Grad Student Co-Curates Disability-Focused Fralin Exhibit

When composer and doctoral student Molly Joyce arrived at the University of Virginia four years ago, she didn’t expect her academic journey to lead her into the world of curating contemporary art. But this fall, Joyce — now a fourth-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Music’s Composition and Computer Technologies program — is co-curator of In Feeling, a groundbreaking exhibition at UVA’s Fralin Museum of Art that explores disability, empathy and the creative possibilities of difference.

“I’m trying to source the sound of disability through music technology,” Joyce said. “And In Feeling expands that idea beyond music — bringing together works across mediums and genres, from audio and dance to sculpture and drawing.”

The exhibition invites visitors to experience the world from a point of view they may not have imagined before. 

“We wanted to include works that really put you in another person’s perspective,” Joyce explained. “Disability brings up very interesting questions about empathy and mortality — things that don’t always come up with other underrepresented identities.”

Featuring major artists such as Christine Sun Kim and JJJJJerome Ellis alongside emerging and local voices, In Feeling is the first exhibition at the Fralin to focus explicitly on disability — and one of the few of its kind nationwide. 

Joyce and her co-curator, Kristen Nassif, the Fralin’s curator of collections, also designed the show to be multisensory and accessible, including works that invite touch, feature QR codes for audio descriptions, and incorporate vibrational technology. 

“It’s very kid-friendly too,” Joyce added. “My one-year-old loves it!”

Interference by Liza Sylvestre is a sheet of off-white paper filled with small, irregular black ink marks resembling dots, dashes and fragments of handwriting. The markings suggest written text but are largely illegible, evoking a sense of obscured or lost communication.

What if an artwork invited you to sit rather than stand? Finnegan Shannon's ongoing series Do you want us here or not (Fralin), invites visitors to sit and rest, addressing how art institutions often overlook the needs of their visitors and inserting the possibility of accessibility into the space of the museum. 

Sonic Bathhouse #2, by JJJJJerome Ellis, an artist, surfer and person who stutters, is a curated space featuring speakers, vibrotactile seating and a range of other comfortable seating options, invites viewers to rest, feel, enjoy and find solace in a quiet soundscape.

Many kinds of visual art are inherently inaccessible to blind and low-vision users. In A New Self Portrait Andy Slater invites all audiences to experience alt text, challenging traditional divisions between art and access. He noted, “I've had people refer to this as sound art, and I really don't want to consider it that. The audio is actually the accessibility, and the text is the piece.”

Video pieces like Molly Joyce’s Perspective originated from a conversation between Molly Joyce and disability activist Judith Heumann, who challenged Joyce's description of her left hand as “weak.” This sparked Joyce’s exploration of how concepts like weakness are defined and perceived, prompting her to ask interviewees across a range of disabilities what such terms mean to them. 

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