Program
The Arts Activated 2021 program will feature 16 sessions, workshops and events spread over 2 days.
Virtual Sessions
Monday 9 August
10.30am - 5:00pm | 7 Sessions
Monday 23 August
11.00am - 5:00pm | 7 Sessions
Keynote Speakers
S.J Norman is one of Australia’s most intriguing creative forces with a 15-year career as a cross-disciplinary artist and writer with internationally acclaimed work across installation, sculpture, fiction, essays, poetry, video, sound and performance. He is a fearless experimenter, a rigorous researcher, a critically engaged maker and a formidable performer. He is a non-binary transmasculine person and a diasporic Koori of Wiradjuri descent, born on Gadigal land. Since 2006 he has lived and worked between Australia, Germany, the UK and the United States. Norman will explore his work, creative practice and career, what it means to be an artist with multiple intersecting identities and the impact of the COVID-pandemic on artists and other people with disability.
As founder and CEO of influential UK-based disability advocacy organisation Attitude Is Everything, Ms Bull has been making live music more accessible for over 20 years. In this session with Accessible Arts Interim CEO Morwenna Collett, Ms Bull will detail the ups and downs of her two decades of activism in the arts, the importance of an inclusive post-COVID recovery for the arts and cultural sector, the work AIE does with venues and festivals in particular, and how disability-led campaigning across the creative industries is the most effective way for bringing about meaningful and long-lasting change.
Themes
Building Back For Everyone: How the post-COVID response of creative industries can help advance access and inclusion for arts practitioners and audiences with disability.
As the Australian arts and cultural sector starts to recover from the devastating impact of the COVID pandemic, there has never been a more appropriate time for the industry to improve how it engages with people with disability or who are d/Deaf.
The pandemic has not only demonstrated that rapid change is possible but the response has also improved our society’s understanding of and commitment to the values of diversity, access and inclusion.
‘Building back better’ has become the mantra for the post-COVID recovery, but what does ‘better’ mean in relation to arts, culture and disability? What are the lessons we can learn from the COVID response so far? And how do we work together to ensure the interests and aspirations of arts practitioners and audiences with disability are part of the recovery process moving forward?
Arts Activated 2021 aims to provide a forum for people across the arts, culture, disability, education and government sectors to discuss these issues and provide insight into how we can deliver equity and excellence by building back for everyone.
Building Better Creativity
What does the increased consumption of arts and entertainment content during the pandemic mean for finding new audiences for the work of artists with disability?
How can the arts and cultural sector better champion the creativity of artists with disability?
How has the COVID-pandemic affected the creative practice of artists with disability and what short, medium and long-term impacts will this have?
Building Better Opportunities
How can we create more professional opportunities for arts practitioners with disability in a post-COVID world?
Have past initiatives been successful? If not, why not? Do we need more targeted approaches?
Does the shift to working from home offer more options in terms of work/training?
How do we reduce the barriers that artists and arts workers with disability experience in relation to getting employment/training?
Building Better Participation
What does the post-COVID future look like in terms of providing programming and services for audiences/visitors with disability?
How will changes to health and safety affect the participation of audiences/visitors with disability?
How can we use the experience of COVID to encourage venues to be more responsive to the access requirements of audiences with disability?
Building Better Representation & Appreciation
What opportunities and challenges does a post-COVID world present for how people with disability are represented in media and the performing arts?
How can the diversity of people with disability be better represented in the arts and disability sector specifically as well as creative industries more broadly?
How can we better communicate the aesthetic value of work created by artists with disability?
How can venues and arts companies improve how they program and promote the work of artists with disability?
Building Better Use of Technology / Design
COVID has turbo-charged the use of digital and online technologies. What does this mean for how arts practitioners with disability work and audiences with disability participate? What are the access implications?
How can access to digital programming and services be provided to people with disability who don’t have access to digital technologies?
What will the legacy of COVID mean for the design of venues? Will they need to become more accessible?
Building Better Advocacy
What lessons has COVID taught us in relation to advocating for better outcomes for people with disability?
What kind of new structures/approaches need to be put in place to improve how the interests of people with disability are responded to in the arts and cultural sector?
How can government and industry improve how they identify and support arts and disability advocates and their allies?