In December 2025, OVERexpressed & OUT conversed with four Philadelphia-area disability rights and cultural access activists. From exploring what “access” means, to asking questions of themselves and others, to imaging Philadelphia’s future, Lisa Sonneborn, Katie Samson, Shannon Brooks, and Victoria McGuigan offer their keen insights and lived experiences.
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Lisa Sonneborn (she/her) is the Director of Media Arts & Culture (MAC) for the Institute on Disabilities, Temple University, CEHD. Her work has engaged communities locally, nationally, and internationally in conversations around the lived experience of disability, the preservation of disability history, and cultural access. As MAC director, Lisa leads teams of artists, people with disabilities and families through the development and implementation of multi-layered cultural programming. MAC projects have served as models for inclusion, authenticity of voice, and arts accessibility. Recent projects include File/Life: We Remember Stories of Pennhurst, a multi-modal community led exploration of the archives of the Pennhurst State School and Hospital; and Rhythm Bath, a dance installation designed for neurodiverse audiences, by Susan Marshall and Mimi Lien. Upcoming work includes You Caught Me on Your Shoulders, in collaboration with Kinetic Light. Instagram: @mac_iod
Katie Samson (she/her) has been building audiences, cultivating lasting partnerships and developing arts and cultural programs throughout her career. Recently hired to the West Collection as Community and Programs Director, Katie brings her years of experience, enthusiasm for contemporary art, and passion for accessibility and inclusivity to this newly formed position. Through conferences, webinars, and training, Katie has presented extensively on topics around accessibility and inclusive design. She is a certified Aging-in-Place Specialist and a consultant/advisor on inclusive practices in grant-making, public health research, architecture, and education. In November 2025, Katie joined the Program Advisory Council for Arts and Cultural Programs with the William Penn Foundation. During her six years at Art-Reach, she collaborated with health and human service agencies, trained local and national arts and cultural organizations on building accessibility services and programs, and developed a professional learning cohort. In 2021, she founded an adaptive birding group for people with disabilities, which she co-coordinates for the Pennsylvania Center for Adaptive Sports. She continues to mentor people with Spinal Cord Injury through Empower SCI and Jefferson Moss-Magee Rehabilitation. Katie lives with her partner, Kevin, outside Philadelphia, where they enjoy birding, public gardens, live music, and spending time with family.
Shannon Brooks (they/she) is a multisensory, multimedia artist grounded in iterative, time-based experimentation. Their practice engages with the full range of our senses and draws on ritual, material, and performance, to construct strange worlds between the physical and the ephemeral. Their practice researches the interconnected systems between ecology, decay, the body, disability, power, ghosts, geologic time, movement, textile, and memory. Their practice decentralizes sight as the ultimate means of validating experience, creating cacophonies of textures and sounds to explore the dimensions of our senses. As a low-vision person, Shannon understands accessibility as an imperfect creative force that transforms time, space, and power structures.
Shannon’s work has been presented their practice and work at Movement Research at Judson Church, DarkRoom Ballet, ArtsonSite, Fringe Arts, The Painted Bride, TechOWL, Fleisher Art Memorial, The Soil Factory, AUTOMAT, Vox Populi, and Icebox Project Space. They have worked with artists such as Leah Stein, Krishna Washburn, Asimina Chremos, Hana van der Kolk, Annie Wilson, David Brick, Annie Heath, and Donna Oblongata. Shannon has received support from The Velocity Fund, The Leeway Foundation, and The Bartol Foundation. Shannon is a founder of Hook&Loop, a collective of Disabled artists, and UNDUE BURDEN, a digital community archive led by Disabled people in Philadelphia. Through these collaborations they have programmed events with artists such as Krishna Washburn, Kayla Hamilton, Christopher Unpezverde Núñez, iele paloumpis, and HYP-ACCESS. Their accessibility work has been published through the Yale Accessibility Symposium, WHYY, Theater Journal, and Philadelphia Death and Art Festival.
Victoria McGuigan, M.Ed., DIR-FT (she/her) is a performing arts’ educator, dancer, choreographer, and presenter residing in Philadelphia. She holds a BFA and M.Ed. in dance from Temple University where she also founded the Dance Program for the Temple Music Preparatory Department. Victoria has also served as a mentor to undergraduate dance majors in Temple University’s Department of Dance, guiding students through coursework and internship. Another aspect of her work is teaching pre-service K-12 educators to utilize dance and dance theater as vehicles through which to teach academic content. Victoria has taught children and adult populations extensively. In recent years, Victoria’s work has evolved to facilitate performing arts inclusion for the neurodiverse community. She is the founder and director of TABI (The Autism Bridge Initiative), offering four tiers of programming in neurodiversity. Through TABI, she provides dance and dance theater workshops for children and youth on the topic of neurodiversity, conducts adapted dance courses for the disabilities’ community, and presents trainings on the topic of sensory accessibility to assist educators and other professionals. Victoria is a former recipient of the Ellen Forman Memorial Award for dance education, The Temple University Dance Educator’s Award, and the Philadelphia Autism Project Award.
Next week, tune in to hear the “Access Playlist!” And later in the month, listen for Bonnie Gross, writer & executive producer of Lady Parts an award winning dramedy feature film where a young woman’s sex life becomes a family affair when she has to undergo a vulvar vestibulectomy.
