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

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

Europe Beyond Access Case Studies: Skånes Dansteater

Case Study

Part of a series which examines the impact of Europe Beyond Access I on each of the partner organisations, this case study looks at Malmö-based dance organisation, Skånes Dansteater. Compiled by journalist Bella Todd from interview material with Mira Helenius Martinsson (Artistic Director and CEO) and Tanja Mangalanayagam and Liselotte

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

Polish disabled artists takeover Warsaw’s streets with ‘I am an Artist’ campaign

Case Study

Jestem Artysta (I am an artist) is a campaign commissioned by the British Council in collaboration with six professional Polish disabled artists. The campaign took over billboards, huge display screens and public spaces with images of disabled dancers, choreographers, theatre directors and performers in Warsaw's busiest locations. There was also a wide-reaching

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

Photograph of a theatre crowd, some of whom are learning disabled and wearing ear defenders

Relaxed Performances: a comparative study across six countries

Case Study

Between April 2018 and April 2020, French-based organisation Ciné-ma différence commissioned a comparative survey of 16 organisations* delivering Relaxed-style Performances in France, Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Switzerland. The resulting report also includes a toolkit with a series of recommendations so that other organisations can implement

Installation view of an exhibition. On the left of the image is a tree-shaped collage of many, many black and white images (it's not very clear as the images are small, but some are portraits of people) - they are lit in a sunshine yellow light. The floor of what is assumed to be a gallery is chrome, and reflects the rest of the room. 12 TV monitors make a wall on the right of the image, on 2 screens are an animation of a man drinking from a bottle, on another is a hand touching the screen, other screens are whited out or unclear.

Vital Capacities: Developing an accessible model for ‘digital residencies’

Case Study

Vital Capacities is a new purpose-built digital residency space, initiated by the UK’s videoclub, a platform for moving image artists, in collaboration with digital inclusion specialist Sarah Pickthall. It is intended to facilitate international exchange and provide the same opportunities as a physical residency. Curator, and Director of videoclub, Jamie