In my art practice, I think about how we, as communities, can move towards more transformative approaches to access. Instead of focusing on compliance and doing the minimum, what if we approach access creatively and attentively, centering disability cultures? How can practices of access nourish cross-disability solidarity and connection? How do we make spaces and experiences that disabled people not only can access but want to access? My work is rooted in my experience as a disabled person and in collaboration with other disabled artists and thinkers.

Because my work is both about access and offers access, it often takes flexible forms — aiming to give options and multiple ways of experiencing the work. Some of my recent projects include 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 alt-text; and Do You Want Us Here or Not, a series of benches and cushions designed for exhibition spaces.

Shannon Finnegan is an artist. They have done projects with Banff Centre, ARGOS Centre for Audiovisual Arts, the High Line, the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, LUX, and Nook Gallery. Their work has been supported by a 2018 Wynn Newhouse Award, a 2019 residency at Eyebeam, and a 2020 grant from Art Matters Foundation. Their work has been written about in Art in America, C Magazine, Hyperallergic, and the New York Times. They live and work in Brooklyn, NY.