcription with, is certainly one of the biggest benefits. However, it’s hard to rate that above the wonderful working relationship I’ve built with Jody over time – I’m gaining a lot from her editorial oversight and support. It’s hard to put one above the other.

Can you explain, for those unfamiliar with the territory and political climate, the problems Nigeria is facing regarding the safety and security of its people?​

Alexander: Issues around insecurity are a serious concern in Nigeria. It is a complex problem with political, religious, tribal, and economic underpinnings. The issues originated from the northeastern part of the country and have steadily spread across the entire country – nowhere is exactly safe. Insecurity manifests variously through tribal/community clashes, religion-motivated wars, terrorism, banditry, farmer-herder clashes, and increasingly, kidnapping for ransom. Fears heightened when kidnapping, which used to be mostly a northern thing, rapidly escalated in the south. People are being abducted on the road, in their homes, on the farm – even school kids were being kidnapped during raids on schools. A number of the victims are dying in captivity.

At one point, while I was producing the story, I had to avoid travelling to a particular state because it was unsafe. I took a risk travelling a long distance by bus, and there was a scare on the road. One noticeable trend about mass kidnappings is that they increase during build-ups to a presidential election; it has even been argued that politicians use them to score points amongst others. Over the past few weeks, though, the government and security agencies have made some impressive pushbacks, resulting in the rescue of several abducted victims, foiling some kidnap attempts and neutralising bandits.

Without Warning tells the story of how inaccessible emergency communication can leave Deaf and HoH people out, amidst ongoing security crises. How does emergency communication work in the country currently?

Alexander: With phones and social media, more people now have access to emergency information. But that’s not to say communicating these emergencies is now fully accessible. For the Deaf person who does not have a phone or cannot read, the danger remains. Emergency communication still largely misses disability needs – especially for the Deaf.

Deaf advocate Ayoade Beyioku-Alase spoke of how his family fled their home in Kano in 1992 after spending three days in hiding due to missed communication warnings. Over the two decades since, how has the communication situation changed or improved?

Alexander: Today, compared to over two decades ago, the communication situation has improved in general, as the majority of Nigerians, even in rural areas, now have ready access to mobile phones and internet, along with the advantages of instant communication. This wasn’t the case back then. However, people can still miss out on emergency information due to incessant power outages, inability to afford internet subscriptions, and inaccessible information. In terms of identifying and giving warnings during a crisis, communication has not been disability-sensitive, and provisions are rarely made for access needs of disabled people. However, disabled people consistently leverage both the improvements in communication systems and camaraderie to help themselves. We largely rely on community connections. Ayoade, Tina, and Festus in the series hinted at this.

For example, during my trip for this story, I read online that there was a curfew in an area I was visiting, but some of the Deaf people I was meeting weren’t aware of it. The meeting offered an opportunity to share awareness.

In Harm’s Way shares the stories of disabled Nigerians whose lives have been changed by insecurity and violence. As the film shows, not only are there barriers for people with pre-existing disabilities, but there are also those who have disabilities as a result of the conflict. What is the scale of conflict-related disabilities in Nigeria?

Alexander: Unfortunately, there’s no official data on this. However, it’s clearly higher in the northeastern BAY states. There’s still a lot of work to be done in this area, and it’s something I’d like to do with the right support or collaboration.

​What are the differences in welfare for people with disabilities in the cities of Nigeria compared to its villages?

​Alexander: There is a wide berth in the living standards between the two. Especially with access to infrastructure, education, healthcare and other support systems. Villages are more isolated and easier targets for bandits and terrorists. Many people with disabilities in these areas are engaged in farming (which is often their only source of livelihood); however, the current security crises have led to abandonment of farmlands, pushing people further down the poverty line.

Insecurity in Nigeria is an endemic problem, so of course, both disabled and nondisabled are affected. However, as I explored in the story, disabled people are more prone, and it does not help that we are not addressing how these already vulnerable people are further impacted, or gathering disability specific data on this issue.

How difficult was the filming process, in terms of avoiding conflict and also finding disabled people to talk to?

Alexander: It could have been pretty hard, but my connections helped a lot. In terms of avoiding conflict, the leaders in Kwara, for example, were always giving me updates on happenings in the area. However, there are many case studies I didn’t include in the project due to time constraints.

What are you planning on working on next?

Alexander: Next up, I am about to begin a story about living with Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus in Nigeria. Going forward, I feel the need to explore conflict-related disability more, including gathering data. I’d also like to produce films on Deaf women and healthcare access and disabled street kids. I will say there are many untold stories out there that need someone with the eyes, heart, and, of course, support to tell.

How can our readers support your work?

Alexander: To show support, please head to The Disability Justice Project.

Claudia: Thank you for talking to Able Zine, Alex! And we look forward to seeing and supporting your future documentaries.

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First of all, thank you for being here! We have many new subscribers and would like to extend our appreciation to those who invest in our work and continue to support us.

When Able Zine started in 2018, there was a vacuum of disabled media. Zine-makers have always done their thing, as have disability arts organisations like Disability Arts Online, and podcasts such as Pigeon Hole and Disability Visibility. But in the past 8 years, things have really changed. We’re no longer confined to niche corners of the internet, and countless publishers are promoting and commissioning more disabled writers than ever before. In the media spaces that Able Zine inhabits, it’s nice to have company. It’s exciting to be inspired by others’ work. It’s a relief to share the responsibilities and burdens of publishing with other independent publishers. So in the next few newsletters, we’ll be shining a spotlight on other media-makers doing cool things in the disability space. Show them some love, and hopefully you’ll discover your next new obsession.

In crip solidarity and love,

Claudia

First off in the series is Disability Debrief, an insightful news and writing platform that reports on disability news and stories from around the world. They work with many international writers and illustrators, importantly providing paid publishing opportunities to underrepresented voices. I spoke with its founder, Peter Torres Fremlim, about the project and their current call-out, ‘Dear Diary’.

Hi Peter! I’m so glad to be connected with you. What led you to start the Disability Debrief?

Back in 2020, I was working on disability rights in international cooperation. Many countries were changing their policies or trying new approaches to disability, and I wanted to share the latest news with colleagues. I started it as a freelancer, thinking it would be a side project.

How has Disability Debrief evolved over the years?

The audience quickly went beyond just my colleagues, and that showed me that there was a wider interest in a serious, in-depth view of disability news. And as I gradually shared more analysis and also my own experiences, it took me more into reporting and writing about my lived experience. There’s something unique that comes when we can combine these different ways of writing and knowing the world.

What is the mission of Disability Debrief?

The mission now is to explore world news through a disability lens. Disability gives us new ways to know the world, and a disability lens examines the experiences of disabled people and the social and environmental contexts they inhabit.

Why is it important to you to platform news and stories from geographically diverse places, global sources and Global South writers?

It started with an international view from the beginning, and I’ve really worked to get disability news from around the world. So far, I’ve curated news from over 170 countries.

Through that curation, it showed me that there were much fewer stories told directly by disabled people in the Global South. Too often, those perspectives are only shared by a charity that is also telling its own story.

When I commission writing and art on the Debrief, it is to give a platform to stories that aren’t found elsewhere, and so because of that, there’s a focus on writers and artists from the Global South.

Running a newsletter is an intentional form of slow content; it’s a crip-friendly process, I think. In comparison to other media and news organisations, what separates Disability Debrief?

Certainly. I chose the newsletter format because I’ve never been good at or inclined much to post on social media. But now, the Debrief is a weekly newsletter so the pressure of production has increased and doesn’t feel very slow!

But we have quite a few crip processes behind the scenes. We’ve created a space where writers can work without deadlines (until the final moments in the piece’s development).

And in terms of comparison, I’m not sure if the Debrief is like any of the others! Every week is a different subject and type of edition, from a global analysis of the disability movement, to an illustrated essay on anxious nights growing up in Kolkata, India.

We work hard to bring quality and depth, from a very diverse range of authors, writers and illustrators, and they are paid for their work. And all of this is available for free, with no paywall or pop-ups.

You currently have a call-out for submissions and the theme is Dear Diary, can you tell us more about the call out and why you chose this theme?

Our call is for diary entries to share how disability shaped your day. Each entry is up to 500 words, and we’ll publish our five favourites – and give each person published £100.

These open invitations are an exciting way to hear from new people and a wider range of folk to contribute. This theme attracted us just because we’re excited to know more about the day-to-day details and how they look different for each person. And it’s a theme anyone can speak to (whether they have a disability or not!)

How can the readers support your work?

The best way to follow the Debrief is to sign-up to get the weekly newsletter in your inbox!

And then, like any independent media project, the main challenges are visibility and financing. Share it with your friends so others find it. And if you can, take out a subscription. The project is published through a pay-what-you-can model.

There are all these pressures online and in the media that bring out a lot of fake news and clickbait. But the lesson I took from the Debrief is that if we want to see something different on the internet, we can make it ourselves.

The deadline for the Dear Diary call is the 20th July 2026, 11am BST. Apply now via this Google Form link.

To support Able Zine and keep our content going, consider donating to our Ko-fi or becoming a paid subscriber. Or purchase Issue 2 here.

Able Zine is already 8 years old, but our journey hasn’t been linear. As we embark on a new era and a new issue, we are actively seeking more voices to support us and guide our mission and organisation.

We are conducting an open call to recruit members for two new groups: the Issue 3 Editorial Committee and the Steering Group. The incentive is to support our creative ecosystem and one another, believing this will be mutually beneficial for both parties through the exchange of ideas and the creation of collective resources/networks. This will look like monthly co-design sessions with other disabled multidisciplinary individuals, split into two groups.

The editorial committee will support the overall editorial direction of our magazine and its content, our accessibility protocols, and help to assemble a team of editors and contributors. This group is best suited to creatives and curators.

The steering group will support our strategic direction, governance structures, and discuss ways to sustain the project financially and practically - best suited to pragmatists and those with an interest in supporting disabled-led organisations to grow holistically and sustainably.

Members of both groups will have an active role in shaping the next issue and Able Zine as an organisation.

Applicants are welcome to express interest in joining both groups.

Participation is voluntary, and you would not be obliged to contribute in any way outside of the monthly Zoom containers; however, this may change as we acquire funding, and if you are interested in being a team member.

Spaces are limited, and priority will be given to those living outside the UK & US, as we aim to expand our geographic reach. We will reply to all applicants.

If you’re interested in applying or know someone who would be, here is the link to apply. Applications are open on a rolling basis. If you have any questions or require the form in another format for accessibility, please email: contact@ablezine.com.

We look forward to hearing from you.

To support Able Zine and keep our content going, consider donating to our Ko-fi or becoming a paid subscriber. Or purchase Issue 2 here.

With the Intoart curators, Ella Ritchie and Sam Jones, and a selection of artists in attendance, the audience was guided through the room with presentations demonstrating the technical aspects of the artworks and the artists themselves discussing inspiration, process and material choices.

Tékhnē (which translates from Greek as ‘art, skill, or craft’) brings new contributions to the diversity, legacy and heritage of craft. The works on display exemplify the depth and variety of Tékhnē that its artists have mastered. This includes technical proficiency, design execution, and creative conceptualisation. Moreso, the exhibition strikes the viewer with its fierce use of colour, freedom of expression and strong sense of culture.

I had the pleasure of meeting and hearing from artist Danielle Green, whose weaving and embroidery works draw on indigenous totemic symbolism; and sound and drawing artist Nick Fenn, whose works are inspired by landscapes, including Redcar, which heavily influenced Ridley Scott’s famous film, Blade Runner. Furniture designer Andre Williams told us how characters from Super Mario Brothers inspired the colours and textiles behind his turtle chair and frog stool designs.

Other artists in the collective include Lisa Trim. Her amazing embroidery adorns screenprinted linen garments, and the detail will take your breath away. Mawuena Kattah’s portraits and ceramic glazed pots ooze warmth in hues of chocolate and tangerine. We see more ceramics by Clifton Wright, who uses plates as canvases for unpredictable portraits. Christian Ovonlen presents a vast array of works ranging from printed textiles to powerful pencil drawings, which utilise white and black to full chiaroscuro effect.

Artist Jordan Moody captures modern market scenes across London on vibrant terracotta tableaus and street-life drawings. Both of which are perfectly documented in a short film that follows him on a photography trip, as he meets market stall owners and captures the vibrancy of local communities.

Intoart stands out as a visual arts organisation that brings equity, visibility, and opportunity to learning-disabled and autistic artists and designers. Because of the barriers in society and in arts institutions, their work supports artists in “creating their own professional pathways and having a voice”, says Intoart co-founder Ella Ritchie.

Organisations such as Intoart and ActionSpace, which have worked with artists such as Andrew Omoding and the current Turner Prize-winning artist Nnena Kalu since 1999, are enabling artists with learning disabilities to take up space in prestigious museums and institutions such as Sotheby’s, which, through their very nature, bear the mark of exclusion. These happenings signify a shift in the arts industry, the initial severing of a long-standing bias about who creates great art. Tékhnē is designed to confront the question “who should be included in the story of craft,” says Ritchie. “What Intoart introduces to craft is an explosion of new ideas.” Ideas the public wants to see.

Alongside workshops for artists to explore new and highly specialised techniques such as fine embroidery and weaving, Intoart also receives commissions through its dedicated design studio, Trifle, which has worked with the likes of Lush and John Smedley. They also conserve over 6000 artworks on their premises, creating a legacy for disability arts. This legacy ensures that the design potential of neurodiverse artists extends beyond the personal and into the homes and exhibition spaces of international audiences.

To see the works for yourself, head to their online gallery. To support the organisation, you can donate here.

Words by Claudia

To support Able Zine and keep our content going, consider donating to our Ko-fi or becoming a paid subscriber.

Have you ever been to an Art Book Fair? It’s stimulating, inspiring, and overwhelming in equal measure. Able Zine joined 150 other exhibitors from around the world, selling everything from collectable vintage books to independent press, handmade zines, and incredible art. Unfortunately, we were also one of the handful of exhibitors whose publications were detained by customs indefinitely, so we didn’t get to exhibit our printed magazines. Oops. Taking them all in an extra suitcase just didn’t seem as accessible as having someone ship them door-to-door for us, but you live, and you learn. Next time we’ll do it better.

