Reflections on Cripping the Arts in Canada

Author: Eliza Chandler

Tangled Art + Disability is a nonprofit organization in Toronto dedicated to cultivating disability art through supporting the artistic development of disability, Deaf, and Mad-identified artists (here collectively called disability artists), creating exhibition opportunities for disability artists, and working to bring about systemic change toward a more inclusive arts culture.

Since the 1970s, disability arts organizations across Canada have been working independently and collectively in an effort to bring disability arts into recognition at the levels of audience engagement, funding support by arts councils, and growth in exhibition opportunities.

Disability artists and curators have worked to gain public recognition by producing politically and creatively important artwork, by developing professional practices within and outside largely ableist and inaccessible arts training programs and facilities, and by collaborating on efforts to educate provincial and federal cultural funding bodies about what disability arts are and how to create culturally responsive funding streams to support the development and showcasing of this arts sector.