Essential Audiences – Disability and new audiences

Arts Council England?s New Audiences Programme has invested £1.8m in 112 projects supporting change within arts organisations and tackling the barriers preventing disabled people from engaging with the arts. Projects have provided significant new insights into possible ways forward ? particularly significant in 2003, the European Year of Disabled People.

De Montfort University was commissioned to evaluate 20 projects within the New Audiences Disability strand. Evaluator Michele Taylor pointed out: ?If you were to ask me for one word in terms of factors of success, the word would be ?relationships?.? The success of ambassador schemes, programming, marketing and awareness-building has been greatly enhanced by high quality relationship-building. Consulting and planning with disabled people and employing specialist advisers have also emerged as crucially important. ?Without exception, organisations really responded to relationships with individual consultants? asserted Michele.

Organisational change

Changes making buildings more accessible are vital, and benefit many target groups. New Audiences concentrated on supporting attitudinal and organisational change. Equata, a disability agency for the South West, developed a Disability Equality Training programme called Impact, seeking to help mainstream organisations to reach their potential audience among disabled people. Equata consultants worked alongside partner organisations to effect change in policy and practice. One, noting the legacy of this training, said ?The organisation has made real progress and now has more knowledge and confidence to continue.?

NorDAF (Northern Disability Arts Forum) recognised that some organisations can find it daunting to accommodate the full diversity of requirements. Seeking to overcome these reservations, they appointed disabled people as ambassadors to visit organisations over a period, working directly with staff to initiate change. ?I?ve learnt ? about mental health, learning disability, signage, visual access in design, how staff can approach people and change things without being threatened or threatening,? said Denise Armstrong from the Northern Gallery for Contemporary Arts.

Programming

In 2000, New Audiences funded national research into the provision of disability arts work (Knocking On Doors), and supported projects enabling audiences to experience work by disabled performers. Heart ‘n’ Soul, a touring company of 14 professional actors with learning disabilities, programmed intensive outreach and performance work with mid-scale venues around the country. They have created what director Mark Williams calls ?a cultural momentum?, and left a strong, empowering legacy due to careful relationship-building. The Oakengates Theatre in Telford and the West Yorkshire Playhouse are planning to run events of their own based on Heart ‘n’ Soul?s Beautiful Octopus Club. ?There is a real commitment from local arts groups and self-advocacy groups who really want something to happen.? Mark explained.

Marketing and communication

Communicating clearly with people with all kinds of impairments is an area of continuing development. It requires a knowledge of appropriate formats and styles which not all arts organisations can lay claim to. Many were able to try new approaches through New Audiences.

The Hands Up! project aimed to overcome barriers to attendance and participation identified by the Deaf community in Derby, to test marketing innovations and develop new programming. Ian Carpenter, a Deaf community development worker, was appointed by Q Arts to develop networks and training for arts organisations, and to create links with Deaf people. A new attender said: ?I always drove past Derby Dance Centre thinking it was a posh place not for public use. Now I know it?s a place that?s accessible for Deaf people.?

Website technology has also been used to provide excellent access information. A national overview of arts venues and their accessibility, and of European Year of Disabled People projects, can be found on {http@://www.fullcircle.co.uk}, whose d@d@ project produced a pioneering model of what can be achieved. MAGIC ? Museums and Galleries in the Capital ? worked with Deafworks to provide a service for Deaf people in London through a website (http://www.magicdeaf.org.uk), giving information in both written and BSL form, using video clips. Sarah Bedell of Aspirational Arts points out that marketing to disabled people can be seen as another form of niche marketing. ?If you look at the requirements of groups with specific needs, you?ll find that they reflect in miniature the same desires and needs of larger or more mainstream groups,? she said.

Many challenges remain. There are issues around ethical data collection, the need to embed changes tested thorough time-limited projects and developing appropriate consultation models. Recognising that arts organisations can experience considerable barriers to becoming truly accessible, New Audiences has supported both solidly developmental work and some genuinely exciting innovations.

Beyond the Page
Find extra information, downloadable reports, summaries and resources to help your organisation to develop accessibility and to market to disabled audiences at http://www.newaudiences.org.uk

Feedback to Essential Audiences can be sent to [email protected].

Essential Audiences is compiled and written by Catherine Rose. For more information about the New Audiences Programme, contact the Arts Council England, 14 Great Peter Street, London SW1P 3NQ.
t: 020 7973 6497 f: 020 7973 6791 e: [email protected] textphone: 020 7973 6564