Our trio, Aksana, Elena of FutureKind Studio and me, headed to Stansted to fly with Ryanair. I haven’t set foot in Stansted airport in over 10 years, so I didn’t know what to expect. Fortunately, the special assistance was pretty good, and Elena got to push my wheelchair, so that’s always fun :).

By the time we got to Madrid, my declining executive functioning skills took us to the wrong address. But across the road, we saw a lovely tapas spot with stunning views of the Palacio Real de Madrid, so we allowed ourselves our first taste of Spanish tortilla and sangria. The great thing about Spanish cuisine is that it’s very whole-food, ingredient-based. One of my favourite discoveries was Gilda Pintxo - a traditional Basque treat of pickled guindilla peppers, salty anchovy fillets and green olives held together with toothpicks. I did almost choke to death on one (they are highly acidic), so you’ve been warned.

The next day, we familiarised ourselves with the fair layout during setup and prepared to deliver our workshop. Our workshop was called ‘Publishing for All Bodies and Minds’, and we covered the theory through the mismatch model of disability, intersectionality and unconscious bias in publishing. Then we moved into practical design applications by exploring alt text, image descriptions, plain language, typeface legibility, colour contrast, tactility, and alternative navigation methods.

After the presentation, we worked with participants to craft small zines, creatively prototyping ways to experiment with accessibility using readily available materials. We led two groups: the High Contrast Zine group, in which participants were invited to use colour contrast to create increasingly accessible designs, building page by page toward bolder, more legible combinations. And the Image Description Zine group, who prioritised font size and legibility, while describing images bilingually.

What stayed with us most was how deeply participants cared about inclusion and accessibility. Not just interested in the ideas, but immediately thinking about how to apply them to their own practice: be it design work, research, or their own facilitation practice. The kind of energy we had in that room was proof that the community investment already exists; it simply requires the language and tools to be expressive and confident.

It was also a powerful reminder that you don’t need to “be an artist” or “a creative” to generate inventive and interesting work. All perspectives are valuable. Similarly, you do not need to identify as disabled to think proactively about disability or uplift disabled people through your work and your choices. Our intersectional identities are what feed collaboration and co-design outcomes that benefit all.

At our zine stand, alongside the merch we sold, we gave away a free Inclusive Design resource takeaway that other zine makers can refer to for future prints. We connected with other sellers from around the world, including London-based queer poetry publisher Anamot Press, Chilean zine-maker and artist Karo Castro, newspaper print designers The Posttraumatic and Athens-based printing press Kyklàda. There were many more, and the quality and creativity of the publications on display lit a fire in our bellies for future issues and projects.

A big thank you to the organisers at Libros Mutantes, Loreto, Ricardo and Sergio. These guys did an amazing job, and we felt very well taken care of.

By the end of day three, we were completely shattered to put it mildly. We wanted to have one last tapas binge and enjoy some lovely views of the city. After fried croquetas and burrata, we went to the stunning Parque del Oeste and had some well-deserved time to touch the grass and listen to the birds.

We plan to host our accessibility in print workshop virtually soon and will update you with links to sign up when it’s ready. Until then, stay safe and care for one another.

If you’d like to support Able Zine, you can do so in the following ways: buy us a Kofi or become a paid subscriber. We’re very close to releasing the theme and submission details for Issue 3, so any boost we can get in networking, partnerships, distribution, or hands-on support is very welcome. In the meantime, we are still selling print and digital copies of Issue 2, and would love for you to buy one if you haven’t already. Click here to purchase Issue 2.

Able Zine <3

I recently (and fortuitously) was invited to interview Aksana Berdnikova for With Not For, a disabled-owned talent and production agency that exclusively represents disabled creatives. Shout out to the founders Kelly and Emma!

When I met Aksana, I was enamoured by her warm, relaxed energy. We shared common values, creative aspirations for the disabled community, and a design sensibility. As well as a fondness for tea and Mexican food, and the list went on.

So, naturally, a partnership has ensued, and I look forward to introducing her to you in this interview.

Aksana is a creative polymath whose work champions disability-centred design and the power of art to shift narratives. Recently graduated with an MSc in Disability, Design and Innovation, Aksana’s journey has taken her from an art student in New York City to a creative director and marketing leader with over 13 years of experience. After experiencing sudden vision loss from retinal detachment during art school, Aksana’s mission is to facilitate opportunities for the disabled creative community through design solutions and community collaboration, branching across industries and creative practices.

Claudia: Hi Aksana, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I start every interview with this icebreaker. Describe yourself in 3 words.

Aksana: I’d say I’m creative, confident and chill.

I would love to hear about your upbringing. Where are you from?

Aksana: When somebody asks me where I’m from, I usually ask, “How much time do you have?” I’m from Belarus, but I was born in Mongolia. I haven’t spent any time in Mongolia; I was born premature, and my parents happened to be there. I spent my childhood in Belarus, and when I was 15, my mom and I moved to the United States. I didn’t speak any English. My mom didn’t speak any English. We just moved to the US, and figured it all out.

If you’re comfortable talking about it, how did your disability manifest?

Aksana: I lost my left eye when I was 19, due to severe retinal detachment. It didn’t affect me much at the time. I was a delusionally confident teenager, so although physically, it was difficult, once the painful process was over and I had my prosthetic eye, I just moved on with my life. I had just graduated from high school and enrolled into a small, underfunded community college called Mercer County Community College. I had an incredible time there, and that’s when I really felt the power of art. On my first day back at school after the surgery, I was wearing an eye patch because I needed to wait 6 months before I could wear a prosthetic eye. I had a painting class, and the assignment was a self-portrait. I asked my teacher, Kyle, “What do I do? Do I paint myself the way I was most of my life? Or do I paint myself with this eye patch?” And he said, “This is your space. This is a safe space. You do whatever makes you feel comfortable, but it is an opportunity to capture this moment.” He put it in such a wonderful, inclusive way. I felt completely safe there. So I took off my eye patch and painted myself post-surgery. That moment was very healing. Thank you, Kyle! In art school, nobody gives a shit. You can be whoever you want, and so because of that environment, I really didn’t feel that different from anybody else.

What did you do after you graduated?

Aksana: I attended the School of Visual Arts in New York City, and after graduating, I stayed in New York. I worked in the advertising industry for 13 years, moving up the corporate ladder from graphic designer to art director, and so on. I worked for some big and small ad agencies.

My last job was at a non-profit organisation, where I did creative direction. I really loved it. During that time, I was having some health issues, and the non-profit I was working at had to do with disability, and it all sort of came together for me. I thought I must pursue that field, and that’s what led me to London. I discovered a really incredible Master of Science programme at UCL. It’s called Disability, Design and Innovation. Nothing like it exists anywhere else in the world.

Did your vision change over time or impact the work you were doing?

Aksana: It was fine for 10 years. You can do pretty much anything you want with one eye, if it’s a good eye. I never associated myself as disabled just because I had a prosthetic eye. As a matter of fact, many people didn’t know. My prosthetic was beautifully made by a wonderful woman, Susan. She’s also an artist, a painter, and we connected on that level. For somebody to know that I had a prosthetic eye, I had to tell them.

When I started losing sight in my right eye, it became difficult. I began to understand that I am part of the disabled community. In 2017, severe retinal detachment started happening to my right eye, but now we knew the history. My eye doctor knew exactly what to do, so we were able to save some of my vision, but not all of it. It was a long medical process, so I had four years to figure it all out. What did it mean for me as a visual person? I have a career in a really visual world. I was an art director at an ad agency. And nobody even knew I had a prosthetic eye; it’s not something you share in corporate America. So that was quite intense, but in a way, I think I’m really lucky that it happened to me at a point in my career when I wasn’t searching for who I am and what I can and cannot do. Eventually, I arrived at a point where I’m no longer “making” work; I’ve moved into a creative direction role, helping others create. So I’m more focused on giving feedback than on designing myself. That process was easier on my eyes.

I’m curious to hear more about the course, Disability, Design and Innovation. How do those three aspects unfold?

Aksana: It’s an interdisciplinary computer science programme that invites candidates from diverse backgrounds. Throughout my projects, my focus was always more on design and how to solve problems through creative thinking. If a project were about creating technology for the disabled community, for me, the aesthetics would always be really important, because I think that assistive tech too often leans towards the medical model of disability. However, during my dissertation, my main focus ended up being something entirely different. When I’m really curious about something, I trust my intuition and follow it. And that always leads me to different places. When I was struggling with my vision loss, I started thinking, what does it mean for me if I go completely blind? What am I afraid of? And I think what I was most afraid of was losing my ability to move around freely. I travel quite a bit, I’m independent, and I like exploring.

And so I decided that it’s really important for me to think about urban development and how disabled people can shape the spaces and communities they live in. For me, true accessibility isn’t just about ramps and physical infrastructure; it’s about belonging. I want society to accept disability as part of human experience, not as a problem to be solved. So, whether a person with a disability physically or metaphorically falls, I want the community to be willing to support them. That kind of interdependence feels more important to me than any technological fix.

What was your dissertation on?

My dissertation was about participatory, speculative design and creating methodologies for envisioning futures with the disabled creative community. I conducted a study on post-Olympic urban development in East London. This whole area was regenerated for the 2012 Olympics and specifically the Paralympics. Now, we’re 13 years post-event. So I found myself asking, what’s in it for the disabled creative community? Historically, this area of London, Hackney Wick and Fish Island, has been an incredibly creative area. Then the Paralympics happened, and a narrative around disability emerged. So, to investigate the outcomes for the disabled creative community, I ran a survey and facilitated a participatory, speculative co-design session with disabled creative individuals to imagine the creative future of East London.

Your own creative practice is so varied. It gives a flailing art lover and hobbyist like me motivation. Can you tell me more about your current practices?

Aksana: Creative expression has always been a big part of my life. I was a trained dancer as a child, but when I moved to the US, I couldn’t continue training because it is very expensive. So I picked up art. For the past 10 years, I have been painting, but when I moved to London, I didn’t have access to a studio. So my body kept asking for another avenue. One evening, I went online, searched for Butoh classes, and discovered London Butoh Company. I am now part of the dance troupe. I love this group of people. They are an incredibly creative, talented and caring bunch from different parts of the world. Together, we explore themes of what it means to be in a human body, and what it means to discard it, abandon it, leave it behind. Themes of technology, artificial intelligence, and its effects on humanity. Themes of post-humanism. Themes of darkness and light, attachment and suffering. Themes of the unseen forces. The list can go on.

To be honest, I don’t exactly remember the moment I discovered Butoh. For about a decade now, I have spent countless hours watching Butoh videos online. I’m fascinated by it. Butoh, also known as “dance of darkness”, is an avant-garde dance form created in post-war Japan by Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno, in direct response to the trauma and despair. It was a difficult time for Japan, and contemporary performers needed a new creative language to depict what was happening. Butoh offers a space to explore alternative aesthetics, unconventional ways of moving, and bodily weakness, with a focus on internal sensations. It has its roots in disability and is a uniquely accessible form of movement that can be really healing.

My body movement often comes from my desire to close my eyes and give in to the complete absence of sight. Butoh allows me to leave “me” behind and be something else, be in touch with my inner “it” and let it explore and engage with the outside world.

Your golden eye is so beautiful, by the way. What led you to wear it as your primary prosthetic?

Aksana: I had an art show in London two years ago, and it was the first time I wore my gold prosthetic. At first, I thought it could be my fun party eye. So, of course, I had to wear it for my art show. During the show, this man came up to me to talk. He’s also partially blind; he doesn’t have a prosthetic, but one of his eyes is visibly different. And he told me that when he walked into the room and saw me, proud with my gold eye, it made him so happy, but also made him sad for himself. He’s a 60-year-old man, and he’s never been able to accept how he looks because he doesn’t look like everyone else. So I think it’s important for me to be visible, because I have the responsibility to share that people like me exist. We just don’t always know; some people’s prosthetics are not immediately visible, but mine is. It invites a conversation: What does it mean when people look different?

It’s been so nice getting to know you and your incredible story, Aksana. I can’t wait to see what you do next. Where can people follow and support your work?

Aksana: You can find me on Instagram, my commercial work here aksana.work, and my artwork here AksanaBerdnikova.com.

You can find Aksana and me next week at Libros Mutantes, April 24th-26th in Madrid. We’re running a workshop about accessibility in publishing. You can sign up here (please note that the webpage is in Spanish). We also plan to host the workshop virtually in the near future for those unable to attend in person, so stay tuned for that.

We’ll also be exploring ways to make Able Zine's future more visually accessible.

Until next time,

Claudia

BUY A PRINT COPY!

We still have copies of our recently reprinted Issue 2 available. You can buy a copy here. And we’ll also be uploading some other printed merch very soon. Here’s a sneak preview!

Over three days, we attended a programme of workshops, talks, and performances that illuminated disability art history and traced the impact and legacy of the disability arts movement. It spotlighted artists who contextualised disability justice as a guiding framework for collective survival and potential within and beyond the arts.

The Thursday evening kicked off with a private view of the Misfits: Disability as Method Through Objects exhibition currently on display in the Paul Mellon Centre until April 9th. The exhibition’s concept derives from Rosemarie Garland-Thomson’s academic paper, which develops the concept of “misfits” as a feminist materialist disability concept. It emerges through the interaction between human bodies and material environments that our indifferent to our individual needs.

Curated by art historian Virginia Marano, the display spans disability activism and art from the early nineteenth century to today. Marano detailed the artists’ biographies, starting with Sarah Biffin. Born in 1784 without arms or legs due to the condition Phocomelia, Biffin was, like many visibly disabled people at the time, exhibited as a “curiosity” at circuses and fairs. Later, she became an artist and businesswoman, renowned for her miniature portraits, even receiving commissions from the British Royal Family. Biffin befriended Martha Ann Honeywell, another featured artist. Honeywell, also born with a limb difference, worked in New York in the 1830s creating silhouettes and embroidery using only her mouth and her toes, often in public performances. Their biographies prompted reflection on independence and interdependence in the 1800s, identifying them as disabled artists and feminists before either movement existed.

