Bojana Coklyat, Shannon Finnegan and Thomas Reid Discuss Alt-Text and Audio Description

Moderator: KEVIN GOTKIN, Disability artist/activist

Alt-text and audio description are part of a suite of access practices that aim to make visual content accessible to blind and low vision people. These practices are often approached in a dry and compliance-oriented way. How can we instead approach them creatively? All three creators have been considering this question, Bojana and Shannon through their project Alt-Text as Poetry, and Thomas through his podcast series Flipping the Script on Audio Description.

Bojana Coklyat is a disabled artist and disability activist who informs her work with both Disability Studies and Art Administration. She has interned at the Whitney Museum of Art, has attended the Kennedy Center Leadership Exchange in the Arts And Disability (LEAD) over the past several years and currently works at the Museum Art and Culture Access Consortium (MAC) leading a project on mapping virtual access in cultural institutions during COVID. Bojana uses her experiences living with low vision to inform her approach to art, activism, and scholarship.

Shannon Finnegan is a multidisciplinary artist. Some of their recent work includes Anti-Stairs Club Lounge, an ongoing project that gathers people together who share an aversion to stairs; Alt-Text as Poetry, a collaboration with Bojana Coklyat that explores the expressive potential of image description; and Do You Want Us Here or Not, a series of benches and cushions designed for exhibition spaces.

Thomas Reid is the host and producer of Reid My Mind Radio, a podcast featuring compelling people impacted by all degrees of blindness and disability. Through his Flipping the Script on Audio Description series, Reid continues to explore the art by going beyond surface level topics and examining its implications on the community.

Co-sponsors: NYU Office of Global Inclusion, Diversity and Strategic Innovation; Proclaiming Disability Arts

This is a Zoom webinar. CART and ASL are provided. (Please note: if you require captioning and ASL simultaneously, we recommend using a laptop or desktop computer, and not a tablet or smartphone.) For other accommodations, please indicate on your RSVP form.