The Agency of Access

Happy Disability Pride Month! This week’s review considers art as a means for enacting disability justice, also positing that accessibility should be baked into exhibitions.

Posted on July 21, 2025 in Reviews of the Month

The Agency of Access: Contemporary Disability Art and Institutional Critique

Cachia, Amanda. Temple, 2024
308p bibl index, 9781439926222 $94.50, 9781439926239 $19.95, 9781439926246

Asserting that art plays an integral role in disability agency and justice, Cachia (Univ. of Houston) positions disability art and institutional critique as two sides of a coin by arguing that, across various mediums, art and exhibitions can deconstruct and obliterate ableist beliefs that structure disability oppression to provide space for agency, voice, empowerment, and social justice. Drawing from her own experiences as a scholar, professor, and curator with dwarfism enables her to experience aesthetics differently: the chapters focus on the work of artists and people with disabilities as well as on institutional critique as a medium. Further, Cachia’s work in “creative access” asserts that access to components such as audio description, captioning, and the height of works on the wall should be embedded into the very content of art and exhibitions to be experienced by disabled and nondisabled visitors (a persistent theme of this volume). An introduction, five chapters, a conclusion with few images (some in color), and thorough notes offer insight to “amazingly creative worlds that still exist largely outside of mainstream exhibition culture and beyond most people’s awareness” (p. xii). The Agency of Access will be of interest to those studying art, contemporary art, art history, museum studies, disability studies, intersectionality, and curatorial studies.

Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers.
Reviewer: J. Decker, Rochester Institute of Technology
Subject: Humanities – Art & Architecture
Choice Issue: Jul 2025

The Agency of Access

Happy Disability Pride Month! This week’s review considers art as a means for enacting disability justice, also positing that accessibility should be baked into exhibitions.