Disability Arts History Australia

Items

• “Access Arts establishes the SAFE Grant”
  In 2007, Access Arts established the SAFE Grant – Sacred Angel Funding Empowerment. It is a one-off grant for $1,000 to “emerging and professional artists with disability living in Queensland. It is designed to fund the costs (up to $1,000) of attending conferences, training courses, events or mentoring to help enhance an artist’s professional career.” The SAFE grant was established by Peter Vance, whose wife Marilyn passed away from angiosarcoma. In 2019, Choice, Passion, Life (CPL) “committed to upholding the legacy of Peter and Marilyn for an additional 10 years”.
• “Access Arts Achievement Award inaugurated in 2014”
  Access Arts announced a $10,000 Achievement Award in 2013 and first awarded the grant in 2014 to actor Doug Robins. Other recipients since then have included writers, musicians, visual artists, theatre makers, and multi-disciplinary artists. The funding goes to a Queensland artist with disability to “create, develop, present, produce, exhibit and/or tour their work.” Access Arts describe it as “a game-changing opportunity for Queensland artists, arts workers and producers to extend the life of an existing work or create a new one!”
• “Captioned films launched in Australia”
  In 2001, captioned films were launched in Australia with a speech by then Disability Discrimination Commissioner Dr Sev Ozdowski OAM. The process with a series of submissions from both the film industry and the Deaf and hard of hearing community. These submissions led to the establishment of a Forum comprised of representatives from the film distribution and exhibition sector, the Deaf and hearing impaired communities and the Australian Caption Centre. After a trial run in Sydney and Melbourne, three major cinema exhibiters (Greater Union, Hoyts, and Village) agreed to show open captioned films at selected venues throughout the country.
• Theatre performance ‘Take Up Thy Bed & Walk’ integrates ‘aesthetic access’”
  The 2012 performance ‘Take Up Thy Bed & Walk’ designed by Gaelle Mellis and produced by Vitalstatistix proved that accessibility measures could be aesthetic. As Creative Australia describes it “is credited as Australia’s first performance work incorporating ‘aesthetic access’. It embedded the performer’s physicality and communication styles – and those of potential audiences – at the centre of the creative process. The work integrated audio description, captioning, sign language and interactivity uniquely into the core of the work.” Gaelle Mellis has said of the performance that “aesthetic access can be used in ways that add layer, texture, meaning and richness to a work. Art, at its simplest, is primarily about communication. Aesthetic access, at its simplest, is a form of communication that communicates to everyone.”
• “Sydney Film Festival launches Screenability program in 2017”
  Sydney Film Festival launched its Screenability program in 2017. The international program was intended to offer a platform for screen practitioners with disability. Sofya Gollan was Screenability’s inaugural programmer and remained in the role until 2021.
• “Perth International Arts Festival partners with DADAA to promote the inclusion of Deaf and disabled artists”
  As the Artistic Director of the Perth International Arts Festival (PIAF), Wendy Martin enabled first significant inclusion of Deaf and disabled artists. This inclusion was driven by a partnership (2016-19) between PIAF and DADAA (Disability in the Arts, Disadvantage in the Arts, WA).
• “Writeability (VIC) is established in 2012”
  The Writeability program was established in 2012, beginning as a partnership between Writers Victoria and Arts Access Victoria. "Writeability program supports writers with disability wanting to develop their skills and writing careers." It aims to remove barriers and provide information, resources, and fellowships so disabled writers can “tell their own stories in their own way”.
• “Off The List Records (VIC) established in 2020”
  Off The List Records (VIC) was established in 2020. Their Facebook page describes them as “an access-friendly and disability-led record label, working within the DIY, experimental and indie music scenes in and around Naarm.”
• “Production company A2K Media founded in 2007, as a 'a Disabled-led production company, creating connections that entertain, educate, and empower'”
  A2K Media is “a Disabled-led production company, creating connections that entertain, educate, and empower.” In 2024, A2K launched their Disability Justice Lens course, which teaches screen professionals how to bring disabled people onto their productions and make their workplaces more accessible and empowering.
• "Bree Hadley (2021) What's in a name? The politics of labeling in disability performance. In Rai, Shirin, Gluhovic, Milija, Jestrovic, Silvija, & Saward, Michael (Eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Politics and Performance. Oxford University Press, New York, NY, pp. 531-543.”
• "Bree Hadley (2019) Disability arts in an age of austerity. In Hadley, B & McDonald, D (Eds.) The Routledge handbook of disability arts, culture, and media. Routledge, United Kingdom, pp. 347-361."
  "Is the current “age of austerity” (Summers 2009) impacting on art, culture, and media practices by and about people with disabilities, and, in particular, on art-based protest practices by people with disabilities? In recent years, much has been written about austerity as neo-liberal economic, political, social, and ideological agenda (Harvey 2005; Barnett 2010; Seymour 2014). Much has been written about the way groups effected by local and global governmental shifts towards austerity are protesting, presenting themselves, and being represented by others (Fritsch 2013; Goodley, Lawthom, & Runswick-Cole 2014; Runswick- Cole & Goodley 2015; della Porta 2015; Kokoli & Winter 2015; Beresford 2016; Dodd 2016; Giugni & Grasso 2016; Berry 2017). The question of whether disabled artists are adapting their practices to address these changing cultural circumstances has received less attention (Hadley 2017) and is thus the topic I focus on in this chapter."