​Marano then discussed the two films in the exhibition, which focus on visual artist Lorenza Böttner and blind photographer Kurt Weston. Böttner’s film explored how her work challenged the lack of agency for disabled and transgender bodies. It was released a few years before her death in 1994. The short film on Weston follows his experience with vision loss. It highlights his effort through a physically demanding photographic process.​

Also featured is Black British artist Donald Rodney, whose pieces are unique, in that they are not regularly exhibited pieces, but rather Christmas cards made for friends using x-ray paper, and a fragile bird considered to be a trial part of a never-finished piece - a wheelchair covered in x-ray paper birds. These demonstrate how medical ephemera can become an intrinsic part of an artist’s toolkit, present in everyday experiments as well as longer-form projects.​

Artist Tony Heaton also spoke during the night. He has many pieces on display, including copies of Disability Arts in London (DAIL) Magazine from the 1990s, which featured his Springback piece. Another piece is one of the 1760 charity cans used in his Shaken not Stirred protest performance. Heaton described his limited negotiating skills when he tried to rent the cans for free, but the Arts Council ultimately foot the bill at £5 per can.

Heaton questioned the interplay between access and labelling disabled people as misfits. He said misfits to him is a “contentious term” that feels person-centred and linked to the medical model of disability. “We’re forced into being misfits due to the way society is constructed, and it still happens today with the failure of legislation.” Referring to disabled artists who have left us, such as Donald Rodney, and to Ben Cove, whose painting, ‘Freeloader’, was selected for the John Moores Painting Prize 2016, shortly after he passed away during the selection process. Heaton asked the room, rather sarcastically, “Is death the only reasonable adjustment?”, calling out the ways in which disabled artists (and the unknowing public) lose archives of artists material around the world every day due to neglect, lack of access and inequities. Why are the artists who are elevated to a fine art status often done so posthumously?

Day One of Disabled Legacies: Beyond Access and Inclusion started with Tony Heaton’s personal history of the UK Disability Arts Movement, chaired by Ashokkumar Mistry. Heaton set the tone for a day honouring those who paved the way for the opportunities we have today. He highlighted the legacies of arts organisations such as Graeae Theatre Company, Shape Arts, and Disability Arts Online. He gave a special mention for the former CEO, Colin Hambrook, who was also an editor at Disability Arts in London. It heralded a time less encumbered by red tape and endless grant application forms, and more encumbered by the real impact of the medical and charity models of disability.

​I was pleased to be able to attend all the talks online via Zoom because my chronic fatigue was flaring and I couldn’t get out of bed. The digitisation of the programme was full of glitches, reduced audio and reverb, mirroring the tone of the talks and the embodiment of disability. In the Zoom comments, I saw the names of artists and friends I recognised, who were also able to share in the learnings and enjoy the curation from the comfort of home, which warmed my heart despite its palpitations.

The next talk I attended was Infinite Crip Times Exist (∃ (∞tCRIP)) ⇌ All Ableist Spaces Shapeshift (a2 + s2) by Saleem Hue Penny. Penny’s talk was an offering. His delivery was empathetic, generous, and deeply considered as he navigated through topics like the transatlantic slave trade, erasure of Black disability history, and police brutality. He addressed the many ableist spaces and systems we face, past and present. He quoted Leroy Moore from Krip Hop, who expanded “nothing about us without us” to “nothing without those who came before us”. Penny’s work honours ancestors and documents his process as a collective space for recognition and grieving. His poetry and sound scanning transcends us through physical space to a world of thought and sensation.

​Next, we were joined by artist, activist and scholar, Dr Syrus Marcus Ware, whose presence instantly brightens any room, even when joining remotely. His talk on Black Trans Mad Worldbuilding and creative praxis showcased projects such as Activist Wallpaper, a series featuring Black and Trans political heroes, as well as performances such as Black Bunker. Black Bunker is a fictional bunker construct in a near-apocalyptic future where its residents keep a compendium of Black life, history, and cultural ephemera. Ware described his current focus on world-building through speculative fiction, as well as re-crafting narratives that derail dominant culture and give agency to those who are or have been marginalised. His radical Black queer imaginings of the future underpin the belief that “if we can save the most marginalised, we can save everyone”.

​The day culminated in a stunning reading and discussion with poets Cat Chong and Naomi Ortiz. Their featured poems from 712 stanza homes for the sun and Rituals for Climate Change: a Crip Struggle for Ecojustice blended artistic flair with examinations of ongoing harms to society and the environment. Ortiz described her desire to redefine nature through well-inhabited environments, where nature may be masked rather than absent, and highlighted the tension between the necessity of single-use plastics for medical purposes and climate care responsibilities from a crip perspective. The duo emphasised that climate disaster and ableism are interconnected, with Ortiz stating: “ableism is a fear of vulnerability. If one is afraid of being vulnerable, how does one adapt?”

​Day Two began with the presentation ‘Beauty and the Blind’ by David Johnson. Like many of the previous day’s talks, it elaborated on the process behind the art, and, in Johnson’s case, on the nature of his blindness as a generative force in art-making. Referencing the work of John Berger, author of the highly footnoted ‘Ways of Seeing’, Johnson reinforced how “The relationship between what we see and what we know never settles”. His artmaking is an extension of the idea that “vision is as much in the mind as it is in the body”.

Next came a series of film screenings and Q&As with Theo Jean Cuthand, who joined virtually, and Jameisha Prescod. Cuthand’s cinematic works contain powerful depictions of transness and madness. Coined as creator of the term “Indigiqueer”, his work traverses through a myriad of intersecting identities. Anhedonia (2001) really stuck out for its relatability to the impacts of illness and depression on an individual, while aesthetically, it captures the nostalgic essence of the early 2000s. On Black Pain by Jameisha Prescod explores three intimate stories from Black people living with chronic pain, reflecting on the impact medical colonialism and misogynoir has had on Black people’s right to be seen and believed. During the Q&A, Prescod reflected that “I wouldn’t be an artist if I weren’t disabled”, and the room ruminated on how disability impacts a person’s likelihood of becoming an artist. In Prescod’s case, it was not only because disability interrupted her capacity to work as a cinematographer in highly demanding environments, but also because themes emerged that she felt the need to explore and document on her own terms.

Talks from Khairani Barokka and Pelenakeke Brown came next, with Kenny Fries concluding the day. Barokka and Brown’s talks connected through themes of crip ancestry, mother tongue linguistics, language and delving into the in-between, where nuance, context and possibilities can be extracted. Kenny Fries - memoirist, poet, icon and legend - shared an excerpt from his book The History of My Shoes and the Evolution of Darwin’s Theory. During the Q&A, Fries regaled us with details of his full life, including being the first person to write about being gay, disabled and Jewish. Kenny also wrote ‘Beyond access and inclusion’ in the series pamphlet, which states: “I urge us not to use the word 'inclusion’. Inclusion connotes there are people who hold the power to include… The very idea of ‘inclusion’ seems to exclude.”

​I left the series of events feeling satiated by the depth and breadth of the speakers and the wisdom shared. It felt like no stone was left unturned regarding representation and the topics covered (or as much as could be across two short days). Collectively, we took up space, expressing autonomy over our histories. From researchers to poets, it was a demonstration of disabled excellence. Talks such as Syrus Marcus Ware’s left us with a sense of hope that, despite our differences, if we listen to those who have already endured, been treated as disposable, as other, then we can find a way forward together.

​To be different, outcast, misfit-ised or denied is, in many cases, the birthright of disability. But that doesn’t mean we need to claim it. It doesn’t mean we cannot form new realities or protest and pull apart the very systems and society that created the mould to begin with. Through the sharing of process and practice, we continue to shape the world in our image.

For those interested in seeing the talks and performances first hand, The Paul Mellon Centre will be uploading them to this link here in due course. I highly recommend it.

Private view written by Ben Lee, Days One & Two, written by Claudia Rose Walder

Cielo Saucedo is a disabled, interdisciplinary artist and access worker from a family of migrant farm workers, based in Los Angeles, California. Their work focuses on the dispersal of ableism through cultural economies. Their multidisciplinary approach encompasses writing, computer-generated imagery, sculpture and machine vision. They received their BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2020 and their MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 2024. They were also an Eyebeam Democracy Fellow in 2024.

Claudia: ¡Hola, Cielo! Thanks for agreeing to talk with Able Zine about your work. Some pieces I’ve seen have really resonated with me as a disabled person and as someone of Mexican diaspora with many ties to the US. Let’s start the interview.

Can you share how your heritage and upbringing in the US have shaped your artistic development and your decision to become an artist?

Cielo: To me, Los Angeles is the centre of the world. Living here, being gay here, leaving and always coming back. LA is so much about movement, maybe it’s because of the freeways and cars. When speaking about being from LA, it’s about arrival. How did you get here? When?

I arrived at art because I became ill. Disability is often framed in arrival, too. How did it happen? When? There are markers, but there is also the act of disclosure. It’s a moment shared among other sick or disabled folks that is this contact point. Or something unsaid, obvious, and none of our business. How close are we together? How far apart are our experiences? There is disclosure to health care providers and social services that are more harsh.

I was in and out of the hospital in my 20’s and decided to change something because I wanted to mark my life, and I just liked art. I really think narrative-free desire is important. It felt like it was slipping away within the walls of the psych wards, mostly. I was really caught up. Art felt like a marker of thought. It allowed me the opportunity to leave LA to pursue an art education in Chicago, and it brought me back to LA because I was ill again and wanted to be close to family. Again and again, markers of arrival.

What do you consider to be your purpose as an artist?

Cielo: I think my purpose as an artist is to be near people. My people are disabled, workers, musicians, stylists, artists, and caregivers. That dynamic oscillates between satisfaction and hard feelings. Questions around authorship and labor come up all the time. And we laugh and are critical of choices. There is this kind of rebounding mirror, like extreme recognition, embarrassment and growth. Like you’re coming to terms with how ideas land in a faster way.

I have political purpose that is abolitionism. In light of terror, that purpose sharpened. I have an aesthetic purpose to be in conversation with the work that is meaningful to me. I love being in study. To be in constant study is an act of closeness. But like I said, it’s a means to work with the people I love.

Within my last two presentations, this idea came up as anti-surveillance. Sense 001: Data Haunt (2024) was made in collaboration with researchers/artists D.A Gonzalez and Christal Perez, with the score composed by Jazmin Romero. Rotten Sun felt like cracking as many jokes as possible during rehearsal to keep each other laughing and keep the chorus going as one voice. In all those works, I hoped that if I brought together as many people as felt sustainable, I could de-centre myself and the fantasy of a singular artist alone in their studio. It’s like the idea of a mob or a riot, that’s where fear and power lie. In the unmarkability of the collective. I want to make work like that. The art market is dependent on the circulation of a single person as much as the state is reliant on the identification of single citizens as a mode of management.

Sense 001: Data Haunt (2024) Video Description: Autonomous machines surveilling the southern borderlands are characters in Sense 001 where the player hacks into border patrol software accessible by a VR headset. This game mimics the genre of horror games and uses the mechanics of accumulation in the form of clues and documents to reveal the gore of ultra violent necropower present at the US Mexico border.

Your work appears to be divided between two forms of time and physicality: the digital corporeal and nature. What draws you to these extremes? And how do you navigate them in your practice?

Cielo: I think about it in terms of virtuality. To be virtual is a simultaneity, multiple states acting all at once, becoming amplified. The digital body in my work is as actual as my blood body turned around and around by augmentation. The extremity comes from the realization that the digital and the natural are dependent on one another, and the border that separates them is in service of their own construction. They generate each other. And I generate myself through that too. I think about the audience a lot, too. How the work is networked through them, extended through the other.

That’s where the logic of disability comes in a little bit. In my work, Captioning System (2024), real-time photographs of the gallery (and the artworks and people in it) are fed into an ML model I built with developers, and the resulting image descriptions scroll on an LED screen outside of the gallery.

I was trying to disturb the supremacy of sight and physical experience because I spent a lot of time online, not being able to be in places.

Susan Sontag said something like photography not having much to do with seeing, Harun Faroki too. The work is made in that chorus. The relationship between the machine, the audience and me makes the image. Image IDs are such beautiful poetry (shout out to Alt Text as poetry!!!!) developed by disabled people. This study into images and automation has fallen into a larger project about border technology that uses similar softwares for surveillance.

Can you tell us about the Cripping_CG project, a collaboration between you and artists Nat Decker and Olivia Driesinger?

Cripping_CG comes out of our relationship to our disabled bodies and the interfaces (both soft/hardware) that translate them into the digital. We all met online. Nat and I both had been working in 3D animation and found that the infrastructural barriers within the softwares that we used to make our work interfered with our ability to show our bodies as we felt them. Olivia had been using biased character generators to create narratives about disability. Our project is an archive of motion capture made with people in our communities and a resource for other artists to use the data we collect in their own projects. We embrace the inability for software to capture the intricacies of disabled movement.

It’s been a joy and it operates in a very crip way. We pick it up and put it down, we write and worry together on the phone. It’s a wonderful thing to work on over a long period of time. Olivia is a mother, and her daughter is almost as old as the project! The realities of responsibility, love, and children change the way we approach this work. Our capacity is flux, the softwares are flux, the people we work with are flux, the representative data flux. The project is built on that at its core.

Can you talk about the application of technology in your practice and how this intersects with your identity as a disabled person?

I think about it in terms of labor and as a narrative device. It shaped the content of my work. My family’s migratory history, their lives as migrant farm workers are the context in which I make my work and that has so much to do with the US. All of that comes into contact with my own labor as a disabled person, who, because of my disability is often prevented from being seen as a worker at all. I have made work about welfare systems that I’ve been part of. I want to misuse the systems.

