On Saturday, Jan. 10, the Positive Exposure Gallery presented the Disability Rights Archive, featuring an art exhibition by artists who expressed their work through various mediums. The Disability Rights Archive will be open until Jan. 31, at 83 Maiden Lane, New York, between Gold and Williams Street, teaching about disability rights and sharing how it all began for individuals who are able to pay a visit. The exhibit of the New York Disability Rights Archive was first opened for viewing on Oct. 16, 2025. This reading will teach you about the Disability Rights Archive and Positive Exposure. Moreover, their importance in today’s society is another reason to visit.Â
Positive Exposure is a non-profit organization founded by an award-winning photographer,Rick Guidotti, who has worked in New York, Milan, Paris, and London for clients that are high-profile, including L’Oreal. Positive Exposure’s exhibit expresses the importance of everyone, including those with disabilities, and ways to build awareness and show that everyone is beautiful and beauty is everywhere. ‌Guidotti founded Positive Exposure because he was drawn to a young woman with albinism and was taken by her extraordinary beauty. I feel like the photographer had strong thoughts and wanted to make the organization a good one for individuals with disabilities to be both seen and heard. The exhibit explained who they are and the non-profit’s goals: “At Positive Exposure, we create spaces rooted in unity, respect, and inclusion through photography, film, educational programs, and advocacy at our gallery in New York City and around the globe.”Â
In this way it is bringing positivity into the disabled community in the 21st century, and highlighting that they are human beings. This point of view of the Disability Rights Movement forms new knowledge, making a change to avoid discrimination against individuals with disabilities. Furthermore, the archive brings the audience back to the past, on how it all began when discrimination was most prevalent. The exhibit itself had collected documents from archives, media, photographs, and objects that told stories of the past and how it all started. The timeline of New York Disability Activism began in the 20th century, before the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed and officially recognized the movement.Â
The first portion of the exhibit started with transportation access in New York, which was very challenging for individuals with disabilities to face in reality. However, changes were made by introducing travel training for disabled individuals to help them better access public transportation, including traveling on subway trains. These changes were based on building advocacy work in 1994, and New York became the first city to make local buses accessible for wheelchair users. Additionally, the walking process that connects people to places they want to travel to has been simplified with new modes of transportation. The remainder of the exhibition shows activism milestones throughout history, including lawsuits and agreements on the intersections.Â
I hope that everyone who is interested in learning about the Disability Rights Movement Archive gets a chance to visit and understand why disability rights are important in today’s society. It would bring everyone to realize that people with disabilities went from being invisible to visible human beings. Fighting for advocacy, fighting for justice.
Editor’s note: the Her Campus at Pace editorial team also contributed to this story.