Disability Arts History Australia

Items

• "David Throsby, Katya Petetskaya (2024) Artists as Workers: An Economic Study of Professional Artists in Australia, Creative Australia, 2024."
  "Artists as Workers: An Economic Study of Professional Artists in Australia, by David Throsby and Katya Petetskaya, is the seventh in a landmark study, carried out independently over the last four decades by Professor Throsby and colleagues at Macquarie University, with support from Creative Australia (previously the Australia Council for the Arts). Conducted at roughly six–year intervals, the series tracks the working conditions of artists, providing information about their artistic practice, income, career development and pathways, and their broader working lives. The latest survey was in the field late 2022 and early 2023 and examines activity in the 2021-22 financial year. This edition therefore captures the conditions for artists in the wake of COVID-19 and coincides with the Australian Government’s January 2023 announcement of its five-year national cultural policy Revive: A place for every story, a story for every place."
• "The first ACT DisAbility Arts Festival is held"
  In 2004, the first ever ACT DisAbility Arts Festival was held as part of International Day of DisAbility celebration.
• “Assistance to Composers Advisory Board created by the Commonwealth government.”
  In 1967, the Commonwealth government created the Assistance to Composers Advisory Board with an aim to advise on funding needs for music composition and promotion of Australian composers. The Board was to judge work based on “musical distinction or excellence of its kind, and on the promotion of Australian composers both in Australia and abroad”. The Board’s functions were later absorbed by the Australia Council.
• "Arts Project Australia - Error And Judgement Exhibition 2012 - Email Promotional Flyer"
  Arts Project Australia - Error And Judgement Exhibition 2012 - Email Promotional Flyer - reads, in part "Error and Judgement takes as its departure point the notion of making an error of judgement and its revelation of erroneous decisions."
• “The Australian Government’s Creative Nation policy released in 1994”
  ‘Creative Nation’ was released in 1994. This was the first ever cultural policy formally developed by an Australian Government. Alongside a number of art forms, the policy included establishments like libraries in its definition of culture and pledged $250 million in funding to cultural organisations.
• "The Australian Council for the Arts established in 1968"
  The Australian Council for the Arts was established in 1968. This came after a push during the late 1960s for better support of the arts in Australia. The Council replaced the Elizabethan Trust as Australia’s main arts body, although the Trust continued to receive funding from State governments. The Council was later given statutory authority in 1975 and called Australia Council. Prime Minister Gough Whitlam is recognised as a key political supporter of the arts. The election of Whitlam (serving from December 1972 to November 1975) gave unprecedented and considerable attention and funding to an arts policy which would establish an Australian cultural identity raising international awareness. The Australian Council for the Arts received an unprecedented $14 million in funding in the 1973/74 budget. This was “more than double the allocation the bodies out of which it evolved had received the year before. The Council’s allocation was increased by a further 50 per cent in the 1974/75 Budget."
• "Australia Council - Annual Report 1985-86"
  Australia Council Annual Report 1985-86 - discusses functions and objectives, structures, process and membership of Council, Council Committees and members, Board Members, Assessment panels, staff lists, organisation chart, main activities of Council and its Boards, and includes financial statements and lists of grants made including grants for programs, workshops, tuition and skill development for disabled people in community arts, grant for Theatre of the Deaf Playwright, travel/study grant, Braille Book of the Year award and establishing audio visual gallery accessible to deaf and blind.
• "Australia Council - Annual Report 1986-87"
  Australia Council Annual Report 1986-87- discusses functions and objectives, structures, process and membership of Council, Council Committees and members, board members, assessment panels, staff lists, organisation chart, main activities of Council and its Boards, and includes financial statements and lists of grants made including grants for programs, workshops for disabled people in community arts, funding for posters on theme of disability, grant for Theatre of the Deaf Braille Book of the Year award and Sound Pot Purri literary magazine for Royal Blind Society
• "The first known disability-led activism occurred in 1971 when John Roarty formed a committee among the residents of Weemala nursing home."
  John Roarty, who had cerebral palsy, was a resident of Weemala nursing home for 35 years. In what would become known as the first known disability-led activism, John formed a residents committee to fight against maltreatment and to fight for control and choice over their daily lives.
• “Tutti Arts is founded in Adelaide by Pat Rix in 1997”
  Tutti Arts was founded in Adelaide by Pat Rix in 1997. Initially a choir of people with and without disabilities, it quickly added a focus on visual arts. Tutti has since expanded to offer programs in dance, screen, music, acting, and visual arts, and its choir continues. Programs are on offer in Brighton, Port Adelaide, and in the Barossa Valley, for adults as well as kids and youth. Tutti has performed both nationally and internationally, and has taken part in significant co-productions. Tutti Arts and KickstARt 2 Choir presented Up and Away for the KickstART Festival in Vancouver, Canada in 2004. Tutti’s international performance of 'Between the Worlds' in Minneapolis, Minnesota (2007) was remounted as a coproduction with Interact Center for the Performing and Visual Arts. Tutti returned to Minneapolis in 2009 to perform ‘Northern Lights, Southern Cross,’ which they first performed in 2007 for Adelaide Fringe. It was a collaboration with Interact, which brought together Aboriginal, Native American and Disabled Artists from the Northern and Southern hemispheres “to explore personal, racial and environmental trauma.” In 2009, Tutti Ensemble performed with the State Opera of South Australia to present ‘The Shouting Fence’.
