Altarscenography, disability justice and staging coincidence: A secular-spiritual practice of solidarity

This article introduces two concepts: staging coincidence, developed in my costume design practice, and altarscenography, which emerged from a collaborative, disability justice-driven, open-source teaching project with singer and teacher-researcher Mira Thompson. Grounded in the video lessons ‘On access intimacy’ and ‘On pain worth sharing’, the project examines how embodied knowledge, interdependence and vulnerability can transform arts education and scenography. Drawing on the work of Mia Mingus, Sins Invalid, Johanna Hedva, Martin Hägglund, Rachel Hann and others, this article demonstrates that disability knowledge is not simply an add-on but central to rethinking our aesthetics, ethics and collective learning. The lessons stage access and pain not as metaphors or isolated experiences, but as relational events. Teaching from bed, inviting students and audiences to lie down and using materials such as bondage, discipline, dominance, submission, sadism and masochism (BDSM)-inspired installations create atmospheres where care, fragility and solidarity become tangible. Practices like letter writing, collective wishing and embodied listening act as secular rituals that help us imagine and practice more accessible futures. These scenographic choices enact what Hägglund describes as secular spirituality: an experience of belonging grounded in shared finitude rather than transcendence. Staging coincidence is a method I developed in my costume design practice that uses discarded materials, unpredictability and openness to challenge hierarchy and control. In this article, I demonstrate how staging coincidence aligns with disability justice values, particularly the refusal of disposability, and how it can build collective knowledge. Altarscenography, then, is a way of working with scenography that treats vulnerability as a source of creativity and solidarity. It creates temporary spaces, or altars, where difference is respected, agency is shared and community grows through shared attention, fragility and interdependence.