As a disabled person, augmentation is unavoidable. Assistive technologies are scalar and shape how we move through the world and I am dependent as a rule. The first cyborg was disabled but of course they say it’s a man called Steve Mann who is cool but naming him that is missing the point. The central body of tech is an imagination. It’s a worker that needs to be optimized for maximum output or a criminal that needs to be documented and apprehended. Disabled folk are leveraged for university funding for access tools that eventually funnel into weapons. It’s a moving target in need to be captured.

Can you tell us about your artistic and theoretical influences? I see references to Cyborg or Glitch Theory, but please share with us what references and ideas are calling to you right now.

Glitch is especially important in the Cripping_CG work, where we basically say that the glitch is disabled. The cyborg definitely haunts that project. It makes obvious the networked self.

I’ve been feeling called to intensity. I feel really intense. I like the register of Tania Bruguera and Teresa Margolles. They warp control and make work that’s environmental and pulls.

Arilia Azulay and Oraib Toukan, Susan Sontag, Gonzalo Reyes Rodriguez, Harun Faroki and Hito Sterly teach me about images. Dan Graham is a favorite to study, his work is so much about disability and fracture. Constantina Zavisantos too. Mel Y. Chen and Zakiyyah Iman Jackson. Kelly Lytle Hernandez is an incredible historian that I’ve been spending a lot of time with learning about the border and policing. I’m working my way through all her books.

Lately, I’ve been into the idea of getting dressed. I make work that feels like documentary sometimes, so how self refracts and multiplies through images and history. I love clothes as a way to do that. One of my biggest projects is the way I dress myself and make myself that way. And intuition. That’s new for me. I pull a lot of tarot cards in my studio. It doesn’t make its way in the work explicitly, but i’m trying to be less pulled by content and more pulled by symbol butting up against what’s going on. I’m trying to make more emo work.

Your list of exhibitions, degrees and fellowships is impressive! How do you navigate the bureaucracy of the art world, institutionally, economically and politically?

Thats so nice! I sometimes feel like I spend large stretches of my life just trying to survive and I’m feeling like that is ok. I navigate it by not abandoning myself.

I have ongoing work that acts in the form of an Access Rider (2021-ongoing). An access rider is a document that advocates for accessible working conditions. Joanna Hedva’s blog post about her own document was instrumental to this work. She goes into detail about what she needs, down to the time flights should be booked to coincide with medication schedules.

I have everyone who comes to my studio for a visit sign a document where we both negotiate our needs. We both talk about what we need to be together for that set amount of time and then go from there. maybe it needs to be online while I’m in bed and not at my actual studio? I’ve had people ask me for honesty. It functions too as a log of who has come by, a long memory of conversations. The document has had its own life cycle, first taking into account the university accessibility protocols of the institutions it was first introduced in, then as recognition of studio visits as sites of unpaid labor. The current document is a recognition of mutual need. Need to me is more important than care, or maybe it comes first before we can approach care.

Can you talk to us about your recent ensemble performance, ‘Rotten Sun’?

I invited three performers, Jester, Jazzy and Jesus, to work with me to process the ICE raids that summer and the imaging architecture that was popping up around downtown LA. It was a tough summer in terms of regular military deployment in the US as anti-immigration action. It’s continuing still with the escalation in cities like Minneapolis. Like the work Captioning System I mentioned before, systems of capture are the norm. We approached this in terms of self imagining. The images circulating post-ICE raids are utilized both as evidence of the criminality of the State but also as a warning of the real bodily harm that happens after witnessing subjugation. To witness now assumes culpability. Oraib Toukan speaks about it in terms of Cruel images. In the recordings and circulation of ICE facilitated kidnapping and murder, to witness is to understand that you too are a target. So we met to kind of perform cycles of self imaging. This performance is really different from how I usually work, it was like a desire path.

We walked around the fashion district together. That was a big part of rehearsals. It was slowly repopulating after becoming a ghost town after the raids. I love it there, the AI slop printed on pro clubs. I love the way the vendors style themselves and how fugitive the economy is. We collected pieces of our costumes and talked about our lovers. The look of the place was really evident in the performance, all dusty light and a billboard size projection scene. As was the cadence of our movement which was probably synced from all our walking and talking.

I turned the architecture of Coaxial into a huge imaging device, kind of like the Wooster group with images of the performers rebounding and warping through multiple cameras placed on the ceiling and on c stands. The performance wasn’t recorded. The cameras used a ML algorithm to blur the performers faces. It was staged at an experimental sound venue and the installation was the closest I get to playing music. The stage had 300 pounds of powdered masa, a floating signifier for post-NAFTA afterlives. The smell was volumetric.

I love your sculptural works, especially Sword of Damocles NOTHING POWER (2025) and Sublux (2023) can you telling me more about these pieces and the processes behind them?

Thank you! They are prints of myself, scanned and processed through a machine I built. Both of those works come from a series titled Masticado (2021-2024). The two works you mentioned were the most body of the suite. For the work I hacked 3D printers to use a mixture of masa, self tanner and lamictal (a mood and seizure medication I’ve been on and off of for many years) as printing medium to make fucked up prints. I’ve been using Maseca brand powdered masa in my work for a few years. It’s this warped material, indigenous and wholly commercial.

I am not interested in 3D printing because of the capacity for fidelity, a slick surface is not that sexy to me. The title Sublux is in reference to the slight dislocations I experience with my illness, Hypermobile EDS. It’s dissettlement, feeling out joint. The material performs the virtual form. It rots and clogs the machine. Brian Massumi talks about the blood body as an interrupter of systems. I was thinking about Jaspir Puar’s book The Right to Maim and her definition of debility a lot when making this. Impairment or the manufacturing of disability as something that is doled out by the state.

The knives in Sword of Damocles were bought in lots from TSA. They were taken from travelers in airports in a gesture of disarmament. Now they are mine.

In your practice, you reveal “systemic impairments”, hostilities, and biases. I’m curious to know, as someone who is invested in crip-worldbuilding, how you envision the future?

I envision the future as multiple. I do think about violence a lot and its plainness. I can be literal. I’ve always been. Networking myself through others and the expansion of self in that regard is my vision of crip world building. DEPENDENCY!

The event was listed as celebrating “disabled ingenuity, resilience and ways of life”, inherent qualities disabled people exhibit every day. The curation drew inspiration from the current ‘Design and Disability’ exhibition on display until February 15th 2026, which highlights the radical contributions of disabled people to design from the 1920’s onwards, as well as the ways we subvert expectations, norms, and design codes to represent our culture and community, advocate for our rights and improve access.

The museum’s Grand Entrance hosted Deaf Rave, which exemplifies this approach to community building by platforming Deaf, hearing and disabled artists. Founder Troi Lee recently wrote in The Guardian about his own clubbing experiences leading to the creation of Deaf Rave, which now hosts an annual festival. It also focuses on expanding access, as haptic vests allow users to feel sound as vibrations running through the body. And with his DJ set booming down the corridors away from the atrium, the Friday Late was the time for other disabled creativity to shine in a live setting.

Considering access was a concept that came up across the 10 activities, it was ironic that it was impossible to see everything in one evening, but this reflects the proliferation of disabled creativity permeating into the cultural mainstream. The range of activities also captured the importance of creativity, not as a performance but as a practice for anyone.

This participatory aspect extended to the workshops run by artist Andrew Omoding, where you could create drums, costumes and assemblages for a joyful parade, and the ‘Puffing and Wooling’ drop-in ran by Tilley & Del as a relaxing space to do arts, crafts, poetry and den building.

One of the important activities of the evening was the ‘Disabled in Practice, Not Theory’ panel discussion, which contextualised the working reality of disabled artists, centring around barriers to access and employment. As much as the breadth of disabled excellence was on show, there is still so much to be done for disabled equity in the arts and culture. The panel was chaired by Able Zine’s founder Claudia, and featured deaf visual artist Sabrina Tirvengadum, multi-disciplinary artist Christopher Samuel and artist-writer-educator Zuleika Lebow.

Tirvengadum’s work investigates untold histories through the lens of identity, memory, and family, and she runs the collective We’re All Human, which advocates for digital accessibility. She also uses AI in her work and does workshops on the process and its ethics. Exploring the concept of how identity is marketed through the arts, Tirvengadum expressed how she can “tick a lot of boxes” in certain spaces that are eager to reflect diversity, but also how, as a disabled artist, there is “that pressure to create a piece of work that’s about your trauma”.

It raises the question of whether disabled creativity is commodified and whether enough is being done to make it a sustainable creative endeavour. Claudia responded to how it feels, “there’s a relationship between fetishising your work and your identity in public”.

Artist Christopher Samuel added, “Maybe I am a fetish to some, but that’s okay with me. What’s important to me is the institution I’m working with: are they learning what’s wrong? And what are the red flags that I see within the organisation? And I’ll pull you up [on that]. They seem to be receptive at the moment.”

On the night, the receptiveness to new ideas felt strongest with Xan Dye and Gerald Curtis’ ‘Practising in Parallel’ performance. The pair use sticks of graphite to draw and create sound across a 10m length of white paper taped to the floor. Using stimming as a neurodivergent expression in their performance, they allow their own improvisation within repetitive movements to demonstrate what feels free and comfortable to themselves. Audience members could join in with paper available around the room.

The pair interplayed with celloist Zoe Gilmour, who switches between long foreboding notes, finger-picking delicacy and bouncing the bow. This emphasised the echo of the harsh, eerie, reverbed sounds picked up by the contact mic on the white paper Dye and Curtis moved across, clipping the mosaic tiles beneath that fill the enormous Raphael Cartoons room. It felt appropriate that the performance took place here, considering the word “cartoon” comes from the Italian cartone, meaning “big paper”.

Another performance also featured a creative experimentation with sound’s relationship to disability. Non-visual social practice artist Carmen Papalia performed ‘Loud Cane 1.0’ which translates the objects that his cane interacts with into an eclectic range of sounds. He has since developed a second version during a Tokyo residency, but ‘1.0’ has a contact mic in the cane’s “feeler” and whatever it touches is fed into either headphones, a speaker, or a modulation unit in the cane made from Fender electric guitar effects pedals.

Another concept that came up a lot was crip time, and the Crip Cinema Archive screening, run by curator Emily Simmons, featured two of its three shorts centred on it. Sara Wylie’s ‘Resistance Meditation’ offered a more experimental approach to the concept, shot in Super 8mm, pushing it toward a home-movie style. It traverses a dream-like setting, helped by landscape shots and a guiding voiceover. The blunt message that sickness is the “result of capitalism” is effectively captured with the person lying under the bed covers resting, just as they drift off and “time travel” into crip time as the clocks bend to disabled bodies and minds.

Carolyn Lazard’s ‘Crip Time’ is done in a deliberately uneventful single shot. It sees only Lazard’s hands methodically slip a kaleidoscopic range of pills into her weekly dosette boxes separated into morning, noon, evening and bedtime. The slow pace is only pushed along by the irregular metronome of a pill rattling inside one of the boxes as it captures the chronic illness experience. The third screening was Jameisha Prescod’s ‘On Black Pain’ that discusses chronic pain through the stories of three Black people.

During the panel talk, Lebow jokingly asked if Beyoncé ever had to factor in time to take medication. But crip time is an area she discusses with the students she teaches on Central Saint Martins’ MA Applied Imagination course. Lebow explained how the course is about “applied idealism and how to gather the tools to create change in the world”, and it is taught using the “nothing about us without us” principle.

Elsewhere in the panel talk, Samuel’s convictions on access were refreshing. Introducing himself as a “bit of a troublemaker”, his experience of becoming homeless led him to make art about “shit that pisses me off” and find allies who wanted to show his work. His ‘Welcome Inn’ installation of a hotel room designed to be inaccessible for non-disabled people highlights this.

“I deliberately seek opportunities not geared towards disabled practitioners, and I want to go into places I’m not welcome,” he said. Whilst he’s had success and is an “idealist”, he believes there’s still “a lot more work to do”. Claudia also pointed out that this can bring on additional responsibilities to “educate everyone you work with,” adding an emotional disability tax on any work you are paid, or not paid to do.

But it raises one of the salient points of Samuel’s approach, which follows the “nothing about us without us” principle. Co-design and inclusivity are essential for disabled creatives to prosper in the arts and continue producing work to be seen in revered institutions like the V&A.

The ‘Conversations with Visions’ performance perfectly captured how this can embrace new technologies too. It featured live dance and recorded motion capture as the dancers – Anhelo Collective’s Annie Edwards and Deaf dancer Anna Seymour who runs her own Deaf club event ‘SPIN’ – wore accessible motion capture technology, something that can often exclude disabled creatives.

The performance comes from a project involving the University of the West of England, motion-sensor company x-io Technologies, dance company Candoco, and musician Kris Halpin, to produce the wearable system called EqualMotion. The product allows for personalisation, inclusive visual language and integrates mobility aids. A paper that includes co-contributor Clarice Hilton – a creative technologist who was part of the V&A performance – provides more detail on the success of this specific disability-centred co-design approach.

This is a great snapshot of what made the Friday Late a success: there was true representation across so many disciplines, showing how inclusivity within artistic practices can strengthen the disabled community and inform non-disabled audiences. It’s why institutions like the V&A should continue platforming disabled creativity, access, and enterprise as a permanent fixture across all arts and cultural programming.

Written by Ben Lee

She will be joined by three artist creatives Christopher Samuel, Zuleika Lebow and Sabrina Tirvengadum, whose work reshapes narratives around disability, accessibility and belonging.

If you’re in London, or would like to tune in virtually, the details and links are below.
The panel will explore how accessibility and opportunity impact our futures as disabled artists and creatives. We’ll discuss systemic barriers to entry and institutional bias, alongside how we can leverage crip wisdom, kinship and imagination to create change and express diverse identities in a world that often demands homogenisation.

Event Details:

- Date: Friday, 28 November 2025

- Time: 18:30 – 22:00 (Panel Discussion begins at 19:45, duration 45 minutes)

- Location: Hochhauser Auditorium, Level 1, Learning Centre, V&A South Kensington, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 2RL (Digital map of the V&A)

- Cost: FREE (First come, first served)

- Live Stream link: vam-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/96329547309

-This event will be BSL interpreted.

