Cripping online learning space designs for collective access

Abstract

Despite the growth of remote learning, many online art education space designs still overlook the learning experiences of students with disabilities, merely offering baseline assistive technologies. Drawing upon crip technoscience from critical access studies, this article defines current online learning spaces as virtually-built environments embedded with compliance-centered logics and ableist assumptions about access. I suggest that art educators challenge such preconceptions by engaging students in cripping, which entails (1) disrupting ableist designs and (2) crafting alternative designs for online learning spaces. Introducing projects by artists Elisa Giardina Papa, Shannon Finnegan, and Bojana Coklyat as exemplary practices of such disruption and reconstruction, I emphasize collaborative cripping as an anti-ableist practice informed by crip technoscience. This practice empowers students to counter the pervasive assimilation of people with disabilities into ableist online learning environments. In its conclusion, this article advocates for constructing collective access in online learning spaces toward disability justice.