Disability Arts History Australia

Items

• "New South Wales Theatre of the Deaf Future Goals 1982"
  New South Wales Theatre of the Deaf Future Goals 1982 – including change of name to Australian Theatre of the Deaf to reflect breadth of goals/remit, plans for training in acting movement, storytelling, sign-mime, continuing major focus on Theatre in Education, as well as development adult plays, and relationships TV broadcast stations - includes statement “We must highlight the expressiveness of what is normally considered a handicap and keep sign language at the core of our work. The concern here is to insure the professionalism and freshness of the·production values, the scripts, and the actors' performances.”
• "Interview with Matthew Shilcock"
  Matthew Shilcock is a stage and film performer, dancer, director, choreographer, producer, project planner, manager, consultant and disability advocate. Interview Summary Matthew Shilcock, a contemporary dancer, lives with osteogenesis imperfecta, a condition that led him to discover dance as an affordable alternative to physiotherapy. His 12-year dance career has been shaped by working with both disabled and non-disabled artists, including elite companies and individual dancers, where he found a passion for the unique problem-solving and rewarding experiences that come with working with disabled dancers. As he transitions from performer to dance maker, Matthew's motivation has shifted from personal excitement and self-discovery to a focus on the next generation, aiming to pass on his unique experiences and methodologies. He acknowledges that while being on stage as a disabled artist can be inherently political, he values his authenticity and the impact of his work over the perceptions and labels placed upon disability in the arts.
• "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.
• “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’.
• "DADAA Annual Report 2015-2016"
  DADAA Annual Report 2015-2016 - Chairperson and Executive Director’s Reports, New premises, NDIS, Workshops, Exhibitions, Performances, Screenings, Freight and Focus Galleries, Online Gallery, Online Broadcasts, stARTSpeak, Art Link Programs for Children and Young People, Awesome Festival, Nexus Arts Grants, Professional Mentorships, Financials
• "DADAA Annual Report 2003-2004"
  DADAA Annual Report 2003-2004 - information about Vision, Mission and Goals, Chairperson and Executive Director’s Reports, Staff list, Demographics and scope of work, Programs including 24/7 Festival, FOCUS, FRIEGHT Gallery, Art Link Be Active Children’s programs, Aging & Disability, and Regional Development and Consultancy, Partners, KPIs, and Financials
• "The Other Film Festival - Website, captured 2018"
  The Other Film Festival website, captured 2018 - with links to About and Archive pages, and 2016 Festival report
• "The Other Film Festival - Creating Change"
  The Other Film Festival Creating Change webpage, captured 2022 - reads, in part "The Other Film Festival is a groundbreaking disability-led program that has put Deaf and Disabled people at the centre of the Australian screen industry for almost 20 years. The days of Deaf and Disabled people being erased, misrepresented or under-employed by the mainstream have gone. We encourage the screen sector to embrace inclusive production structures and processes, including paid employment opportunities and career pathways for Deaf and Disabled screen practitioners and performers."
• ”Bree Hadley, Janice Rieger, Sarah Barron, Sarah Boulton, Catherine Parker (2023) Codesigning Access: A New Approach to Cultures of Inclusion in Museums and Galleries. In Cachia, Amanda (Ed.) Curating Access: Disability Art Activism and Creative Accommodation. Routledge, Abingdon, Oxon, pp. 183-195.”
  "In museums and galleries, access is often designed and implemented by staff and informed by regulations and guidelines. Codesign approaches have the potential to shift this understanding away from designing access “for” visitors and toward access as a creative process developed “with” visitors. This chapter focuses on the exhibition and practice-led research project Vis-ability: Artworks from the QUT Art Collection, which was presented at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) Art Museum in Australia in 2019. Vis-ability represented the culmination of five years of international research into access in museums and galleries for visitors who are blind or have low vision."
• "Writeability website, captured 2018"
  Webpage reads, in part "Write-ability aims to remove some of the barriers that have traditionally prevented people with disability from connecting with writing and publishing. It provides tools and information to support people with disability who want to tell their own stories in their own way. The Write-ability ethos has been based on the importance of self-told stories, disability-leadership and peer support, and the creation of opportunities for even the quietest voices to be heard."
• "Writeability website, captured 2019"
  Webpage reads, in part "Write-ability aims to remove some of the barriers that have traditionally prevented people with disability from connecting with writing and publishing. It provides tools and information to support people with disability who want to tell their own stories in their own way. The Write-ability ethos has been based on the importance of self-told stories, disability-leadership and peer support, and the creation of opportunities for even the quietest voices to be heard."
• Anne Townsend
• Kim Townsend
• "Writers Victoria profile postcards of Write-ability Fellows - Sarah Widdup"
• "Writeability website, captured 2015"
  Webpage reads, in part "Write-ability aims to support writers with disability wishing to develop their skills and writing careers. Our projects and activities change every year and can include workshops, writing groups and performances. In 2015 Melbourne writers with disability can join us for our fortnightly Write-ability Writers Group sessions from 1-3pm on the following dates. Please book one or more sessions."
• Ability Bunch Drama Group
• "The United Nations makes comments on the rights of people with disabilities."
  In 1951, the United Nations made comments on the rights of people with disabilities."The focus of the United Nations on disability issues shifted in the late 1950s from a welfare perspective to one of social welfare."
• "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."
• "Bree Hadley (2016) Cheats, charity cases and inspirations: disrupting the circulation of disability-based memes online. Disability and Society, 31(5), pp. 676-692."
  "With the increasing part online self-performance plays in day-to-day life in the twenty-first century, it is not surprising that critiques of the way the daily social drama of disability plays out in online spaces and places have begun to gain prominence. In this article, I consider memes as a highly specific style or strategy for representing disability via social media sites. I identify three commonly circulating categories of meme – the charity case, inspiration and cheat memes – all of which offer representations that people with disabilities find highly problematic. I then investigate the ways in which disabled people have begun to resist the representation and circulation of these commonly circulating categories of memes, via the production of counter or parodic memes. I focus, in particular, on the subversive potential of these counter memes, within disability communities online and within broader communities online."
• "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."
• "DADAA - Bridging the Gap: Process Evaluation"
  Bridging The Gap: Process Evaluation - Reads, in part "Results from early formative evaluation indicated that relationships among core partners were a key strategy in the success of Bridging the Gap. Based on this, the Project Reference Group was selected as a focus of the process evaluation."
• "DADAA Inc and Arts Access Australia (2012) public 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."
• “Lesley Hall leads a protest of the Miss Victoria Quest beauty contest”
  In 1981, Lesley Hall and a group of disability activists protested at the Miss Victoria Beauty Quest (a beauty pagent that was a fundraiser for the Spastic Society in Victoria). The focus on physical perfections was seen “as the norm all must attain if they are to be fully accepted into society”. The protests raised much media attention and marked the beginning of a shift in thinking about the place in Australian society of people with disabilities.
• "Amanda Cachia (2022) Curating Access: Disability Art Activism and Creative Accommodation. London: Routledge"
  Reads, in part "This book is an interdisciplinary collection of twenty-four essays which critically examine contemporary exhibitions and artistic practices that focus on conceptual and creative aspects of access."
• "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."