Accessibility Information:

- Across the site, BSL assistance, ear defenders, a quiet space, and dedicated access guides will be available.

- The auditorium is wheelchair accessible and has two lifts to the entrance. There will be access stewards in attendance. There are steps to seating in the auditorium so please message us directly or email us if you would like to reserve specific seating (e.g., no stairs, on an aisle seat).

- We kindly request that attendees wear a medical mask if they are able to (complimentary masks are available outside the auditorium). This is to protect our speakers and guests.

There will be a lot of other cool art and activities in the programme with the likes of artists and collectives including, Andrew Omoding, Crip Cinema Archive and Deaf Rave, More information on the Radical Kinship curation and event accessibility click here.

We hope to see you there!

It is with much regret that we share with you all the passing of Deniz Eskisan, who was a loving member of the Able Zine family.

Deniz was a vibrant, bubbly, uplifting and gentle person who shared his experiences of disability and mental health to be a beacon for others in dark times. Many people connected to Deniz through his content. He often filmed himself talking and sharing a meal with his followers who he called “his beautiful butterflies”. His videos offered a moment of mindfulness, support and connection, for those struggling, and a reprieve from the fast pace of social media.

Deniz modelled for us in Issue 2 and was constantly encouraging and championing the magazine behind the scenes. In one of our last conversations, he shared his wish to be on the cover of a future issue. Deniz was deeply passionate about fashion and style. However, his aspirations to be seen and included within the fashion and modelling industry were met with resistance, due to the ableism, the lack of opportunity and the lack of inclusive vision we know pervades the industry and the gatekeepers that guard it.

Despite these challenges, Deniz graduated with a Bsc in psychology and MSc in Applied Psychology in Fashion. He was an artist, a creative and he leaves behind him a legacy of courage, strength and kindness.

As the founder and editor of Able Zine, I have often been distracted from the importance of this project, by the challenges of making it. In a world that normalises disposability, I lost sight of the significance of the legacy we were creating; a way to record and recognise the contributions of those marginalised by inequality and inaccessibility. A place to elevate ourselves and our community, physically creating space that no one else will give us.

Someone kindly reminded me that Able Zine is a disability archive. Whether I stop working on it or can only manage to do things sporadically, that fact will always remain. I want Deniz’s image to live on, and I know it can because the work we have created is timeless and always relevant.

So, I am planning a special reprint of Issue 2 with new cover art of Deniz, in collaboration with one of the best artists I know, Jen White-Johnson. All proceeds from the sales of Issue 2 will go toward Deniz’s fundraiser for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.

I want to see Deniz and this issue in museums, university libraries, coffee tables and book shops around the world. His life deserves to be remembered as a disabled ancestor and oracle, and not forgotten.

But I need your help!

If you’ve been a supporter in the past, doing one or both of these two things will give us a chance to make this a reality, and give Able Zine a future.

We are hosting a online fundraiser for the issue reprint, because self-publishing costs are super high since we last printed and we’ve never operated for profit. Donations will help to get us printed faster, give us more flexibility to print larger quantities, and support the work we do and have previously done throughout the years

Pre-orders for the issue are also live on the Able Zine website! So if you are one of the people that’s asked about restocks in the past or has never purchased a copy, please put in an order ASAP so we can afford to do the print run.

If you’re a brand or business that would like to discuss press or partnerships, please also reach out. I’d love to hear from you.

I’d lastly just like to say thank you so much to the people who keep Able Zine alive in their words of encouragement, likes, reposts and shares. It’s a scary thing to ask for support and action. I know that as a community, we have so many vital and urgent causes that need our attention and mutual aid. So any support is hugely appreciated.

Thank you <3

Claudia Rose [EIC]

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Disability related events (my favourite kind) are so often few and far between, which is why it was refreshing and exciting to have had a week of noteworthy events happening for the disability community here in London. So without further ado, here's a recap and review of two events I was fortunate enough to attend.

Also, if the accessibility of this email can be improved, please feel free to leave a comment or message me directly. Substack is a new format for us.

Thanks!

Claudia

(Founder and E-I-C of Able Zine)

Hair & Care presents ‘Beyond Vision’

I was invited to the premiere of the beautiful short film Beyond Vision by Hackney-based Hair & Care (H&C). H&C is a non-profit organisation that supports blind and low vision women and girls through accessible hair and beauty education—founded by award-winning hairstylist Anna Cofone, who, when she isn’t touring with clients such as Lana Del Rey, operates in-person workshops out of Hackney Depot with members of the blind community and volunteers from across the beauty and creative industries. Cofone's work is motivated by her personal experience growing up with a blind parent. Witnessing the exclusion he faced by the beauty industry, and the unmistakable confidence that pride in his appearance gave him, Cofone now works alongside others to challenge the ongoing failure of mainstream beauty culture to represent disability and make their products accessible.

Beyond Vision showcases H&C’s work and the growing community of people who attend their classes. It highlights the impact of their mission, not solely for appearance's sake but for empowerment, connection, and world-building. The film documents a day when attendees had their hair and makeup done for a series of portraits photographed by the highly talented Charlotte Ellis. These portraits could then be used as professional headshots, something that requires means, trust and confidence, and is an asset which sighted people might take for granted. In a world where books are so often judged by their covers, you cannot underestimate the power and reach of a good headshot.

The short film, directed by Hector Hilleary, is shot in black and white and includes audio descriptions throughout. There are poignant and vulnerable reflections shared by the attendees, for example, Grace says, "When I first got registered, I didn't care about my appearance. Because I thought people don't see me. People don't see me. But, being beautiful or feeling confident, and feeling happy within myself, it's just amazing." As a way of sharing with the world what H&C does, the film offers only a snapshot. The organisation have begun an initiative, Making Fashion Accessible, whereby they partner with designers across London and Copenhagen Fashion weeks to offer touch tours of collections, audio descriptions at runway shows, and the chance for blind and low vision people to attend front row and experience the world of high-fashion for themselves. It breaks down barriers not only of accessibility, but also elitism, ableism and exclusion within a notoriously inequitable and shallow industry.

Next came a panel talk featuring speakers including blind presenter, author, and advocate Lucy Edwards, Jane Manley from the Royal National Institute of Blind People, fashion designer Chet Lo and Beauty Director Alex Peters of Dazed Beauty. The conversation highlighted some harsh realities about the state of accessibility within beauty and fashion, offered practical ideas about possible changes, and gave real insight into the lived experience of blindness and low vision. One audience member recounted the number of times they had applied conditioner before their shampoo, because the bottles lacked braille or any other way to differentiate them. Another remarked on how easy it would be to add QR codes to packaging, referencing the assistive technology many blind people use daily. Yet, product design continues to be an afterthought or designed solely for aesthetic purposes. Disability inclusion is an ongoing oversight because disabled people are (almost) never included in the design or marketing process. However, in exciting news, Lucy Edwards is in the process of designing her own makeup collection, Etia, with backing from Estée Lauder and TikTok. Perhaps, instead of a seat at the table, one can always build their own. Please support Lucy, her upcoming brand Etia, and other disabled-owned beauty brands, such as Human Beauty.

Hair & Care is slowly building a digital platform featuring hair and beauty education videos for blind and low vision people worldwide. I look forward to seeing what else they will accomplish more broadly within the fashion and beauty industries. Please consider spreading the good word and supporting their work here.

www.hairandcareproject.com

@hairandcareproject

Beyond Vision is available to view on Youtube, and audio description available on Spotify.

Open Style Lab UK’s Inaugural Design Impact Fellowship Final Exhibition ‘Changing Stigma Through Design’

Open Style Lab (OSL) is a leader in the intersection of disability and design. Established in 2014, OSL is a non-profit organisation dedicated to creating a more accessible future through design education, research and public engagement. They specialise in co-designing alongside the disability community to create wearable product solutions that benefit all.

With a strong foothold in NYC, OSL has since established a branch in London, creating parallel design programs in two of the major design cities. Last week, they held their inaugural Design Impact Fellowship final exhibition and panel talk at the Zaha Hadid Foundation. The fellowship brought together 4 teams, comprised of designers, occupational therapists, engineers and fellows with lived experience of disability to tackle a design problem. Each fellow provides a different element of expertise or insight, enabling dynamic co-creation and team work to unfold.

In 2023, OSL researched and published a white paper which showed that 47% of people with physical disabilities find shoes the most challenging item of clothing to find and wear. Considering the pressing need for inclusive footwear design, the teams rose to the challenge; identifying areas of need and creating life-changing items for an accessible footwear kit.

Over 6 weeks, the teams collaborated from ideation to experimentation, producing ingenious items including: a silicone insole with pull heel tab that can fit in any shoe, attachable shoe straps for prosthetic users, a retractable, adjustable shoe horn, a wheelchair attachment that removes the need for worn shoes but still provides cover, and toe cap patches to prevent scuffed toes for those with gait issues.

Listening to the teams describe their designs and the inspiration behind them led to lightbulb moments in disability awareness. For one fellow, an easy-to-pocket shoe horn would allow them to remove their shoes in public spaces such as shops, airports, gyms and hospitals in a way that feels safe and enables independence. The item, made from wood, is not only functional but also beautiful and sustainable. For another fellow who has Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, wearing shoes can trigger severe pain, as can wind, rain and sun. The solution? A functional and aesthetic attachment on her wheelchair, which doesn’t touch the skin, but instead folds over like a skirt with retractable half loops, the end product looking almost like a shell. It is a pain-reducing and protective design that could have wide benefits for people recovering from burns, post-surgery, and those who operate electric wheelchairs and other tech with their lower limbs.

The impact of the fellowship feels almost poetic. Design is woven into the fabric of society, but good design improves quality of life, whereas bad design hinders it. The team structure ensures that all angles are considered, and by drawing in additional product testers and disabled mentors, the real versatility of lived experience can be learned and embedded into the design process. The skills the fellows will be able to take into future projects and organisations are diverse. Ultimately we’re left to consider the same questions; who is in the room when we design products for the public? When we exclude the 1 in 5 with a disability, we limit the power, longevity and potential of good design.

OSL are looking for partners and manufacturers to bring these designs to the next stage, and make them available to the public. To support them, share or follow their work here.

www.openstylelab.org

@openstylelab

The levels of absurdity in the online magazine The Squeaky Wheel are impressive. Take this article, “Parasquid Games Will Determine Medicaid Eligibility”, for example. It is a fictional story about how the disabled community must take part in the deadly hit TV series Squid Game to earn their Medicaid insurance.

The third paragraph quotes an outrageous comment: “You know – [watching] someone who you can look at and instantly feel like, ‘Wow! I'm glad I'm not that bad!' But even though they are, they still keep living.”

The outcome is the opposite of inspiration porn, and it evokes ableist connotations that disabled people have less value than others. But this is typical content for The Squeaky Wheel, a platform styled like The Onion to satirise the everyday life of disabled people and use humour to challenge ableism and misconceptions about the disabled community.

“I started it about four years ago to talk about disability in a humorous way,” says Steven Verdile, founder and editor-in-chief of The Squeaky Wheel. “I love to make jokes and poke fun at ableism and healthcare and all the wild stuff in society that disabled people have to deal with.”

Ableism dismantled through satire and education

New York-born, raised, and based, Verdile, 27, has spinal muscular atrophy, a genetic condition that weakens the muscles, and is a wheelchair user. Growing up in disability Twitter and Reddit internet communities, he saw disabled people create content which motivated him to start The Squeaky Wheel project in 2021 to build a new community where disabled people could bring humour to their lived experience.

“The majority of the articles are not my own. I've written maybe 70, but I think we have over 300 now,” he says. He attributes a variety of disabled creatives as inspirations for the magazine, particularly comedians like Shannon DeVido, Tina Friml, Josh Blue, and Nic Novicki, who all speak about their health conditions in their comedic material.

“Steve Way is an actor I love and is in a show on Hulu called Ramy,” he adds. “Over the last 10 years, there have been a lot of great comedies that focus on cultural minority groups. Reservation Dogs is such a good example of a very niche demographic that people wouldn't think of having mass appeal. It shows that humour can be very specific but have a broad appeal.”

Verdile channels the disabled “niche” and uses satire to appeal to disabled people by entertaining them through shared experiences and also to the non-disabled so that “the community is more accessible to everyone.” What makes a good piece for the magazine isn’t just humour, though; it comes from teaching the reader something through a hot, new take—preferably on systemic ableism.

“If there's a little bit of education in there, when you talk about healthcare or any of these dense topics, make it fun and teach people about injustice,” Verdile says. He sees this in one of his favourite pieces, “Disabled Monopoly Player Panics as Assets Approach $2000”, which highlights the ludicrousness that disabled people in the US can’t have more than $2000 in their bank account at any time to be able to access Medicaid.

“What's so nice about that is it's so silly,” he says. “It makes no sense logically, but it's educating people about a very real issue. Even if you're someone like me who has a full-time job, private healthcare will never pay for the things that I need [so] I need to be on government healthcare.”

The roster of around thirty disabled writers brings community and diversity to the magazine too, not just in content but also in challenging ableist thoughts of what disability is. “If you ask a stranger to think of a disabled person, they have a sense of someone like me,” Verdile shares. “The symbol for disability is always the wheelchair guy – it doesn’t mean I’m the average disabled person.”

“It's made people so narrow-minded about what disability is. We're bringing in all these different writers [and] when you start incorporating all these different disabilities, different ages and demographics, you start to see that the experiences are similar, and everyone faces ableism.”

Taking The Squeaky Wheel to TV

In addition to running The Squeaky Wheel, Verdile has freelanced as an illustrator and graphic designer and is currently Creative Content Manager for media giants NBCUniversal.

But The Squeaky Wheel’s success has given Verdile a gateway to directly influence and introduce best practices for disabled representation in film and TV. Last year, the magazine was developed into an eight-episode SNL-style series, The Squeaky Wheel Canada, which aired last summer.

