Reframed: Disability Aesthetics and Institutional Change in the Visual Arts

Conference

Join the British Council and Disability Arts Online for an online panel discussion about disability in the visual arts featuring artists, curators and arts professionals from across the world. They will explore several key questions including: What are the key challenges and opportunities at this moment? What are the similarities and differences

Jenni-Juulia Wallinheimo-Heimonen

Artist

Jenni-Juulia Wallinheimo-Heimonen (b. 1974) is a multidisciplinary artist and disability activist. In 2024 she is one of three artists selected to the Pavilion of Finland at the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. In 2019 Wallinheimo-Heimonen received the Finnish State Prize for Multidisciplinary Art and in 2018

Huge inflatable sculpture and a gold car propped up in a Venice street

Shape Arts brings the UK’s Disability Arts movement to the Venice Biennale

Case Study

Leading UK disabled-led arts organisation, Shape Arts has curated a landmark exhibition of work by disabled artists which also charts the UK's disability arts and rights movements. Crip Arte Spazio: The DAM in Venice is on display at CREA during the run of the 2024 Venice Biennale. Shape Arts CEO

Arts and Culture Norway: joining the ‘disability revolution’ in the Norwegian arts sector

Case Study

Arts and Culture Norway is the main governmental operator for the implementation of Norwegian cultural policy. Here, Senior Advisor Kaja Tvedten Jorem describes the journey the organisation has been on over the last two years in discovering and attempting to remove some of the barriers for disabled artists in Norway's

White man in a wheelchair and two white women stand in front of a large photograph of someone smoking

Queering the Crip, Cripping the Queer

Case Study

Queering the Crip, Cripping the Queer is an exhibition on queer/disability history, activism, and culture at the Scwules Museum, Berlin. It brings together work by over 20 international contemporary artists whose work explores the multiple historical, cultural, and political intersections of queerness and disability. Disability Arts International spoke to one

Two performers stand on stage in front of a sea of lights

Harbourfront Centre, Toronto: making sure ‘everyone is imagined’

Case Study

Harbourfront Centre is an international centre for contemporary arts, culture and ideas, operating a 10-acre campus in Toronto, Canada. Joe Turnbull spoke to Iris Nemani, Chief Programming Officer at Harbourfont about its engagement with disabled artists and audiences over several years, culminating in CoMotion, its first international Deaf and Disability

El Alto: Bringing together disability arts from across the Americas

Case Study

El Alto is the British Council’s review of arts and culture in the Americas. For its second edition, the focus was on the d/Deaf and disability arts movement and ‘crip’ culture. El Alto was edited in partnership with Tangled Art + Disability (Canada) and 17, Instituto de Estudios Críticos (Mexico).

A scene from a music concert. There is a band on the scene and a group of fans in front of it. On the scene, there are musicians, three of them are using wheelchairs. The songs are tanslated to sign language by the translator using hand gestures.

Małopolska Empathetic Culture programme, a regional approach to improving disabled access in Poland

Case Study, Organisations

Since 2016, the Małopolska Empathetic Culture project has strived to increase the presence of disabled people in the cultural life and institutions found within the Polish region of Małopolska. Managed and led by the Małopolska Culture Institute in Krakow (MIK), the goal of the project has been to encourage disabled

A man of short stature wearing a mask and colourful costume stands against a wall

Country Profile: Italy

Country Profile

Flavia Dalila D'Amico is a scholar and curator in the field of performing arts, who is currently a research fellow at the Department of Planning, Design and Technology of Architecture at the Sapienza University of Rome. Here she looks at the arts and disability sector in Italy, which despite continued

Two white female dancers. The first is a wheelchair user with her back on the ground and legs facing upwards. The other does a headstand against the wheels of her her chair with both her legs off at opposite jaunty angles.

Time to Act: preliminary findings

Time to Act: How lack of knowledge in the cultural sector creates barriers for disabled artists and audiences An international closed-group webinar for European policymakers, funders, directors, staff at Ministries of Culture, and cultural professionals. On 27 April, the British Council and On the Move presented the initial findings of a major