ARTS 379 Art and Disability
This art history, upper division course introduces students to an intersectional approach to art, activism, disability, and accessibility. Students will learn about collaborative and community-centered artistic and curatorial practices that advocate for museums and galleries to become more accessible and aware of their biases and barriers. By looking at examples of radical accessibility in art, this course addresses topics like proactive crip-friendly exhibition design, inclusive educational programs, artistic activism, crip theories, disability aesthetics, and critical strategies. As they learn and research, students will also develop an accessibility project for an art space.
2 Undergraduate credits
Effective May 6, 2026 to present
Meets graduation requirements for
Learning outcomes
General
- Apply art history methodologies to explain the traditional tropes in relation to ability / disability in different art periods.
- Analyze how artists, curators, and institutions challenge ableist visual tropes while also exploring and celebrating difference.
- Examine their own identity, beliefs, behaviors, and biases regarding art that visualizes and reimages disability.
- Demonstrate an understanding of crip art aesthetics and practices and the wider implications in Art History, art institutions, and their visual impact in American society.
- Develop appropriate language around art and disability that addresses accessibility in the arts as a necessary communication skill to effectively live and work in a diverse society.
- Create an accessibility project for an art space of their choosing.
Minnesota Transfer Curriculum
Goal 7A: Human Diversity, Race, Power, and Justice in the United States
- Understand the development of and the changing meanings of group identities in the United States' history and culture.
- Demonstrate an awareness of the individual and institutional dynamics of unequal power relations between groups in contemporary society.
- Analyze their own attitudes, behaviors, concepts and beliefs regarding diversity, racism, and bigotry.
- Describe and discuss the experience and contributions (political, social, economic, etc.) of the many groups that shape American society and culture, in particular those groups that have suffered discrimination and exclusion.
- Demonstrate communication skills necessary for living and working effectively in a society with great population diversity.
Goal 9: Ethical and Civic Responsibility
- Examine, articulate, and apply their own ethical views.
- Understand and apply core concepts (e.g. politics, rights and obligations, justice, liberty) to specific issues.
- Analyze and reflect on the ethical dimensions of legal, social, and scientific issues.
- Recognize the diversity of political motivations and interests of others.
- Identify ways to exercise the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.
Fall 2026
| Section | Title | Instructor | books | eservices |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 50 | Art and Disability | Johnston, Megan Kathleen |