His supportive colleagues at NBCUniversal connected him with other media companies to get the show on a network. The obvious choice to partner with was Canadian TV network AMI-tv, as it says it’s the first network to broadcast all content with closed captioning and with audio-description at no additional cost.

Verdile says this level of accessibility was important to honour the magazine’s audience, but it was also reflected in the production process: “A significant portion of the budget for the show was specifically for accessibility and accommodations.

“We knew we wanted to have multiple interpreters on site, we wanted to do things virtual and in person, and we wanted all the sets to be wheelchair accessible. It's the core of the TV network and everything they do for disabled people.”

While greater representation on film and TV of disabled actors has come through in the last decade or so with RJ Mitte’s performance on Breaking Bad, or Peter Dinklage’s lead role on Game of Thrones, Verdile has seen first-hand in his role at NBCUniversal how difficult it is for the industry to embrace diversity and how it’s discussed behind the scenes.

“It's really interesting to see how […] it's so backwards,” says Verdile. “Everything is ten times harder if you're trying to have a minority lead [and] you never see accessibility [for workers] in an initial project. It's always an afterthought.”

He mentions how the casting of Marissa Bode as Nessarose Thropp in the new Wicked film is “a big step forward” as “we’ve been asking for this for years and finally they’re doing it right” after years of non-disabled actors playing the role even though Nessarose uses a wheelchair.

“It's so much better than it was even five years ago, but I would say there's still so much more to go,” he says. “Ultimately, we're still at the point where if there are disabled characters, it stands out to the audience.”

While making the series, Verdile made it “a huge priority” for the creative positions to be held by disabled people and he estimates around 90-95% of those roles fulfilled this, with many never having previous TV or film experience either.

“This is the only [show] we can find that almost everyone involved in the creative side was disabled. When we found people we thought were good and ready, that's all they needed. From day one it was always going to be a disabled show with disabled cast by disabled people.”

Coming back to the US?

The sarcasm and absurdity you get from the magazine still remains as the show’s two news anchors pivot through news stories that ridicule ableist society. Episode one sees a journalist report from a protest led by a character with spinal muscular atrophy who was attacked.

Despite being a victim, she calls for criminals to work with DEI specialists to ensure they victimise everyone after revealing the criminal stopped attacking her because of her disability. The whole series continues in this fashion, highlighting the ridiculousness of ableism from sketches with invisible disability dolls, to AI chatbots with depression, and characters explaining how inclusion turns them on.

The TV series was nominated for the Mipcom Diversify TV Awards in the ‘Representation of Disability Scripted’ category, but Verdile next wants to make the new series for the US market with hopefully a bigger budget.

“My real dream is to make the show in the US, a bigger style version of the show for a bigger audience but learn from our mistakes. There were some really funny ideas that we could not do because we didn't have the budget. Our team in Canada is working on season two, it's definitely not greenlit yet [but] they're working on it, and I'm optimistic about that.”

Verdile is grateful for the opportunities the show has given to the disabled community and is happy it is pushing disability and issues the community faces into a new realm.

“It’s the core of The Squeaky Wheel [and] the experience of ableism is so universal. Disability is not just being sick. What bonds all of us together is not our health, but our experience. It's an incredible opportunity for me, for the organisation and for everyone involved.”

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Able Zine Issue 2 

'Cultivating Community' with Tash King

Dear Readers,

As we readying to publish Issue 2 we hope to continue highlighting individuals from Able Zine's community that can help us reflect on our theme of Environment.

We are excited to introduce you to our second contributor in our 'Cultivating Community' series. Bed Zine founder Tash King, a 28-year-old from Canada, tells Able Zine about their experience collecting and archiving sites of rest from fellow chronically ill and disabled contributors. Recognising that beds function as more than just a place for sleep Tash invites people to share about their relationships with their bedroom environments through art and writing. By gathering submissions and cultivating an online network, Tash focuses the audience to pay attention to how and where we lay our heads.

We really hope you enjoy it, 

Team Able Zine

*Please note: All of our previous newsletters are available to read on our website.

 For enquiries and submissions for future newsletters please contact Noni Benus noni@ablezine.com

Introducing Bed Zine and Tash King
 

Tash King (she/her) is a chronically ill writer, artist and educator living with me/cfs & POTS. Her background in sociology informs her interest in exploring the ways that chronically ill bodies exist and resist within neoliberal capitalism. In her spare time, she reads and reviews books at @tashisreading

Tash's review of Rebekah Taussig's Sitting Pretty will be featured in the upcoming Able Zine Issue 2. 

Q&A 

How was the idea and theme for Bed Zine born? 

Last fall, lying in bed with a migraine, I started thinking about something I’d wanted to do for a while: curate some kind of disability-focused zine. During the hours I had spent in bed that day, my mind had wandered off in many different directions, but another thing I had been thinking about was that I wanted to see what other disabled people’s beds looked like.

Getting a glimpse into other disabled folk’s lives and home set-ups has been very important to me since I became chronically ill a few years ago, and this urge blossomed into the idea for Bed Zine. I decided to create a zine that would give fellow disabled people a space to represent their complicated thoughts and feelings about their beds. It would be an opportunity for people to feel validated and represented in their shared experiences, and also a platform for disabled people to work through their relationships with their beds through art and writing.

In this first issue I specifically asked that all contributions include both an image AND text, even if it’s just a few words, because I wanted people to contextualize their visual representations of bed. I was and am especially interested in the contradiction that underpins many of our feelings about bed: that bed is a comfortable and safe space for us to rest, while also a space that can feel miserable and confining.

What are your favourite features in the zine?

I love all the submissions so much, but I think my favorites are the ones that elicited the most intense immediate emotional responses from me. The visual poem “Sickbed” by Olivia Muenz is a great example of this. Her visual poem uses words to form the shape of a bed and pillows out of the words “no” and “not now”. It took my breath away. I think that the ability to condense a galaxy of feelings into a few concise words is truly impressive.

Another piece that really floored me is the painting “Rest” by Ashley Bravin. When I opened submissions for the zine I was pretty nervous about it being my first zine, and I worried that I might not get many submissions. “Rest” was one of the very first submissions that arrived in my inbox, and it simultaneously eliminated my concerns and took my breath away. It depicts this person curled up into their bedding in the fetal position. The colours, the direction of the brushstrokes, they all serve to create this sense of tension and movement in this place we often think of as quite static. Not only did I get a submission, but I got something so beautiful and emotional that I immediately wanted it as a mural on my bedroom wall!

"Rest" by Ashley Bravin @ashleybravin

Often it seems hard for able-bodied people to understand the complex relationships disabled people have with everyday objects and environments. For many disabled people, our bed becomes a place of necessity, whether we want to be there or not. It can also provide sanctuary after a day of navigating public space. Did you find this balance between positive and negative experiences of the bed within your submissions? How would you suggest navigating these feelings?

I was definitely mindful of this when looking at submissions for the zine. I think that it would probably be a lot easier to fill a zine of disabled art and writing about bed with solely negative experiences, as bed is rarely just a positive place for us. It was important to me to find a variety of contributions which represented these feelings and experiences. I think part of the negative connotations of bed are due to our personal experiences as disabled people, and the fact that things like unwelcome flares will send us to our beds. On the other hand, I also suspect that part of this is due to non-disabled people’s stigma and lack of understanding when it comes to the role bed plays in our lives. In most mainstream media, a character spending time in bed is almost always shorthand for what are seen as negative characteristics: it means that they are lazy, sloppy, unmotivated, or unhappy. In daily conversations, nondisabled people often talk about spending extended periods of time in bed as an embarrassing or shameful thing. These attitudes and talking points make it hard to share a personal disabled experience in bed as anything but tragic. 

With that in mind, I am very interested in representing disabled people re-negotiating their relationship to their bed, or trying to reclaim it as a space that can be joyful, warm and full of self-discovery. There is an incredible submission in the zine by Stacey Coclough called “Home of dreams”, which depicts a house that you can see inside kind of like a dollhouse, and the house, which is also a bed, is full of gorgeous and dreamy things: flowers blooming, a bird feeding its baby in a nest, the moon and stars, and a woman swimming. It’s aspirational and really taps into the transformative potential of our beds.

How has your own relationship with your bed changed alongside the development of the zine? Did you work on the zine from your own bed? 

My bed has been front of mind these last few months. I actually live in a studio apartment, so I find myself looking at my bed all day long. However, because of my insomnia, I am really cautious about spending time in my bed when I’m not sleeping- despite creating a zine about bed I rarely spend time in mine!

Until I thought up the idea for the zine, I had never really reflected on my bed. I only go to my bed when I have migraines or severe fatigue, and much time spent in bed is anxious insomnia time. I’ve tried to find ways to make bed a less scary place- I recently invested in a fancy patterned new bedding set and a bunch of pillows to make it look and feel much better. Lately I’ve been trying to do more positive things in bed so it becomes a more positive place. The zine has given me a lot of space to re-think what bed means to me!

"Sickbed" by Olivia Muenz @oliviamuenz 

What would your tips be to any other disabled people looking to make zines about the disabled experience?

My experience of making Bed Zine has been endlessly positive. I had a few amazing disabled publications to look up to; Able Zine, Sick Magazine, and Ache Magazine. From the very beginning, I made sure that every person collaborating on the zine was disabled, and that itself was revelatory. Everyone involved was so kind and helpful, sharing information and experiences of the process along the way. I made sure to create really flexible and extensive deadlines so everyone involved, including me, could participate in ways that were safest for our bodies. I think that creating loose deadlines was the best idea that I had, and I would suggest it for anyone else thinking of making a project like this. Without pressure, I wasn’t forced to push myself into a flare at any point, and that made the whole experience anxiety-free. It is the first project I have done since becoming relatively housebound with chronic illness three years ago, and just doing it has given me so much purpose and happiness!

What do you hope for the future of Bed Zine?

I hope that Bed Zine reaches a lot of people, disabled or nondisabled, and gives them something to think and feel about. The response so far has been really incredible, so I plan to launch a call for submissions for issue two at the end of June with the second issue coming out in the fall. I think that, despite the theme being really simple, there are so many thoughts and experiences and feelings to explore and represent and I can’t wait to continue compiling them!

Where can we get hold of a copy of Bed Zine?

You can buy Bed Zine Issue One at bedzine.bigcartel.com, or in person in Vancouver, Canada at the Paperhound Bookstore.

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Able Zine Issue 2 

'Cultivating Community' with Sukhjeen Kaur

Content Warning: Gaslighting, Ableism, Mental Health

Dear Readers,

As we readying to publish Issue 2 we hope to continue highlighting individuals from Able Zine's community that can help us reflect on our theme of Environment.

We are pleased to introduce you to the first in our 'Cultivating Community' series. To kick us off, Chronically Brown founder Sukhjeen Kaur tells Able Zine about their experience building digital havens. Realising how the internet can be an environment for community, Sukhjeen facilitates an online network of disabled and chronically ill South Asians. Through her work, she challenges stigma within the community and confronts the cultural and emotional barriers to accessing forms of support and care.

We really hope you enjoy it, 

Team Able Zine

*Please note: All of our previous newsletters are available to read on our website.

 For enquiries and submissions for future newsletters please contact Noni Benus noni@ablezine.com

Introducing Chronically Brown

Sukhjeen Kaur (She/Her), is the founder and creator of Chronically Brown — a digital environment around disability within South Asian communities. Sukhjeen is 22 years old, studying Psychology and living in Worcestershire, England. We spoke to Sukhjeen about her experiences as a disabled/chronically ill woman navigating her illness and it’s intersections with a British-Indian heritage. How Chronically Brown came to be, and the need for more representation, information and understanding around chronic illness and disability within South Asian communities.

Chronically Brown Links -
Website
Instagram

Q&A 

Can you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your personal journey with disability?

I live with a condition called Rheumatoid Arthritis and was diagnosed at 20 years old. This was during my time at university, so I went very quickly from an average university student that went out with friends and socialised every night to a disabled student that couldn’t leave the comfort of her four walls. Not many people understood my condition due to arthritis being associated with older people. This meant I received lots of weird looks and laughs (yes, I was laughed at) when I explained my condition with university students or staff. This meant I tried to keep as quiet as possible about my condition. Avoiding using my crutches even though I desperately needed them most days and taking painkillers like tic tacs to survive. It was an environment I hated the most and when the friends I made had disappeared after my diagnosis, I decided I was better off without them.

What inspired you to create Chronically Brown?

In the South Asian community, there is a popular saying and mentality of “what will people say?” which is linked to many taboo subjects such as mental health, sex, periods and disability. I was aware of this mentality from a young age when family members would live with mental health conditions in silence, which unfortunately led to upsetting circumstances.

Once I was diagnosed, I witnessed my family worry about who to tell and who not to tell due to the politics around this mentality. I was extremely angry that we couldn’t escape it and decided I wanted to talk out about it. Chronically Brown first started as a way to talk about my own illness and show my extended family what I live with. However, I noticed that there were many other brown people dealing with the same issues as me in the South Asian community and also felt like outsiders in the disabled community too. That was when Chronically Brown became a platform for chronically ill/disabled South Asians. Since then, I have noticed so many more friendships between South Asians who are also experiencing disability!

What common themes have you identified among the stories shared on Chronically Brown?

People usually want to share accurate information about their condition due to so much misinformation in the South Asian community. It sometimes has acted as a place for disabled South Asians to voice their frustrations within the culture and how it has suppressed their voices. I have also noticed how many disabled South Asians have internalised the ableism that is presented to them and they now worry about if they can have children, get married or have a career.

What challenges do sick and disabled people from South Asian backgrounds experience from their own communities?

We all know ableism is prevalent in society, the one big difference for South Asians is they deal with it from their own households with no escape. Most South Asians are also not able to correct this behaviour either due to the perception that they must respect their elders and doing so is disrespectful to them. Some of the things chronically ill/disabled South Asians have shared with me include not being able to use mobility aids, western medications, or talk/complain about their symptoms. This is due to a lot of gaslighting to make them believe they are not ill/disabled.

