This Disability Pride Month we honor the legacy of disability justice movements and the cultural workers who continue to carry this legacy forward—through advocacy, also through art, expression, and truth-telling.
For decades, disabled artists have used art to tell their stories, challenge erasure, and imagine new futures grounded in access, care, and possibility. Through visual art, performance, theater, music and more, today’s artists are calling out ableist systems, claiming disabled joy, and creating space for folks to be seen and heard in the wholeness of their existence.
At Borealis Philanthropy, we are proud to resource artists who are shifting the narrative and transforming how disability is represented and understood. Below, we’re honored to highlight just a sliver of the cultural work that is building new realities, where disabled life is cherished and valued—leading to a more loving and equitable future for all.
Loud’ N Unchained Theater Co creates original plays, poetry, and workshops rooted in the lives of Black, Mad, queer, and disabled people. Through writing and performance, participants reflect on their experiences, build shared language around trauma and survival, and connect where they’ve often been isolated. Their art rejects narratives that frame mental health as “failure” and instead names it as a response to a broken system that was never meant to benefit Black and disabled lives. Their work offers political education by challenging dominant stories about madness and disability, while also creating space for grief, dignity, and collective care.
Grimalkin Records Inc works with disabled, trans, queer, and BIPOC musicians to record, produce, and release their music. Artists keep full ownership of their work while also having access to mentoring, mutual aid, and production support. In addition to supporting individual artists, Grimalkin also organizes benefit releases for community causes and runs an annual music festival that centers queer and trans performers. By removing industry gatekeeping and resourcing musicians who have been pushed out of mainstream music spaces, Grimalkin is putting control over production, income, and vision into the hands of artists, and building a model for what a more inclusive, community-led music ecosystem can look like.
Ori Art Gallery, the only arts institution run by trans disabled people of color, supports disabled and BIPOC queer and trans artists through exhibitions, political education, and community gatherings. Ori reclaimed traditional gallery space—often white-led and exclusionary—and transformed it into a place for connection, resistance, and joy. Here, they offer free and low-cost workshops like POC figure drawing, grant writing, and mutual aid, creating opportunities for artists to grow their own practice while also building community power. By challenging who holds power in the art world, Ori is shifting the story of whose creativity is valued and who gets to shape artistic culture.
Open Doors is a collective of disabled artists, long-term care residents, and advocates using poetry, performance, and storytelling to challenge ableist systems that isolate and erase disabled people. Based in a public nursing home on Roosevelt Island, the group was founded by Black and Brown men who survived gun violence and now live with paralysis. Their anthology, Wheeling & Healing, along with public art and community events, confront the idea that living in a care facility means disconnecting from life. Open Doors is shifting how care, creativity, and disability are understood—showing that residents in care still lead active lives as organizers, artists, and healers and more.
Visionaries of the Creative Arts (VOCA) uplifts Deaf and Disabled artists of color through multidisciplinary performance, education, and community-building, creating space for cultural expression, joy, and visibility at the intersections of race, disability, and the arts. Their work creates space for artists to develop their own artistic visions as performers, connect with each other, and take leadership in cultural spaces that have historically excluded them. Through their work, VOCA is building a future where Deaf and disabled artists are centered as creators of culture and expression.
Invest In Disabled Art and Culture
Disabled artists have long been shifting culture, building community, and telling truths that our systems and histories have attempted to erase and ignore. Yet cultural labor remains deeply undervalued and underfunded within philanthropy. A true commitment to disability justice requires recognizing the arts and culture as a core part of movement building. Here’s how funders can support this work:
- Resource disability-led arts and cultural work. Provide multi-year, flexible funding that supports artists and cultural workers as movement leaders.
- Support narrative shifts as systems change. Artists use stories, art, and performance to challenge ableism, shift how people see disability, and push for justice—a key pillar needed for systemic change.
- Commit to long-term partnership. Cultural work and relationship-building takes time. Fund the leaders doing this work for the long haul with consistency and deep trust.
To better understand how Borealis can support you in forging connections with—and funneling resources to—the frontlines of the disability justice movements, please connect with us.