• "Janice Rieger and Megan Strickfaden(2019) “Dis/ordered assemblages of disability in museums.” In The Routledge Handbook of Disability Art, Culture, and Media, edited by Bree Hadley and Donna McDonald, 48–61. London & New York: Routledge."
  "Museums are spaces of power and care. They are institutions that present assemblages (Deleuze & Guattari 2002), which are reconstructions and representations of history and societal values, and thus are partial realities that curate human existence. These assemblages cannot ever represent the totality of human existence because it is never possible to do so, and yet these assemblages are embedded with power because choices are made about what ought or ought not be represented within museums (Ott 2013; Bennet 2017). The nature of partial realities is that, at their centre, these are still representations that tell stories of what one would imagine to be the most significant events related to a place (nation, city), with a particular focus on a societal event or issue (war, art, sports, nature, human rights, etc.) and peoples (e.g. immigrants, migrants, First Nations or Indigenous peoples, etc.). Persons attending museums rely on the expertise of historians, curators, archivists, conservators, and exhibition designers to present materials within the museum that focus upon and represent societal values. Most museum visitors are not aware of the power that museums hold, although more and more museum visitors push against narratives which they do not feel to be adequate representations of the places, events, issues, and peoples of society (Hooper-Greenhill 1992, 2000; Anderson 2004; Janes 2009, 2010). Where there is power, there is also care. Historians, curators, archivists, conservators, and exhibition designers take great care in how they assemble materials within museums."
• "Australia Government (2019) My Art Goals: NDIS and the Arts. Canberra: Department of Communication and Arts."
  Reads, in part "My art goals shows some of the ways National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) participants who have creative or cultural jobs, or who want to participate recreationally in the arts, can reach their goals. My art goals provides information about how the NDIS might support participants with arts goals, or about what supports or services might be available outside the NDIS."
• "DADAA Inc and Arts Access Australia (2012) Art Works: Employment in the Arts for People with Disability.  http://www.dadaa.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Art-Works-Full-Report-Web.pdf"
  Reads, in part "This document provides a short overview of the full Art Works report, which captures the results from national research into employment levels, barriers and strategies around employment in the arts for people with disability. The report was produced in response to one of the key focus areas of the National Arts and Disability Strategy, released in 2009."
• "DADAA Inc. (2014). An evaluation of a year-long mentoring program for artists with disability in western Australia. Perth, Western Australia: Department of Family and Community Services."
• "Simon Darcy, S., Hazel Maxwell, Simone Grabowski, Jenny Onyx (2019). Artistic Impact: From Casual and Serious Leisure to Professional Career Development in Disability Arts. Leisure Sciences, 44(4), 514–533. https://doi.org/10.1080/01490400.2019.1613461"
• "Una Rey (2022) Art and sensoria: Whose disability? ArtLink, 42(2), pp.8–11."
  "SENSORIA: Access & Agency is ArtLink’s effort to affect this swell by providing a platform for divergent perspectives and nuanced articulations of being an artist. Whatever the prevailing conditions. It also invites a discussion within contemporary art discourse that is not driven by fear (of getting it wrong, of ‘the other’, of adding injury to trauma). Art is our place of intersectionality: if you’re reading ArtLink, you’re already on the margins, and quite possibly on the spectrum."
• "DADAA Art Works Key Findings: Employment in the Arts for People with Disability – Current Status, Barriers and Opportunities (2012)"
  Reads, in part, "This document provides a short overview of the full Art Works report, which captures the results from national research into employment levels, barriers and strategies around employment in the arts for people with disability. The report was produced in response to one of the key focus areas of the National Arts and Disability Strategy, released in 2009."
• "New South Wales disability fact pack for arts and cultural organisations - DADAA National Network and Australia Council (1998)"
  Disability fact pack for arts and cultural organisations in New South Wales
• "South Australia : disability fact pack for arts and cultural organisations - DADAA National Network and Australia Council (1998)"
  Disability fact pack for arts and cultural organisations in South Australia
• "Northern Territory : disability fact pack for arts and cultural organisations - DADAA National Network and Australia Council (1998)"
  Disability fact pack for arts and cultural organisations in the Northern Territory
• "Australian Capital Territory : disability fact pack for arts and cultural organisations - DADAA National Network and Australia Council (1998)"
  Disability fact pack for arts and cultural organisations in the Australian Capital Territory
• "Western Australia : disability fact pack for arts and cultural organisations - DADAA National Network and Australia Council (1998)"
  Disability fact pack for arts and cultural organisations in Western Australia
• "Katie Ellis (2008) Disabling Diversity: The Social Construction of Disability in 1990s Australian National Cinema"
  Reads, in part "This book critically examines numerous 1990s Australian films with reference to socio-political influences to approach disability as a problem with society rather than as one within a damaged body."
• "David Throsby and Virginia Hollister (2003) Don't give up your day job: an economic study of professional artists in Australia, Australia Council"
  Australia Council- Don’t give up your day job: An Economic Study of Professional Artists in Australia' (Throsby and Hollister 2003) based on 2002 Survey - The website reads “The 2002 Australia Council artists survey, Don't give up your day job collected information relating to practising professional artists in Australia…..According to Don't give up your day job, about 10 per cent of practising professional artists live with a disability.”