Priyanka D’Souza's Master of Fine Arts thesis installation, "b. Call in sick," opens today at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) as part of the annual MFA exhibition at UC Berkeley. D’Souza, one of six graduating MFA students, created works that critique how museums and institutions exclude disabled bodies, using angled shelves, rolling stools, and seating to privilege seated viewers over standing ones. Her practice draws on campus protest photos from Berkeley archives, transformed into semi-abstract renderings, and builds on her earlier Instagram project "Resting Museum," developed after a residency at the Delfina Foundation in London.
This exhibition matters because it directly challenges long-standing ableist design standards in museums, where artworks are typically hung at the eye level of a standing Caucasian male. D’Souza's work reframes accessibility not as an afterthought but as a central curatorial principle, offering rolling stools and seating that allow viewers with disabilities to engage on their own terms. By grounding her critique in Berkeley's legacy as the birthplace of the Disability Rights Movement, the show connects contemporary art practice to ongoing struggles for institutional inclusion and bodily autonomy in cultural spaces.