Constructing Elastic Worlds: From Avant-Garde Exhibition Design to Crip Comfort

This article argues that avant-garde exhibition design was at the forefront of constructing elastic worlds for bodies of all shapes, heights and sizes, yet there is a dearth of scholarship recognizing what these innovations mean for addressing diversity in the museum. The work of designers such as Frederick Kiesler offers excellent templates for thinking outside the frame, paving the way for exhibition design to be more cognizant of a greater variation of embodied experiences in museum architecture. Despite this, museums still lag behind in thinking about this plethora of needs. In the current moment, it is contemporary disabled artists who are at the forefront of demonstrating how exhibitions can be designed so they consider the needs of disabled visitors first. Artists such as Finnegan Shannon design and produce art hand in hand with thinking about crip comfort as bodies navigate exhibitions through the spaces of the art gallery or museum. Disabled artists are the best resource for designing exhibitions and way-finding techniques for a greater spectrum of audiences, given that they bring intimate knowledge and lived experience of disabled body-minds.