• "Accessible Arts - Annual Report 1987"
  Accessible Arts - Annual Report 1987 - includes List of Projects, Artists Reports, Press Releases and Media Articles, Ideas Exchange, Accessible Arts Pamphlets, Photographic Documentation, Letters of Support
• Incite Arts
• “The first Focus on Ability film festival held in 2009”
  In 2009, the first Focus on Ability film festival was started by the CEO of NOVA Employment, Martin Wren. (NOVA is a Sydney-based disability employment service.) FOA holds events in Australia’s major cities and welcomes entries in open categories as well as a schools category and international section.
• "Australia Council - Annual Report 1984-85"
  Australia Council Annual Report 1984-85 - discusses functions and objectives, structures, process and membership of Council, Council Committees and members, Board Members, Assessment panels, staff lists, organisation chart, main activities of Council and its Boards, and includes financial statements and lists of grants made including increased artist fees working with minority groups including disabled, fees and costs for artists in Arts Access Society, costs of program for Access Arts (National) cost of playwrights for disabled theatre, and theatre of the Deaf with additional grant support and tours of NSW regional areas for Theatre of the Deaf (NSW).
• "Arts Project Australia - Gallery, captured 2022"
  Arts Project Australia - Gallery - website captured 2022 - reads, in part "HOW APA REPRESENTS AND SUPPORTS ITS ARTISTS Arts Project Australia advocates, supports and promotes studio artists within the broader contemporary arts sector nationally and internationally. The gallery promotes the work of its diverse group of emerging, mid-career and established Australian artists who work in the studio through the Collingwood gallery and national and international exhibitions, art prizes, and awards."
• "Arts Project Australia - Hidden Exhibition 2010 - Promotional Card"
  Arts Project Australia - Hidden Exhibition 2010 - Promotional Card - reads, in part "In Hidden each work has its own logic, its own language of coded form and idiosyncrasy hidden within the artist's mind and located somewhere between the viewer and the artwork."
• “Australia Council - People with a disability - artists 2003”
  Sourced from '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.”
• "Australia Council - Annual Report 1991-92"
  Australia Council Annual Report 1991-92 - discusses objectives, organisation chart, year in review, support for artform development, main activities of Council and its Boards, and includes financial statements and lists of grants made including grants for programs, artists and playwrights in residence and resource development and an award for the Royal Blind Society's Talking Book of the Year for “Poppy”
• "Australia Council - Annual Report 1992-93"
  Australia Council Annual Report 1992-93- discusses objectives, organisation chart, year in review, support for artform development, main activities of Council and its Boards, and includes financial statements and lists of grants made including grants for programs, projects, writers fees and expenses and resource development
• "Australia Council - Annual Report 1979-80"
  Australia Council Annual Report 1979-80 discusses members of council, standing committees and board reports as well as financial statements, grants lists, planning for the nternational Year of Disabled Persons (IYDP) 1981 including publications of a study to identify options of disabled gaining greater access to the arts and programs and grants for Braille and Talking Book Library for its Braille Book of the Year, salaries of staff and funding for production of “The Threepenny Opera”, workshops and travel costs of NSW Theatre of the Deaf, funding for residents of the Lorna Hodgkinson Sunshine Home for the intellectually handicapped who gave a performance at the Sydney Opera House
• "Interview with Alison Richardson"
  Alison Richardson is an ally and advocate for people with disability with experience as an inclusive arts organisation artistic director and access and inclusion officer. Interview Summary Alison Richardson, artistic director and CEO of Crossroad Arts at the time of the interview, has had a 25-year journey through the fields of drama, theatre, and inclusive arts, starting in Sydney and leading to her role in Mackay, Queensland. Her work began by engaging with diverse young people and evolved into a focus on disability arts, recognising a gap in services and opportunities for people with disabilities in artistic expression. Throughout her career, she has witnessed and contributed to the gradual increase in visibility and opportunities for artists with disabilities, acknowledging the fluctuating support and funding in the sector. Despite challenges, Alison has observed progress in how disability arts are valued and the emergence of conversations around identity and representation within this community.
• Julian Martin
• "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.”
• "Bree Hadley (2020) Allyship in disability arts: Roles, relationships, and practices. Research in Drama Education, 25(2), pp. 178-194.”
  "In this article, I propose that investigation of allies, ally skills, and allyship in disability arts is overdue. I articulate some of ways in which non-arts approaches to allyship need to be adapted to meet the needs of disabled artists, given the aesthetic as well as professional and social dimensions of allyship distinctive to disability arts. In doing so, I highlight the need for new theory, terminology, and frameworks to define the different approaches to allyship, developed by different artsworkers, operating in different roles, across the different domains of disability arts and/or arts and disability practice."
• "Tutti Ensemble - Partnerships in Healthy Communities Program - 2006 Program Review"
  Tutti Ensemble 'Partnerships in Healthy Communities Program'-2006 Program Review - reads, in part "2006 was an exceptionally productive and exciting year for the Tutti Ensemble. The Funds from the Arts SA Partnerships in Healthy Communities Program alowed us to appoint a Development Manager enabling the organisation to extend its range of programs and contribute to its ongoing financial viability by attracting corporate sponsorship, managing several very successful fund raising events and identifying performance opportunities for the ensemble."