Disability
Arts & Culture
Disability culture has always existed. These are some of the people and places making it visible nationally and right here in Pennsylvania. All links go to external organizations and websites.
National
Deaf West Theatre — Los Angeles-based and nationally touring, Deaf West has been making groundbreaking theater in ASL and spoken English since 1991. Their productions have earned Tony Award nominations, drawn Disney collaborations, and featured actors like Troy Kotsur — who went on to win an Academy Award.
Disability Visibility Project — Alice Wong founded this platform in 2014 as an oral history project with StoryCorps, then expanded it into essays, a podcast, anthologies, and community. A 2024 MacArthur Fellow and Obama appointee to the National Council on Disability, Wong edited Disability Visibility (2020) and Disability Intimacy (2024) and wrote the memoir Year of the Tiger (2022). She died in November 2025 at 51.
Kinetic Light — Kinetic Light is an internationally-recognized disability arts ensemble. Working in the disciplines of art, technology, design, and dance, Kinetic Light creates, performs, and teaches at the nexus of access, queerness, disability, dance, and race. Founded in 2016, Kinetic Light artists are Alice Sheppard, Laurel Lawson, and Michael Maag.
RAMPD — Recording Artists and Music Professionals with Disabilities — Recording artist Lachi founded RAMPD after a conversation with the Recording Academy made clear how little the music industry was doing for disabled professionals. RAMPD has pushed the Grammys to put ramps on camera, partnered with Live Nation and Netflix, and built a peer-vetted network of working musicians with disabilities.
ReelAbilities Film Festival — Founded in 2007 at a Manhattan JCC, Reelabilities has grown into the largest film festival in the world dedicated to films by and about people with disabilities — and Pittsburgh has its own affiliate.
Sins Invalid — Sins Invalid is the foundational disability justice performance project, founded in San Francisco and centering disabled artists of color and queer and trans disabled people. Its 10 principles of disability justice are worth reading whether you are an artist or not.
Pennsylvania
Acting Without Boundaries — Bryn Mawr — Christine Rouse, an actor with cerebral palsy, founded Acting Without Boundaries in 2004 because the opportunities she wanted growing up simply did not exist. The organization runs year-round programs for people with physical disabilities, children through adults, with professional-level expectations.
Art Ability — Malvern — Based at Bryn Mawr Rehab Hospital, Art Ability runs the largest international juried exhibition for artists with disabilities in the United States. The selection process is rigorous, the permanent collection includes more than 500 works from artists around the globe, and the annual fall show is free and open to the public.
Art-Reach — Philadelphia — Art-Reach works across the Greater Philadelphia arts and cultural sector to make sure disabled and low-income people can actually get in the door, and that organizations know how to welcome them when they do. Its Project 76 initiative is one of the most ambitious accessibility efforts any city has attempted.
Center for Creative Works — Philadelphia and Wynnewood — CCW represents neurodivergent artists working at a professional level, building portfolios, exhibiting nationally, and selling work under fair commission. A recent Pew-funded exhibition at Haverford College drew national attention.
VaultArt Studio — Pittsburgh — A project of Achieva in the Bloomfield neighborhood, VaultArt represents artists with disabilities whose work has shown in the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust's Cultural District and at Arts Landing downtown.
Wordgathering — Philadelphia (nationally distributed) — In 1998, a poetry workshop formed at Inglis House, a Philadelphia residence for people with physical disabilities. In 2007, workshop members launched Wordgathering, a free, open-access journal of disability poetry and literature. It has since published some of the most important writers in disability poetics — Sheila Black, Stephen Kuusisto, John Lee Clark — and remains one of the only journals in the country dedicated entirely to this work.