What have your insights with Chronically Brown taught you about the way people from your community approach healing and treatment?

Western medication is perceived negatively by the South Asian community, mainly due to the long list of side effects that come with them. Many South Asians use the side effects to encourage the person to stop taking the medications and to start using herbal remedies instead. They aren’t wrong, remedies that include turmeric, ginger and garlic are anti-inflammatory and have even helped me in the past but to think these don’t have side effects too or that they can replace western medications is what is harmful. Another thing that is harmful is South Asians believing that praying or spiritual beliefs will help/cure them. Religion can be helpful to have belief in something bigger than what we see and can help some people. However, telling someone their condition will change for the better and they don’t improve after, can be harmful to the person.

As the creator of an online community, how do you navigate self care, burnout, and friction in the community for example?

Planning and pacing is the thing that has made the community possible. Even when it seems like online that I have only just created something to post, I actually planned that at least one month in advance (including the caption & image descriptions). This gives me time to focus on my health or other things.

No one is perfect, mistakes happen including that one time I accidently spelt Pakistan as “Pakisatan” and had to apologise and take it down. The main thing is to own the mistake, apologise and correct it if you can.

The platform has a very specific niche which is one reason I think I haven’t come across much conflict on the platform. However, I did have one issue between identity-first language and person-first language which I used as an opportunity to ask what the majority of the community preferred and added a disclaimer to the page to avoid future upset.

How has your time creating Chronically Brown shifted your perspective on community and its importance?

Chronically Brown has definitely shown me the importance of intersectionality to make people feel included in conversations. As Chronically Brown gets bigger, this will always be at the heart of the work.

What can members of the wider disability community do to combat the whitewashing of online disability spaces? What can our readers do to support Chronically Brown and its contributors' experiences in general?

I think the first thing that needs to be addressed, is to notice the lack of diversity in disabled spaces. If you go on Instagram or Facebook, all you will see are white faces which can make many people of colour (POC) feel excluded. Once you’ve noticed, do what you can to change it. Give your space to POC to share their stories and experiences (NEVER talk for us, even if you know what we are talking about). Question platforms on why they aren’t showing POC. Find, talk and LISTEN to disabled POC. Share disabled POC work. Encourage platforms to diversify their volunteers/ambassadors/research etc. If white privilege is used in this way, we can make it that much more inclusive for others.

Get Involved 

How do people go about being featured on Chronically Brown?

Writing your story about your disability and how your identity of being South Asian impacted that, include a photo of yourself and email it to contact@chronicallybrown.com. The feature will be shared on social media and our website!

What current accessibility features do you use, how can people get in touch to make requests?

We include alt-text/image descriptions on all our photos, include subtitles on all videos and we are always happy to create any more adaptations should anyone in our community need it. You can contact us through our email or message us on social media!

Able Zine Issue 2 - Environment

Content Warning: Nudity, COVID-19, Substance Abuse

Hi Family and Friends,

Welcome back to the next instalment in our environment newsletter series. We hope you enjoyed reading about Olivia Dreisinger and her newly published project 'Companions & Earthbound' in our previous edition. Today we are pleased to share with you a piece on mental health and environment by writer EA Douglas and the invigorating photographs of Lior Alley.

The Able Zine team are hard at work pulling together Issue 2 and while we do so, we continue to mourn the losses and struggles faced by this community in the time of COVID-19. Throughout the pandemic, the perspectives and experiences of disabled people especially, have often been sidelined or omitted. Because of this, community will be at the heart of all our upcoming newsletters. 

We hope these emails continue to provide some sense of family and togetherness. You are not alone.

With love,

Team Able Zine

*Please note: All of our previous newsletters are available to read on our website.

 For enquiries and submissions for future newsletters please contact sub-editor
     Noni Benus noni@ablezine.com

Introducing Lior Allay

Lior is a trans visionary artist specialising in somatic sorcery, evocative portraiture, and yoga for erotic embodiment. As a disabled single parent living with Ehlers-Danlos, creating accessible opportunities for healing and collaboration is essential in their quest to manifest an empathy utopia. They serve the community through programs like weekly yoga flows designed for ALL bodies and monthly free art shares through @GoingBeyondTheLens 

The following series of images are self-portraits on 35mm Portra 160 film taken on the Barton Creek greenbelt in Austin, Texas.

Connect with Lior
Collaborate
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Taken for Granite by EA Douglas

EA Douglas is an artist and writer currently living on the unceded territories of Squamish, Musqueam and Tseil-Waututh First Nations known as Vancouver. A mentally-ill queer woman, she self-publishes the perzine titled Strange and Mysterious Creatures in both digital and tangible formats. EA is the former host and organiser of the award-winning The Sophisticated Boom Boom Reading Series and is fortunate to have had her work included in Feels Zine, Muses & Vices Zine and SAD Mag. You can read and subscribe to EA's newsletter here.

Fingers curled through a chilly chainlink fence I watch an excavator pull at a boulder. The rock is smooth and gray and larger than the van I went camping in last summer. Its ginormous heft gives the undertaking a comical tone like watching someone move a watermelon with a teaspoon. The teeth of the excavator gut sharp, white mars on the rock’s surface.

“Really reminds you we’re in the mountains, eh?” ​Says a fellow wearing an orange and yellow vest through the partition. “​Yeh​,” I mumble back, not one for talking to strangers.

The land we’re standing on is categorised as a part of the Coast Mountains, a strip of peaks rolling south from the Yukon to just about where we are now. Vancouver’s city skyline is at my back, on the unceded territories of the Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations.

Before the peoples, the names of things and the history that took place - there was this rock. As it is scooped and rolled, my sense of time collapses in on itself and I see my being reflected within the stone. Cool, calm, strong - existing.

Like most rocks in this area, it is granite. Formed when a row of volcanic islands slammed into the local shoreline about 115 million years ago. The friction between these two caused part of the surface to go under, dip into the Earth’s core and melt itself into hot, bubbling magma. Which then rose, boiling and transforming everything it touched.

In this allegory too, I see myself.

Years ago the facets of my identity collided. Raised in an abusive household, I went into the world unaware of my own boundaries. With people-pleasing behaviour, I was driven by an unquenchable thirst for approval, self-medicating in the same way that I saw in my peers, shunning healthy coping mechanisms to embrace self-destruction. At the same time, a family legacy of mental illness smouldered. Regularly my major depressive disorder would burst forth and I would be captive for weeks. Unable to go to school, just making it to work, sustaining myself on take-out and needing to get drunk to fall asleep. I tried to soothe the wounds of childhood by dissolving myself in substances and the needs of other people.

For most of my twenties, I volleyed from a facade of joy to depths of self-hatred. With few passions or projects of my own, all energy was siphoned by non-reciprocal relationships. My life was bleak and I despised it. I wanted to refashion my existence.

In the wee hours of one morning, I confided this in my closest friend, “​You don’t need to go on anti-depressants,”​ she scolded me as we sipped beer and smoked, “​you just need to get out with us more.​” But, already the tectonic plates were shifting.

Through desiring change, I was reprioritising. This hope that things could be better, that I could live a life similar to the one I daydreamed about, sent me into the depths. Like the land, millions of years ago, going inward led to a burning metamorphosis that consumed all. It incinerated friendships, scorched my social standing. The transfiguration left me singed and sober, a little less nice and a hundred times happier. In the ashes, I was able to locate my creative path and start the work that brings meaning. This led to me changing cities, moving to the other side of the country to start fresh.

Now I find myself standing on a mountainside, witnessing the exhuming of a stone and I know intimately the journey it took to become its ever-present, taken for granted gray self. In this is comfort. It may not be as pretty as the peaked crystals lining my window or as peaceful as the pebbles on the beach, but the firm, strength of this boulder, its persistence despite all, is a foundation for a life that I want to lead. I am grateful for the rock’s example and the beauty it brings to the world.

Unwinding my fingers from the fence, I nod at the foreman and continue on my way.

Able Zine Issue 2 - Environment

Hi Family and Friends,

Preparations for Issue 2 are well and truly underway and we have been blown away by your responses to our prompts and call-outs. Many of these we wanted to highlight and share with the community via our irregular yet accessible newsletters!

Following our theme 'Environment', we prompted our contributors to think about the environments they inhabit and their specific experiences of these spaces as disabled/chronically ill and neurodivergent people.

Their responses encompassed everything - from the bedroom, workspace, nature, stages, and laboratories to name a few. We can't wait to share this upcoming print issue with you soon. But in the meantime, we hope this newsletter series allows you an opportunity to reflect on the spaces you exist in, and which environments allow us access to all our disabled potential. 

We hope you enjoy,

Team Able Zine
 

 For enquiries and submissions for future newsletters please contact sub-editor
     Noni Benus noni@ablezine.com

Companions & Earthbound

Below, in our first installment, we invite you to meet Olivia Dreisinger and learn about her newly published project, Companions & Earthbound.

This 2-in-1 anthology collects writing by nine authors about disability, animals, and the environment. A werewolf with PTSD and an environmentally ill AI are featured alongside human characters living with brain injury, chronic pain, neurodivergence, and more.

Contributors: Alexandra Box, Olivia Dreisinger, Sophie Helf, Bára Hladík, Cypress Marrs, Koyote Moone, seeley quest, Vanessa Santos, and George Wu Teng.

In the sections below, Olivia has shared with us both the introduction to the anthology and an excerpt for you to read. Scroll to the bottom to buy your copy and get 10% off using our code 'ABLE10'.
 

Olivia's Instagram
Olivia's Website

Introduction

Back in the summer of 2018, I was in the middle of a rather insidious breakdown. My relationship had unravelled and my chronic illnesses were the worst they had ever been. Somehow, after some extensive googling, I came across horse-assisted therapy. Counseling in the past had often re-traumatized me and I wanted to be around animals as a way to mediate my distrust of other people. So, on a hot and sunny afternoon, I found myself in a field with a new counselor and Haven, a dark brown mare.

I didn’t have much experience with horses, but had heard that horses possessed a kind of healing power. Sitting across from the counselor, Haven off to the side between us, I tried to give myself over to the equine healing process, but something didn’t feel right. To be honest, I was afraid of the horse. I knew nothing of horse body language, and Haven knew nothing of me. My hand sat tensed against her neck for the next hour, the powerful muscles in her neck both relaxing and terrifying me.

At the end of the session, I pulled out two apples I had brought for Haven. I didn’t consider this to be a fair exchange—apples for emotional turmoil—but my hand came back empty all the same. She walked off to her barn, our exchange over, and I went home. 

Meeting Haven taught me two things: my illness did not automatically make me feel closer to animals, and that animals were not interested in unearned connections either. I’d like to say this anthology grew out of that meeting, but it took other animals in my life for that initial lesson to really stick.

•••

Something I thought about while writing this introduction was what disabled people and animals had in common. I compiled a rather depressing list, highlighting our parallel histories of oppression and marginalization—one where we’ve been locked away and studied; poked, prodded, and devalued for our bodyminds. But these are not the only stories we can—or should—tell. 

 The goals of this anthology, then, are relatively simple: to explore how disability, animals, and the environment intersect. While compiling this anthology, I wanted stories that depicted nonhuman animals as vital, important, and complex, pulled by their own desires and preferences and right to exist. At the same time, I wanted stories that showed disabled lives as worth living. Lastly, I wanted stories that somehow connected these things to the environment.

 When I first shared the call-out for stories, I worried that my criteria was too narrow and that people might only write about their dogs. While there are quite a few dogs that appear as either major or minor characters throughout the anthology, the stories that follow are incredibly diverse. You will find disabled, sick, mad, and neurodivergent characters, both human and non-human, throughout the following pages. There is a werewolf with PTSD and an environmentally ill A.I. There are also horses, birds, a whale (somehow, there is only one cat.)

 The following nine stories are split into two sections: Companions and Earthbound. Inspired by the mass-market science fiction paperbacks I read as a teen, the anthology is designed as a 2-in-1 volume. The first side of the anthology, Companions, features six non/fiction fiction stories and essays. Flipping the book over, you will find Earthbound, featuring three speculative fiction stories I hope you will enjoy. May these stories matter.

Olivia Dreisinger

2021

Cover concept by Sasha Zamani and artwork by Audrey Leshay

Excerpt from George Wu Teng’s 'Solo Tuning'

In the next hour, George met the staff, who gradually filtered in and routinely came in the back to place dishes, or throw lids and other Gastronorm containers in the to-wash bin. There was Courtney, first to arrive, the woman who had brought George water the day before, whose miniature stature belied a projecting, full-bodied, and, unrelatedly, seemingly endlessly optimistic-sounding voice; Miriam, light-brown-haired, or dark-blonde, from Montreal, spoke a “hello” in what almost seemed a whisper—though George would soon realise she just naturally possessed a quiet, almost constantly-singing vocal quality; Jeanne, tall, with limbs that moved as if through a material slightly, but not significantly denser than air, was a manager, and introduced herself with a soft smile, telling George to “let me know if you need anything.”; Victoria, he learned, was born in Montreal, and piloted pole position at the grill.

As he focused on placing dishes most efficiently in the rack, he ran through these new names and faces continually, attempting to commit them to memory, anxiously awaiting the end of the shift, when he could go home and add them to the spreadsheet. While in Boston, as a young teenager, he had two parakeets, one male and one female, both the same light-blue colour, both of whom he had initially refrained from naming. He would interact with the birds for long periods each day, sometimes giving them different seeds to try out, other times bringing them out to hop around on his desk. After a few weeks, he noted significant personality differences between the two. Though they almost definitively liked each other (they would often sit and cuddle together on the same branch in their cage, or nuzzle each other’s face, and would always, unfalliably, sleep side-by-side, leaning against one-another, with softly shut eyes), one was clearly more energetic, chirping more often and fluttering impatiently around the cage when kept inside for too long. The other seemed more pensive, and cautious: when greeted with new bell toys, or a different water dish, they took the time to examine the object, assessing it of any risks, before then fiddling with it. He enjoyed when they had arguments—infrequently, one of them would chirp aggressively and forcefully, while flapping around the cage, the other remaining on a branch replying every once in a while, trying to get a word in. Eventually, they would reconcile and return to their sleeping branch, where they would nap, or, sometimes, prune each other. He then decided to name the former “Active One” and the latter “Less Active One.”

