Cultivating Disability Arts in Ontario

Although Deaf and disability arts has been practiced under this name since the 1970s in Canada, within the last 15 years it has begun to be recognized as its own field of arts practice and production by arts councils and cultural funding bodies (Gorman 2007). Increased funding has accelerated the production of Deaf and disability art and has increased attention from arts organizations and audiences alike. With this leveling-up of Deaf and disability arts comes the advancement of a discourse specific to this sector, one that includes conversations about how we make arts accessible and how we blend accessibility with aesthetics and curatorial practices, about the development of distinct disability, crip, Mad, Deaf aesthetics, and about the role the arts play, and have always played, within the achievement of disability rights and justice