Hill Strategies Releases Arts Research Monitor on Deaf and Disability Arts
/Hill Strategies has released a new volume of its Arts Research Monitor, focusing on Deaf and disability arts. The issue features insights into the arts practices of Deaf and disabled peoples, their accessibility challenges, and suggestions for improvement, based on four recent reports from Canada and the United States. These resources could help artists and arts workers improve the accessibility of the works that they create and produce.
The reports include:
Deaf and Disability Arts Practices in Canada: Summary
Canada Council for the Arts, February 20, 2021
Based on interviews and focus group sessions with 85 artists and cultural workers, as well as a literature review, this report provides an overview of the artistic practices of “Deaf artists and artists with disabilities, … and related findings concerning accessibility, equity, self-determination, and support”.
BEING Studio, 2021
Organized by Ottawa-based BEING Studio, Artist Connect was “a series of online events” in early 2020 that brought together artists with disabilities from six Canadian communities. To enhance accessibility, event organizers created short video reports instead of preparing a conventional written report.
Theatre Passe Muraille, July 2021
With the idea that “making theatre accessible makes the work better and leads to more exciting experiences for everyone”, Toronto-based Theatre Passe Muraille (TPM) tested a range of accessibility methods in workshops that took place months before a work would be put on stage. TPM’s Accessibility Labs explored “how accessibility initiatives can be a more ingrained part of an artistic process”.
Accessibility and the Arts: Reconsidering the Role of the Artist
Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture with the Center for Business and Management of the Arts at Claremont Graduate University, December 2020
Targeted to the visual arts but of interest to the broader arts community, this report examines the accessibility of artworks for disabled people. The findings are based on 23 “interviews with disabled and non-disabled artists and art professionals” in Los Angeles.