Able Zine Issue 2 - Get Involved!

Hey Subscribers!

We are really excited to share with you that work for Able Zine Issue 2 is well underway. There are lots of new and interesting projects on the go and we wanted to share with you the ways in which our readers can be involved. 

Below, are links and information to all the different opportunities we currently have for Issue 2. If anything sounds like something you would want to be a part of, please get involved. Who knows, maybe you will find yourself in the next issue. 

We hope you enjoy,

Team Able Zine

Able Zine X The Nightstand Collective

Collaboration with Photographer and Artist Emma Jones

Photo submission call out! Able Zine and The Nightstand Collective.

For Able Zine Issue 2, we are working on a collaboration with photographer and artist Emma Jones @liminalityjones. Emma is the founder of ‘The Nightstand Collective’ a collection of photographs that explore the environment of illness through the lens of the everyday. The collection is built of submissions featuring intimate photographs of the bedside nightstand, each person’s experience and navigation of time and space spent in a body that is disabled. To check out the full archive head to:

https://www.thegeographyofillness.com/the-nightstand-collective

As part of our collaboration, we are reaching out to our followers to see if they would like to participate in this feature by capturing their own nightstands, with the option of also being featured as part of ‘The Nightstand Collective’ online. 

To submit, we are asking that you capture an image of your bedside table/nightstand, as well as other optional environments in the bedroom such as shrines and medication stations that capture your daily care routines. These should be emailed to submit@ablezine.com before the end of December. If you would also like to submit your images to the permanent nightstand collective online project then please also email your images to geographyofillness@gmail.com who will then specify any further criteria. 

Several nightstand images will be featured in the next issue, they can be captured in any format/view but higher resolutions are preferred and may be edited for size consistency. If your image is chosen you will be credited accordingly or can remain anonymous depending on your preference.

Thank you.

Writers Call Out

Work on Able Zine Issue 2 is underway, but we need more writers to submit and take part. 

At Able, it is vital we offer a space and platform for disabled and chronically ill writers to share their work. If you are interested and looking to get involved in either this issue or future issues please send us an intro/CV and link one or two of examples of your writing to claudia@ablezine.com. 

We encourage anyone with a passion or interest in writing to submit and we are able to support and assist anyone who might have specific requirements.

Overall, we'd like to develop our database of writers to include more:

- Black, Asian and Indigenous Writers
- Trans/GNC Writers
- Male Writers
- Writers who are full-time wheelchair users

Specifically for the second issue we are working on a section based around technology and accessibility. For this, we are looking for a disabled writer who feels confident in one or more of the following fields: social media, algorithm bias, augmented/virtual reality, assistive technology, artificial technology and coding. 

Furthermore, as the theme for this issue is 'Environment' we are looking to commission a personal essay or interview relating to the following stigmatised conditions: MCS/Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, EMF Sensitivity, Mold Poisoning, Lyme Disease and/or illness triggered by environmental pollutants and toxicity related to industrialisation, colonisation and globalisation.
 

Introducing 'Ask Autienelle'

Introducing ‘Ask Autienelle’ Able Zine’s new Q&A Column

For Able Zine Issue 2, we are working on a collaboration with autistic advocate and social justice influencer Lauren Melissa, to create a column featuring all of your neurodiversity related questions.

“Lauren Melissa, known across social media as Autienelle, is an autistic advocate and social justice influencer. She seeks to cultivate awareness and acceptance for the actually autistic community through neurodiversity activism. Even more, she actively engages in dialogue across lines of difference, highlighting the inequitable systems that oppress queer and BIPOC communities. Through Instagram, Lauren addresses everyday coping strategies for autistics by answering questions through "Autietips." In this way, she hopes to co-create a society where autistics nurture autistics as we strive against ableism toward a destination of true inclusion.”

As part of our collaboration we are reaching out to our followers to see if they would like to participate in this feature by submitting questions to ‘Ask Autinelle’. We are asking that you send in your questions based around the theme of our second issue - ‘environment’. On this Lauren Melissa says: 

“I love the umbrella theme of "Environment." Environment is essential for autistics, and I have a lot of experience in crafting environments, as that was a huge part of my career as an early childhood art educator before I switched to librarianship. I think answering prompts around environments of home, work, and school would be ideal. As well as a Q&A around the general environment of our localities during the COVID crisis.”

Questions can be sent directly to Lauren either by email - lmtheaspien@gmail.com or via Instagram DM - https://www.instagram.com/autienelle/ We look forward to hearing from you!

Visual and Image Submissions

Although general submissions for Able Zine Issue 2 are closed we are still looking for visual submissions. These could be art, illustration, image, collage or anything else that is visual. If you are interested in submitting imagery please read the submission guidelines below for information on how to submit and best practice for doing so! 

Thank you!

https://www.ablezine.com/submissions

Accessible Anti-Racism Resources Archive

Hey Subscribers! 

Welcome to the third newsletter by team Able Zine. We are excited to share this newsletter with you as an introduction and invitation to collaborate on the 'Accessible Anti-Racism Resources Archive'.

While we are committed to overseeing the links and formatting of the archive, complete credit goes to the Black and racially marginalised educators, authors and thinkers shared throughout, who have been working tirelessly over decades and those that are currently spearheading the Black Lives Matter movement globally. 

This newsletter is a cherry-picked version of the archive which you can access via the links below. We hope you like it and consider sharing it with your communities. Should you encounter any accessibility issues or should you wish to share your own recommendations, please let us know via the contact details below.

The Accessible Anti-Racism Resources Archive was intended to be an evolving document, in order to promote accessible learning around anti-racism. Efforts have been made to address varying access requirements related to disability, financial means, as well as time, ease of learning and children’s resources. We have tried to acknowledge ethics by offering alternative sources to Audible and Amazon. This document also hopes to act as a database for Black people and people of colour to access support networks specific to their needs.
 
The archive is laid out in three parts. Part One is an introduction to the archive, with instructions on how to use it. Part Two is divided by specific access requirements such as Braille, Sign-Language and Easy-Read. Part Three is the largest section containing a wider database of topics and areas of interest. It contains resources divided by genre and format, that can be used to find community resources and teachings. These include; Midwifery and Pregnancy, Mental Health, Medical Racism, Intersectional Disability, Education, Accessible Protesting and Campaigning, Social Media and more.

As a last note, we strongly encourage you to seek out ways to support Black and Indigenous people’s labour by utilising the links below and investing into the online stores, fundraisers and Patreon’s of the causes/collectives/educators you connect with. Thank you. Solidarity with you all. ♡ ✧٩(ˊωˋ*)و✧

For access to the full Archive Google Doc click here or visit our website.

Subscribe now

 ‘The power of the people is stronger than the people in power’ 
Illustration by Sarah Dahir

Accessible Protesting and Campaigning

Accessible ways for people to get involved in racial justice - ME Action

Riot Medicine by H˚akan Geijer 

Not able to protest? Signed all the petitions? Donated to all orgs? Now what.... Instagram guide by Amanda Korina

Statement of Solidarity For Black Lives From Disability Justice Community

The Revolution must be accessible - Creating legible graphics. Instagram guide by @daemonumx - Image Description 

Beyond the Streets (26 ways to be in the struggle beyond the streets) – Screen-Reader Accessible Version

Immuno Suppressed For The Oppressed - 7 Ways we can fight by @beaulezard

Virtual Protesting 101 Guide by @sa.liine 

What to do if you can’t protest on the streets for Black Lives Matter - Gal Dem

Disability Inclusive Protest Etiquette: A Guide by @strengthcenteredspeech -  Image Descriptions

The Mighty - Activism Is a Marathon: Keeping Momentum (and Your Chronic Illness) in Check

A Stream Of Black Disabled/Chronically Ill Accounts - @thelunaprojectuk 

Black Disability Activists, Groups and Writers You Should Support And Learn From -  @julia.metraux

Resources For the Blind/ Partially Sighted

RNIB - Royal National Institute of Blind People

Deep South Reading List - Royal National Institute of Blind People 

The National Accessible Library - Race/Racism Books

RNIB - Practical Help - Products and publications in braille

Joining RNIB - How to Subscribe and Read Materials

RNIB - Braille Books 

Racism: changing attitudes 1900-2000. 1999. Twentieth Century issues Grant, R G.

The Hounding of David Oluwale. 2008. Aspden, Kester.

Big Girls Don't Cry. 1997. Briscoe, Connie.

Pearl's Secret: A black man's search for his white family. 2002.

The George Gund Foundation imprint in African American studies. Henry, Neil.

Dreams from my Father: A story of race and inheritance 2008. Obama, Barack.

RNIB - Giant Print Books 

Black and Blue: How Racism, Drugs and Cancer almost destroyed me. Canoville, Paul.

Dreams from my Father: A story of race and inheritance. 2008. Obama, Barack.

RNIB - Talking Books 

An eye for an eye. 2003. Noughts and Crosses Series. Blackman, Malorie.

Why I'm no longer talking to white people about race. 2017. Eddo-Lodge, Reni

There ain't no black in the Union Jack: the cultural politics of race and nation 2002. Gilroy, Paul 

A bound woman is a dangerous thing: The incarceration of African American women from Harriet Tubman to Sandra Bland 2019. Hill, DaMaris B

Perkins School For The Blind 

Apply For Free Library Access - Perkins School For The Blind 

Perkins School For The Blind Online Library - Catalogue Search

Perkins School For The Blind - Racism Large Type Resources

Perkins School For The Blind - Racism Braille Resources

Perkins School For The Blind - Racism Digital Books Resources

Audio Resources


YouTube

Are Prisons Obsolete? – Angela Y. Davis. Narrator –   Running time between 22-51 minutes

Soundcloud

The Case for Reparations - Ta-Nehisi Coates for The Atlantic Running Time (01:28:36)

Lights Out: Into This World - Axel Kacoutie Running Time (27:45)

The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle The Master’s House by Audre Lorde - Narrated by The Reading Circle Running Time (09:48) 

Southbank Centre Speak Aloud. Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche and Reni Eddo-Lodge in conversation. Running Time (58:33)

Southbank Centre: Think Aloud. WOW 2016. Intersectionality: Kimberlé Crenshaw on race, gender, identity and activism. Running Time (58:34)

Southbank Centre: Think Aloud. WOW 2016. Challenging Racism in the LGBTQ Community. Speakers include: Phyll Opoku-Gyimah Jane Czyzselska, Chardine Taylor-Stone, Munroe Bergdorf, Nazmia Jamal. Running Time (01:06:34)

Southbank Centre: Think Aloud. Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race. Hannah Azieb Pool talks to journalist Reni Eddo-Lodge, includes extract from book. Running Time (33:01)

Southbank Centre's Book Podcast. Akala and David Olusoga: Striking the Empire. Running Time (45:48)

‘The Fire Next Time’ by James Baldwin. Narrated by Jesse L Martin. Running Time (02:33:02)
 

Podcasts on Soundcloud

Hoodrat to Headwrap: A Decolonized Podcast by Ericka Hart and Ebony Donnley | Also available on Apple Podcasts and ListenNotes. Each episode tends to be over 1 hour

Intersectionality Matters! By Kimberlé Crenshaw | Also available on Apple Podcasts and Stitcher.  Each episode 38-70 minutes

Podcasts with Transcripts

About Race - Reni Eddo-Lodge - Podcast Running time (26:00) 

About Race - Episode One Transcript Running time (25:16) 

Contra - Solidarity Chat 5: Ayah Nuriddin - Episode and Transcript Running time (28:20)  

Contra - Podcast Special Episode: Mourning, Mobilization, and Mutual Aid - Episode and Transcript Running time (3:42)  

As Me With Sinéad - As Reza Aslan - Episode Audio and Transcript Running time (43:03)  

As Me With Sinéad - As Radhika Jones - Episode Audio and Transcript Running time (36:03)  

Disability Visibility Project - Ep 62: Black Disabled Women in Media - Episode Audio Running time (33:03)  

Disability Visibility Project - Ep 62: Black Disabled Women in Media - Episode Transcript

Disability Visibility Project - Ep 65: Black Mental Health - Episode Audio Running time (31:35)  

Disability Visibility Project - Ep 65: Black Mental Health - Episode Transcript

The Allusionist - 53 The Away Team Running time (18:33)  

The Allusionist - 52 The Away Team - Episode Transcript

Code Switch Podcast From NPR -  A Decade Of Watching Black People Die Running time (28:41)  

Code Switch Podcast From NPR -  A Decade Of Watching Black People Die - Episode Transcript

On Being with Krista Tippett - Resmaa Menakem - 'Notice the Rage; Notice the Silence' - Episode Audio and Transcript  Running time (51:28)  

Art History For All - #podcastblackout - Episode Audio  Running time (2:23)  

Art History For All - #podcastblackout - Episode Transcript

The Daily - The Systems That Protect the Police  - Episode Audio Running time (24:12)  

The Daily - The Systems That Protect the Police - Episode Transcript

Seeing White - Season 2 - Episode Audio Running time (44:10)  

Seeing White - Season 2 - Season Transcripts

Speaking of Race - Race and Health Part 1 - Episode Audio  Running time (35:07)  

Speaking of Race - Race and Health Part 1 - Episode Transcript

Rants and Randomness with Luvvie Ajayi - Become the Right Thing (with Glennon Doyle) - Episode 9 - Episode Audio Running time (55:01)  

Rants and Randomness with Luvvie Ajayi - Become the Right Thing (with Glennon Doyle) - Episode 9 - Episode Transcript

Art Curious Podcast - The Coolest Artists You Don't Know: Henry Ossawa Tanner - Episode Audio Running time (26:29)  

Art Curious Podcast - The Coolest Artists You Don't Know: Henry Ossawa Tanner - Episode Transcript