The Disability Collective

It's the most wonderful time of the year -- The Disability Arts Festival!

On Saturday, August 9th, the second day of the weekend-long festival, Toronto's Wychwood Barns will be packed with artisan vendors from all corners of our vast community, selling their amazing wares. 

It's become a much-loved access tradition here at The Disability Collective to prep for market day with a description-rich virtual tour. In this episode, Christine Malec and her sighted describer pal JJ Hunt chat their way through more than forty vendor's tables, and prepare their shopping lists for the weekend ahead.

For more information about The Disability Collective, or to learn about other upcoming events, please visit TheDisabilityCollective.com.

It's been a long couple of months, and The Disability Collective team has been hard at work preparing for our next big event - The 2026 Disability Arts Festival! 

On the first night of the full weekend event, the spiciest disabled drag and burlesque performers in Toronto will strut onto the stage at the Tarragon Theatre for CRIPtonite 2026. The show will be live streamed, and presented with Deaf Interpretation and Live Audio Description -- of course of course! -- but to help Blind and Low Vision guests get into the grove, today we're re-releasing the 2025 description-rich primer originally presented as Episode 7. 

In this updated episode, describer JJ Hunt breaks down the visuals and history of burlesque, and describes the look of drag performers parodying gender expression. Then, with help from the performers themselves, he describes the artists on this year's bill, corsets and all!

Catch you at the Tarragon on August 8th!

For more information about The Disability Collective, or to learn about other upcoming events, please visit TheDisabilityCollective.com.

It was all smiles and good-cheer at the Collective's annual Holiday Festival again this year. With gentle snow falling, and the scent of hot apple cider hanging thick in the air, friends in Toronto's vast and diverse disability community gathered at Wychwood Barns to share best wishes and do their holiday shopping.

In today's episode, we're highlighting the sounds of the festival, with musical performances by the McGregor Carollers, Gabriel Kerekes and the All Angels Jazz Band, the Epic Choir, Elisabeth Dorian, and Elsa and Anna from Frozen who performed in English and ASL.

Then host JJ Hunt shares a description-rich holiday story, written for the festival walking tour. 

For more information about The Disability Collective, or to learn about other upcoming events, please visit TheDisabilityCollective.com.

With The Disability Holiday Festival at Wychwood Barns fast approaching on December 7th, it's time for another virtual shopping spree with describer JJ Hunt and cultural curator Christine Malec. In this episode, the two old pals describe the wares of 30 different market vendors, then break down all the events and accessibility offerings you'll find at this years' festival.

For venue and access guides, please visit: www.thedisabilitycollective.com/holidayfestival

For more information about The Disability Collective, or to learn about other upcoming events, please visit TheDisabilityCollective.com.

It's the most wonderful time of the year! No, not Christmas -- Rocky Horror time!

To help prepare for this year's Disability Collective presentation of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, describer JJ Hunt has created a brand new primer for you. Building on the visuals he described last year in episode #2, JJ breaks down the visuals in Rocky's most famous musical numbers including the Time Warp and Sweet Transvestite. As a bonus, he includes descriptions of the quirky film visuals that have inspired some of the famous (and raunchy!) audience participation lines that get shouted out in the theatre. 

So fluff your boa and buff your heels, the Annual Transylvanian Convention is about to begin!

Listen to episode #2, last year's Rocky Horror Primer, here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2418018/episodes/15992030

For complete information about the show, including venue and access guides, please head to The Disability Collective event page: www.thedisabilitycollective.com/rockyhorror2025

For more information about The Disability Collective, or to learn about other upcoming events, please visit TheDisabilityCollective.com.

Christine Malec has been obsessed with the idea of sign singing since she first discovered it at last year's Disability Collective presentation of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. With Rocky 2025 right around the corner, it's the perfect time to make her dreams come true and have an in-depth conversation about the art form. So Christine and audio describer JJ Hunt hopped on a zoom call with a master of the craft, Gaitrie Persaud-Killings, theatre-maker, Deaf interpreter, Deaf music performer, and director of the RHPS's all-Deaf shadow cast.

For more information about the upcoming performances on October 28th and 29th, please visit the event page: www.thedisabilitycollective.com/rockyhorror2025

And to see demonstrations of Rocky-related ASL signs mentioned in this episode, check out the vlogs posted on the Collective's Instagram feed: www.instagram.com/disabilitycollective/

For more information about The Disability Collective, or to learn about other upcoming events, please visit TheDisabilityCollective.com.

This month, The Disability Collective is mounting 20 Years Later: The (In)Accessibility of Ontario, a photography exhibition showcasing the shortcomings of the AODA (Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act). When Describer/Consultant duo JJ Hunt and Christine Malec were brought on board to write the visual descriptions, they proposed an experiment: instead of JJ writing the descriptions and Christine consulting, as usual, what if Christine (who is Blind) wrote the descriptions using AI to gather visual information, and JJ (who is sighted) consulted to ensure accuracy. 

In this episode, JJ and Christine discuss the challenges, advantages, and results of this unique, disability-led approach.  

To learn more about the exhibition, please visit www.TheDisabilityCollective.com/20YearsLater.

To see the exhibition photographs, and read or hear the visual descriptions, check out the exhibition Access Guide.  

20 Years Later: The (In)Accessibility of Ontario runs from October 9th to 26th, 2025 at Daniels Spectrum, 585 Dundas Street East in Toronto.

For more information about The Disability Collective, or to learn about other upcoming events, please visit TheDisabilityCollective.com.

Remember those long hot days of summer? When you hung out with your friends, listened to music, played games, and maybe did some shopping, surrounded by cool and interesting artists? Wouldn't it be nice to revisit those amazing days again, even just for an hour? Well have we got a treat for you!

Today, let's push September aside and zip back in time so we can all hang out at The Disability Arts Festival once again.  

For more information about The Disability Collective, or to learn about other upcoming events, please visit TheDisabilityCollective.com.

In this companion episode to The Disability Arts Festival Primer, Christine and JJ describe the prints, jewelry, stuffies, and stickers that artists will be selling at this year's market on August 10th at Toronto's Wychwood Barns.

For complete Access and Venue guides, check out the festival webpage: 

TheDisabilityCollective.com/ArtsFestival

To book a sighted guide, or reserve a spot on the described walking tour, please contact Programming & Accessibility Coordinator, Laurie-Anne Rohaly: 

[email protected]

For more information about The Disability Collective, or to learn about other upcoming events, please visit TheDisabilityCollective.com.

Well it was bound to happen. The Disability Collective's annual Artisan Market went and grew so big it blossomed into The Disability Arts Festival! 

To help folks get their crocheted ducks in row, Christine Malec and JJ Hunt pulled together this audio primer packed with festival info. Join them as they describe the visuals of the festival venue, Wychwood Barns, break down the accessibility offerings available in advance and on the day, and chat with the Collective's Artistic Director & Founder Emily Maxwell.

And stay tuned! Our descriptive vendor guide will be dropping in the coming days!

For complete Access and Venue guides, check out the festival webpage: 

www.thedisabilitycollective.com/artsfestival

To book a sighted guide, or reserve a spot on the described walking tour, please contact Programming & Accessibility Coordinator Laurie-Anne Rohaly: 

[email protected] 

For more information about The Disability Collective, or to learn about other upcoming events, please visit TheDisabilityCollective.com.