Join CUE for Shannon Finnegan's Alt-text as Poetry at the Common Field Convening, Friday 4/24

[Image Description: White text on a dark blue square background says “ALT-TEXT AS POETRY.”]

Join CUE and Shannon Finnegan for Alt-text as Poetry at the Common Field Convening 2020 on April 24, now being held online in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Alt-text is an essential part of web accessibility, making visual content accessible though short textual descriptions for blind and low-vision people who use screen reading software to access digital content. Alt-text is often overlooked altogether or understood through the lens of compliance, as an unwelcome burden to be met with minimum effort. How can we instead approach alt-text thoughtfully and creatively, while still prioritizing alt-text as an accessibility practice? In this workshop, led by Shannon Finnegan and developed in collaboration with Bojana Coklyat, they will reframe alt-text as a type of poetry and practice writing it together. Looking at examples of poetic and creative approaches to alt-text, then do several writing exercises designed to focus on issues that often come up in alt-text, including attention to language and word economy, alt-text as translation, structuring and prioritizing, subjectivity, identity, and representation.

You can register for the event here.

Shannon Finnegan is a multidisciplinary artist making work about accessibility and disability culture. They have done projects with Banff Centre, MCA Denver, Friends of the High Line, Tallinn Art Hall, Nook Gallery, and the Wassaic Project. They have spoken about their work at the Brooklyn Museum, School for Poetic Computation, The 8th Floor, and The Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library. In 2018, they received a Wynn Newhouse Award and participated in Art Beyond Sight’s Art + Disability Residency. In 2019, they were an artist-in-residence at Eyebeam. Their work has been written about in C Magazine, Art in America, Hyperallergic, and the New York Times. They live and work in Brooklyn, NY.