Getting Down to Love (& new podcast season!)
Qudsiya's thoughts on capturing her wedding day accessibly
Hello DTTS community!
My heart is full with the launch of our Season 8 premiere. This episode is the tale of an access artist and a wedding photographer who came together to bring a love story (my own) to life in a way that is accessible to all. Be sure to listen, and don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss what’s coming next this season!
Last year, I wrote about my experiences as a blind bride in Hitha Palepu’s Only Smart Things newsletter. There, I reflected on the concept of access as an act of love. Access, for me, is a set of practices that ensure disabled people don’t just have a base level of accommodations to participate in life activities like employment and education. Instead, access creates a world where disabled people can live joyful, rich, and immersive lives nested deep into the fabric of their families and communities.
Laws like the Americans with Disabilities Act create a “floor” of standards to ensure that some level of access is provided, so that disabled people don’t fall through the cracks. But they do not, by any means, define the ceiling of what is possible. They demand the ramp into the building, but do not guarantee that it won’t be in the back alley next to the dumpsters.
Disability justice’s principle of collective access reaches into those intimate community spaces where the law cannot always go, to show us how to create access for one another that is empowering, empathetic, and intentional.
As access artist Cheryl Green, a guest on the episode, put it best:
“I want access to be front and center and acknowledged and talked about as beautiful and as something to enjoy. But it's not an afterthought. And it's not about compliance. It's about being a human.”
When Cheryl and Jasmine Oliver talked about the joy and care that went into creating the image descriptions and audio story for my wedding to my beloved Sean Collins, I felt so seen. Knowing that I could look back on this important aspect of my journey and experience it in the format that is most meaningful and accessible to me allowed me to feel like I have agency in my own life. As a disabled person (like any person) that is my greatest wish—to be fully present in my own life and experience it on my own terms.
When we create access for one another, in whatever form that takes—writing image descriptions, creating captions, giving each other extra time—it’s a way of seeing each other and being seen. When we recognize and meet each other’s access needs, we demonstrate an acknowledgment of each other’s humanity. It affirms our interdependence because, the truth is, we all need each other to survive in this world.
There are so many incredible disabled people who embody the maxim that access is love, that it is vital to our very existence as human beings. Here are just a few who inspire me to create access in my community every day:
Haben Girma is a passionate advocate who powerfully asserts why access matters, and how we can build it together.
Aimi Hamraie is a disabled leader who pushes society to think critically and intersectionally about the design of our built environment.
Justice Shorter has developed critical resources to ensure that the needs and experiences of disabled, black, indigenous, and people of color are at the center in our responses to natural disasters and other environmental crises.
In this new podcast season, we hear from disabled creatives, entrepreneurs, scientists, and more about why centering disability perspectives allows us to design a world that is better for all of us. I will leave you with these wise and powerful words from Mia Mingus, on her blog, Leaving Evidence:
“We must understand and practice an accessibility that moves us closer to justice, not just inclusion or diversity.”
In solidarity,
Qudsiya