40 Big Ideas

Summary

Art used to be something people with disabilities did as therapy. Today, it is a way for people with disabilities to express themselves and their identities. This shift has created more inclusive spaces and provided ways for people with disabilities to be leaders and to gain employment opportunities.

Over the past 50 years, the intersection of disability and the arts has evolved from isolated therapeutic programming into a cultural movement rooted in identity, authorship, and creative expression. For people with intellectual and other developmental disabilities (IDD), this shift created pathways not only for visibility and voice but also for inclusion, employment, and leadership.

In the 1970s and 1980s, artistic opportunities for people with IDD were mostly framed through a therapeutic lens. Art-making occurred in institutions or day programs, rarely in public view. Work was often labeled “outsider art” and excluded from mainstream venues. The prevailing assumption was that disabled people were subjects of art, not its creators.

This began to change in the 1990s. Programs like Creative Growth Art Center, NIAD, and Access Theatre affirmed that people with IDD had long possessed talent—what had been missing was access and recognition. These organizations provided materials, space, and visibility, enabling artists to train, exhibit, and earn income through their work.

The launch of the National Arts and Disability Center (NADC) at UCLA in 1994 marked a critical turning point. As the first national program focused on careers in the arts for people with disabilities, NADC provided essential training, resources, and advocacy to build pathways for artists with IDD. Funded as a National Training Initiative under Bob Williams, then commissioner of the Administration on Developmental Disabilities, poet, and augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) user — NADC’s vision was shaped by both policy insight and lived experience. In his poem “Lost Voices,” Williams captures the longstanding exclusion:

“We stood in the shadows, our voices swallowed / by walls built of silence.” Artists with IDD, like Judith Scott, a visual artist, and Andrea Fay Friedman, one of the first actresses with a developmental disability on network TV, helped shift public perception and expand representation. Today, painter Marlon Mullen, artistic director Mickey Rowe and author Keah Brown are challenging norms and claiming space in major museums, theaters, and publishing platforms.

What distinguishes Disability Arts as an idea is its rejection of narratives rooted in pity or triumph. Instead, it centers the voices of disabled creators and affirms disability as a cultural identity that contributes unique artistic and social insight. Groups such as AXIS Dance and Sins Invalid, as well as advocates, including Alice Wong, place disability at the heart of creative innovation. As Wong writes, “Disability is sociopolitical, cultural, and biological. Being visible and claiming a disabled identity brings risks as much as it brings pride.”

The ongoing importance of Disability Arts lies in how it expands our collective imagination. It challenges conventional norms, opens space for new forms of expression, and reframes disability through a lens of possibility. More than personal enrichment,

Disability Arts strengthens community and advances cultural equity—for all of us.