Against the Protocols of the Civilised Body: Workshop with Access Lab & Library
Against the Protocols of the Civilised Body: Workshop with Access Lab & Library
Thursday 25 June 2026, participation by EOI | Sir Llew Edwards Building, Saint Lucia
In this workshop, Access Lab & Library will guide participants through improvisational, conversational, critical, poetic and disruptive image description and captioning exercises to unravel the ways that artworks can be described and redescribed. It will culminate in a script and staging directions for a live, hybrid publication and performance based on these experiments.
Alongside the artists, participants will explore how a temporary, access-infused collective can be formed; how to share and negotiate access needs and desires; and how we might map embodied knowledges and creative practices. Central to the workshop is an experimental approach to inter-sensory translation, working through ways the different senses expand creative expression and knowledge.
This free in-person workshop will take place on campus at UQ and will build on the themes of the reading group sessions (prior participation in the reading group is recommended but not required).
This workshop is for artists, arts workers, students, researchers and anyone interested in contemporary disability thinking and practice.
Places are limited and participation is via EOI (closing at 11pm Sunday 24th of May). More information about what to expect on the day will be available as a social story closer to the date.
About Against the Protocols of the Civilised Body: Three Programs with Access Lab & Library
Across May and June 2026 Access Lab & Library will lead a series of gatherings that foreground experimental access practice and theory. With opportunities for online, hybrid and in-person participation, this series will support deep engagement with contemporary disability thinking in the context of contemporary arts and museum practices.
Online Reading Group
Beyond compliance level accommodations, access thinking signals a mode of relationality and a critical field of practice in contemporary art. This reading group introduces key texts and concepts and is open to all interested participants.
This reading group occurs fortnightly: Wednesday 20 May, 3 June and 17 June, 10am-12pm (AEST).
Register your interest here. Texts will be distributed to participants on the 20 April, a month ahead of the first session.
Workshop and Performance
Following the reading group Access Lab & Library will facilitate an in person, day long experimental workshop (participation via EOI) which will lead into a public performance later that week.
Workshop: Thursday 25 June 2026, participation by EOI.
Performance: 3:00pm Saturday 27 June, free registration.
Access Lab & Library (ALL) was created in 2023 to develop and nurture disability-led and artist-led access in creative settings. They approach access as a temporary, collectively-held space, as an experimental field, and as a platform for generosity. Access Lab & Library is co-directed by Fayen d’Evie and Jon Tjhia.
