Access Art Research Partnership

CCIA is proud to partner with AccessArt / ArtMap for their Art & Accessibility research project. This initiative is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and the City of Toronto.

There are days when your passions align and you feel like you are exactly where you're meant to be. Yesterday was one of those days, set against the beautiful backdrop of autumn in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

We spent the day moving through the city together, visiting public art installations not only with our own eyes and bodies, but through an evidence-informed accessibility lens.

Art looks different when you ask:

•  How is this experienced if you move on wheels?

• If you read space through sound more than sight?

• If bright light overwhelms you rather than invites you?

• If touch, texture or vibration is the primary doorway into meaning?

Looking at art through those lenses is more than empathy, it changes what we see, what we count as “public,” and what we understand as design responsibility. It asks us to widen the invitation, not after the fact, but at the moment of imagining. 

I left the walk full of gratitude for the work, for the good company, and for the reminder that accessibility is not a limit on art, it is one of the ways art becomes shared.

For more info visit our projects page.