Disability Arts History Australia

Items

• "First ABS Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers (SDAC)"
  An ABS Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers (SDAC) starting in 1981 and made people with disability more 'visible' for services and highlighted differences of experiences.
• “Larissa Macfarlane leads the installation of Australia’s first Disability Pride Mural”
  In 2017, Larissa Macfarlane led the installation of Australia’s first Disability Pride Mural. It was unfortunately removed by accident by council workers. It was re-installed in 2018 and was constructed of paper and fixed to the wall with wheat paste glue so that it was temporary. The aim was to raise awareness of Disability Pride in Australia.
• "Disability activist Geoff Bell leads significant advocacy”
  In the 1970s, Geoff Bell was a disability activist who, after a diving accident left him quadriplegic at age 21, was placed in a nursing home. Not accepting nursing homes as appropriate residences for young people, he wrote to the then Minister for Social Security Bill Hayden. The letter was presented to parliament. In April 1978, Geoff Bell led ten members of the Disabled People’s Action Forum as they blockaded the entrance to a Medibank claims office for an hour. The protest was held outside Medibank to raise awareness of the architectural barriers to conducting personal business when Medibank was supposed to be of service. Signs held by the members read “We don’t need a stairway to paradise, We want ramps to independence".
• "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.
• “Australia Council grants funding for projects about disability or for disabled participants throughout the 1970s”
  The 1974/75 Australia Council annual report states $1,350 in funding granted to Spectrum Films (NSW) to "develop a screenplay for a feature film of the social pressures on a deaf mute”, as well as a $4,500 travel/study grant to Lloyd Nickson (QLD) "to attend summer schools in children's theatre and theatre for deaf children (USA and UK) for six months". In the same year, the Council reported Bryan Gracey as one of numerous individuals in receipt of Experimental Film funding for his short film ‘The World of a Blind Child’ (1975) about the emotional and physical difficulties 10-year-old Peter faces and how he navigates his disability. In the 1974/75 financial year, Australia Council’s crafts board awarded $1,288 to the Wheelchair and Disabled Association (NSW) for "Jewellery making tools and equipment". The 1979/1980 Australia Council annual report describes the following funding: "As in previous years, a grant was given to the Braille and Talking Book Library for its Braille Book of the Year.”
• “Australia signs the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disability”
  In 2007, Australia signed the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disability. The CRPD seeks to “promote, protect and ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by all persons with disabilities”. The Convention came into effect in Australia on 16 August 2008.
• “ABC appoints Stella Young as editor of Ramp Up”
  In 2010, ABC announced the appointment of Stella Young as editor of its first (and short-lived) dedicated disability platform, ABC Ramp Up. Shawn Burns’s 2014 article in The Conversation laments the closure of the initiative and the loss of a vital platform for better disability representation in Australian media. The URL link to the Ramp Up page now opens with the following statement: “This website is no longer being updated but remains online as an archive of three and a half years of discussions and conversations regarding disability in Australia.”
• “Screen producer, editor, and accessibility consultant Stephanie Dower is interviewed for Screen Queensland On Air, in an episode called How They See Us: Disability in the Screen Industry”
  Stephanie Dower was interviewed in 2020 for Screen Queensland On Air, in an episode called How They See Us: Disability in the Screen Industry. Dower is an editor, producer, and writer for screen. She has also worked with Get Skilled Access and as an accessibility consultant for Queenslanders with Disability Network.
• Veronica Pardo
• Rawcus
• InCite Youth Arts
• Alice Springs Youth Arts Group (ASYAG)
• Petra Kuppers
• Lachlan MacDowall
• Janice Rieger
• Donna McDonald
• Caroline Bowditch
• "Kath Duncan, Gerard Goggin (2002). 'Something in Your Belly': Fantasy, Disability and Desire in My One Legged Dream Lover. Disability Studies Quarterly 22 (4), pp: 127-144."
  In this article we explore fantasy, disability and desire in the groundbreaking 1998 Australian TV documentary My One-Legged Dream Lover. Based upon self-reflexive documentary conventions, the video uncovers journalist-cum-freak raconteur Kath Duncan's explorations into the world of amputee fetish. Duncan is a double congenital amputee. She says," I've tried most things men, women, sex toys, unusual locations, dominance and submission games but I wanted to know what it was like to be desired because of my impairments." Gerard Goggin is a temporarily able-bodied (or TAB) academic with his own history of queer desire and a personal investment in exploring issues of difference. Duncan's and Goggin's collaboration includes accessing each other's edgier fantasies, aiming to give voice to some of the negotiations, anxieties, pleasures, and risks we have taken, speaking across the chasm of our personal histories, different genders and respective bodies.
• "Australia Council for the Arts (2018) Creating Pathways: Insights on support for artists with disability. 19 September 2018"
  Reads, in part "This report brings together findings and insights from a range of research undertaken in 2017–18 to inform the Council’s approach to future support for artists with disability."
• “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 for the Arts (2022) Australia Council releases Towards Equity: a research overview of diversity in Australian arts."
  Reads, in part "The Australia Council for the Arts have released their critical new report Towards Equity: A research overview of diversity in Australia’s arts and cultural sector. This overview gathers published and unpublished data and research on representation within the arts and cultural sector in Australia."
• "Australia Council for the Arts (2018) Arts and Disability a Priority as Australia Council Commits Significant New Funding. 24 September 2018."
  Reads, in part "The Australia Council has committed $750k over three years to support sustainable careers and to recognise the artistic excellence of artists with disability."
• "Ruth Rentschler, Boram Lee, Ayse Collins, Jung Yoon (2023) ‘I am a professional dancer’: A case study of performing artists with disability. In Wyszomirski, M. J. & Chang, W. (Eds.), Building professionalism in the creative sector. Oxon: Routledge, 227-246"
  "The demand for professional recognition for artists with disability is growing. There is little research, however, on the ways in which disability arts are associated with professionalism. This study examines professionalization in disability arts by comparing it with the concept of professionalization in the arts generally. It identifies three components of professionalization in disability arts by means of a case study of an inclusive arts organization. This qualitative study entails 17 semi-structured interviews with artists, staff members, and other stakeholders both with and without disabilities."
• "Maree Roche, Ben Whitburn (2019) Mate, You’re Crippin’ Us Out: Biopolitics of the Arts Curriculum in Australia and the Swinging Identities of Dis/abilities. Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies.13(3). https://doi.org/10.3828/jlcds.2019.25"
  Reads, in part "The article explores arts curriculum in Australia as developed in the contexts of schooling, community organizations, and higher education for people with disabilities and mental health concerns. Motivated to explore whether or not students provided access to modified arts curriculum are engaging in education or receiving therapy, the aim is to address a dichotomy that is seemingly present in educational institutions, but extends well beyond the school gate and informs organizational responses to arts in the lives of people with disabilities. Resourced with the theoretical contributions of dis/ability studies for its concern for the biopolitics of disability, the authors weave personal experiences through the discussion of participation in arts throughout their lives. The article concludes with a theoretical discussion of how arts provision in the Australian context might develop the social and political value of art in the lives of people with dis/abilities and for all, on the basis that its educative value is emphasized over its therapeutic one."
• "Australia Council: Australian Arts Snapshots - Disability & the Arts (2002)"
  Reads, in part "Australians who have a disability are recognised as being creators of innovative, thought provoking, high quality, and often very irreverent artistic product. They are active across all artforms in mainstream and community arts contexts"