This fall, viewers are invited to expand their understanding and perception of accessibility through “Smoke & Mirrors,” opening September 4 at the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University—New Brunswick. This major exhibition features the work of 14 artists with disabilities from across the globe who conceptualize access through humor, antagonism, transparency, and invisibility. The exhibition will run through December 22.

For the non-disabled museumgoer, visiting an art institution is likely an experience with few obstructions. For visitors with disabilities, however, wayfinding through a museum — not to mention, simply accessing the entrance — is challenging. And the barriers are often invisible.

Organized by guest curator Amanda Cachia, a prominent disability arts activist and scholar, this unprecedented exhibition showcases work by artists with disabilities, who are underrepresented in museums. It also encourages visitors with disabilities and their allies to become active participants in telling their own stories.

“This exhibition aims to show audiences more expansive encounters with the sensory,” said Cachia, an assistant professor at the University of Houston, who has driven initiatives in research and practice to raise awareness of the artistic genre “access aesthetics” over the past decade. “The outstanding work in this show will give audiences more insight into the many innovative ways that disabled artists navigate a world that wasn’t built for them. Innovative sensory engagement is critical to how these artists experience the environment.”

Included are videos, drawings, sculptures, textiles, and multi-media installations by Emanuel Almborg, Alt-Text as Poetry (Bojana Coklyat and Finnegan Shannon), Erik Benjamins, Pelenakeke Brown, Fayen d’Evie, JJJJJerome Ellis, Vanessa Dion Fletcher, Sugandha Gupta, Carmen Papalia, Finnegan Shannon, Liza Sylvestre, Aislinn Thomas, Corban Walker, and Syrus Marcus Ware.

These artists present an intersectional approach to disability that creates conversations about its relationships to race, gender, sexuality, and ethnicity, generating a more expansive and inclusive understanding of the disabled experience. They create immersive environments for visitors to experience access — or lack thereof — upending traditional ideas of spectatorship.

“This exhibition of contemporary artists with disabilities is central to the Zimmerli’s mission of focusing on diversity, equity, access, and inclusion (DEAI),” said Maura Reilly, the Zimmerli’s director. “We always strive to open the museum to new and underrepresented voices and to provide new means of access to reach all audiences. We are equally committed to rethinking the function of a museum to be a responsive and inclusive institution, and ‘Smoke & Mirrors’ demonstrates that commitment.”

Admission is free to the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers. The museum is located at 71 Hamilton Street (at George Street) on the College Avenue Campus of Rutgers University in New Brunswick. It is open Wednesday and Friday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Thursday, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.; and Saturday and Sunday, 12 to 5 p.m. The museum is closed Monday and Tuesday, as well as major holidays and the month of August.

For more information information, including parking and accessibility, visit zimmerli.rutgers.edu/visit.