The Liu Lobby Gallery invites you to Terrains of Access: Civic Ecologies and Pre-Histories of 2050. This installment of the Solidarity series features the work of artist and Disability activist Sharona Franklin. The exhibition bridges the gap between traditionally distinct worlds, public policy and fine art, to enrich the conversation on Disability justice and access expansion.
Visit the gallery during its open hours from April 30 – August 21, 2026, and join us for a reception on April 30th from 6-8 PM. Stay tuned for details about our summer programs!
Exhibition: April 30 – August 21, 2026
Reception: April 30, 6-8 PM
The exhibition is free and open to the public during regular building hours, Monday – Friday, 9am – 5pm. It is located in the Lobby on the first floor.
Curated by Ellinee Nelson
About the Exhibition:
Terrains of Access: Civic Ecologies and Pre-Histories of 2050 brings together ionic gelatin biomaterial sculptures and a series of reimagined disability-focused policy documents. The exhibition functions as an experimental reading room, combining sculpture, access design, illustration, and poetry as disseminations of accessibility.
The work holds two temporalities in tension: the sensory and transient nature of living, biomaterial forms alongside the bureaucratic rigidity of civic access-infrastructure. Four policy frameworks: NEST, RAMP, TAPS, and ACPA, appear in the gallery as historical artifacts from the perspective of the year 2050. They examine how systems of care and accessibility are built, encoded, and inherited across bodies and generations. The sculptures cure, shift, and decay in real time.
Rather than treating disability access as a future aspiration, Terrains of Access positions it as an ecological relationship, one rooted in collective solidarity and already long overdue. The installation asks what it means to design for futures we do not yet inhabit, using the body and the document as parallel sites of inquiry.
Artist Bio:
Sharona Franklin (b. 1987) is a Canadian multidisciplinary artist, writer, and advocate whose practice spans biomaterial sculpture, textile, photography, poetry, visual design, and civic policy. Solo exhibitions include MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge; Bradley Ertaskiran, Montreal; and La Maison de Rendez-Vous, Brussels. Group exhibitions include the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Art Basel; and the Vancouver Art Gallery. She lives and works in Victoria, British Columbia.
