Cocreating in Accessible Ways
ADAPT is a disability-led creative access initiative focused on making creative participation more accessible, dignified, and community-centered.
Through makers accessibility assessments, ADAPT Labs, disabled artist leadership, and the development of adaptive creative tools like ADAPT MARK, we are building more usable pathways into creativity for disabled artists, makers, organizations, and community members.
More details, community opportunities, and ways to get involved will be shared soon.
The 3 Focuses of ADAPT
Makers Accessibility Assessment
Helping creative spaces become more usable, welcoming, and participatory.
The ADAPT Makers Accessibility Assessment helps organizations look at creative participation through a disability-led access lens.
This assessment is designed for maker spaces, arts organizations, festivals, workshops, museums, creative programs, community events, and businesses that want to better understand how disabled artists and community members experience their spaces.
Rather than focusing only on whether a space technically meets access standards, ADAPT looks at how people actually participate and where disabled artists can be included as leaders. The goal is to identify practical, achievable steps that make creative spaces more usable, dignified, and welcoming.
ADAPT Labs
Pop-up creative access experiences where people make, adapt, and connect.
ADAPT Labs are hands-on creative pop-ups designed to make accessibility visible, practical, and community-centered.
Each Lab creates space for disabled and non-disabled people to explore creative materials, adaptive approaches, accessible artmaking, and new ways of participating together.
ADAPT Labs are not about perfection. They are about experimentation, connection, and learning what helps more people participate with dignity and choice. These pop-ups also create opportunities for disabled artists, makers, and community members to be seen as creative leaders, not just participants.
ADAPT’s First Tool, MARK
A disability-led creative tool designed with the people who need it most.
ADAPT MARK is the first tool in the ADAPT tool system.
MARK is being developed to support people who experience barriers related to grip, control, hand strength, dexterity, fatigue, tremors, pain, limb difference, or upper-extremity disability. The goal is to create a more usable and dignified path into mark-making, drawing, painting, writing, and creative expression.
Many adaptive tools are created as after-the-fact modifications. MARK is different. It is being developed through a disability-led co-design process that treats disabled artists and users as experts from the beginning. The focus is not only function. The focus is dignity, creative identity, control, and choice.
Get Involved with ADAPT
Who This Serves
Arts organizations
Maker spaces
Festivals and creative events
Museums and galleries
Community art programs
Schools and universities
Rehabilitation and disability-serving organizations
Creative businesses and studios
Ways to Support
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Sponsors help ADAPT expand access to creative participation while demonstrating a visible commitment to disability inclusion, community creativity, and practical accessibility.
Sponsorship may support an ADAPT Lab, disabled artist stipends, accessibility consultation, adaptive materials, product research, or the ADAPT MARK prototype fund.
Learn More About Sponsorships
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Help ADAPT build creative spaces, tools, and opportunities where disabled artists and community members can participate with dignity, choice, and support.
Your contribution helps move this work from vision into action.
Donate to ADAPT
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ADAPT MARK is the first tool in the ADAPT tool system. It is being developed to support people who experience barriers related to grip, control, hand strength, dexterity, fatigue, tremors, pain, limb difference, or upper-extremity disability.
Funds raised for MARK will support paid co-design sessions with disabled artists, early prototype development, usability testing, product design support, documentation, and intellectual property preparation.
The goal is to move MARK from concept toward a tested, usable, and market-ready creative tool while keeping the process disability-led and community-rooted.
Help Build ADAPT MARK
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Creativity should not depend on whether someone can hold a standard tool, stand for long periods, process instructions quickly, tolerate a busy space, or push through pain and fatigue.
For many disabled artists and community members, the barriers to participation are not a lack of creativity. The barriers are tools, spaces, pacing, cost, transportation, communication, and systems that were not designed with disabled people in mind.
ADAPT works to close that gap by centering lived experience, practical accessibility, and disability-led design.
Support ADAPT
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Donations, sponsorships, and grant support help fund:
Paid disabled artist participation and leadership
ADAPT Labs and community pop-up events
Accessibility assessments for creative spaces
Adaptive tools, materials, and workshop supplies
Access support such as transportation, stipends, rest options, and participation accommodations
Research, feedback, and documentation
Prototype development for ADAPT MARK
Occupational therapy, accessibility, product design, and engineering consultation
Outreach to community partners, arts organizations, disability groups, and funders
Fund Creative Access
A Grassroots Movement for Creative Access
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What began as a vision for more usable art tools
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Bringing disabled artists, makers, organizations, businesses, advisors, and community members together
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Going beyond basic compliance
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Centering lived experience, creative agency, and community connection
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Building a more inclusive creative ecosystem
Frequently Asked Questions
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