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Tag: LEAD

The Museum of Flight in Seattle

Cirrus airplane in the Museum of Flight

When I learned that the 2024 LEAD conference is taking place in Seattle, I had no doubt that I wanted to visit the museum of flight. But there was only one challenge: their approximately biweekly scheduled tours for blind and visually impaired people were not during the week of the conference. I made a reservation for one of the events, and explained in the notes section that I was attending an accessibility conference and was wondering if we could make an exception for a special tour. Though there was a bit of a communication mishap, the docent supervisor, Brenda Mandt who was also at the conference, even attended my presentation, made the tour happen for me. And it wasn’t a small achievement, because my one and only free afternoon was on August 3rd, when the Jet Blast Bash took place, the absolute most busy day at the museum. But Brenda took the time to set it up for me, and even emailed me instructions on how to get into the museum because of the temporary closure.

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Leadership Exchange in Arts and Disability Conference, a conference of inspiration

Last year, I had the pleasure of attending the Leadership Exchange in Arts and Disability (LEAD) Conference, highlighting its exceptional commitment to accessibility and inclusivity. This year, I returned to the conference, which was in Seattle this time, and while it was just as accessible and inclusive as last year, this time I would like to talk about the enthusiasm and innovation. We often hear about what is not accessible, what is not compliant, what we can do better. And I would not argue with this for a second, but I think it is equally important to talk about what works, and celebrate success stories.

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Leadership Exchange in Arts and Disability (LEAD)

Last month I attended the Leadership Exchange in Art and Disability (LEAD) conference in Boston, which was the most inclusive conference I have ever been to. And that’s to say a lot, because in the last 25 years, I have attended at least 40 conferences which primarily had an audience of people with disabilities, plus many other ones, and I have not experienced anything like this before.

The conference is organized by the Kennedy Center, and it is about cultural access solutions, allowing participants to learn, network and be inspired.

For full disclosure, I need to mention that I was invited to the accessibility committee of the conference.

When joining the accessibility committee, I was already impressed about how much thought they put into it. They invited people with different disabilities to contribute who are also outstanding accessibility experts.

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