Disability Culture and Human Rights
DaDaFest International Congress
Disability Culture and Human Rights
The Bluecoat, Liverpool
Day Two: 3rd December 2014
Session Five
Disability Arts: The Journey to Change
(Morning Plenary)
Page 2
Session Six
The Big Debate: ‘This Congress proposes that Disability Arts are a form of human rights activism and as such only Disabled people should be its leaders.’
Page 47
Session Seven
Be the Change: A Call to Action
(Afternoon Plenary)
Page 59
Congress Poet - Roger Cliffe-Thompson
Pages 4, 47, 87 and 107
Session Five
Disability Arts: The Journey to Change
Chair: Liz Carr
Speakers: Sir Peter Bazalgette, ‘Rights to Inclusion’
Charles McKay, ‘The Business of Inclusion’
Chris Smit, ‘The Festival of Change: Towards a More Inclusive Society’
Julie McNamara, ‘What is the Final Destination?’
Liz Carr: Good morning!
Everyone: Good Morning!
Liz Carr: But even better than that it is not just any morning, is it?
From Audience: No!
Liz Carr: No. What morning is it? Do we know? International Day of Disabled People!
It is our day; it is a great day. I am very excited! Did you enjoy yesterday, those that were here?
Audience: Yes!
Liz Carr: Okay, so today is more of the same and if you are still around tonight there is wonderful entertainment, and there is an International Day of Disabled People cabaret this evening as well. I am biased, I am hosting it - be there.
Thank you. It will be all sorts of madness and wonderful things; madness in the best reclaimed way, of course.
I have to do all the domestic stuff, so let me do that and be all business-y. Housekeeping stuff - I am reading this, so apologies - there are toilets on every level, apparently. You have probably worked out that if you need the accessible loo you have to use the lift, so it is a miracle we get here after breaks, to be honest. There is a hoist in the opposite side of the building, if anybody needs to know about that ask one of the staff or find it, but you may never get back. There is a quiet room in the Library. We have all sorts of access, you might have worked that out yesterday: we have lip speakers; we have BSLI; we have audio description; hearing loop. So, again, please identify the assistance or any of those if you need that; it is there, you might as well make the best of it [because] so few events have it all.
No flash photography please; take loads of pictures, tweet them, do whatever you want with them - maybe I shouldn’t say that.
But no flash photography please, it upsets some people [and is] not good for us. Let us know if you need anything. Just to remind you again there is the Arts Fringe going on today, so there are other things happening: the exhibition downstairs, performances throughout the day, the information for that is in your bag - your lovely bag.
Yesterday we had Jenny Sealey from Graeae Theatre. Sadly she can’t be here today, but she is trying to gather information on how the cuts to Access to Work and the Independent Living Fund are hitting people, particularly disabled artists: she is interested generally, but really specifically within the world she that is working and that is Disability Arts. How are these cuts to the support that allows us to do our jobs, how is that hitting us? And it might not be you, but it might be people that you know. She would really like to gather those stories. I guess in a way to present a campaign to the government. So, if you have any stories; I am sure we will have a few.
And, I think that is it that I want to say. Before we get going - as I say, it is International Day - we have our roving, wonderful Congress poet, Roger Cliffe-Thompson, and I would like him, before I introduce this morning’s session, to invite Roger to join us with this morning’s poem. Roger, come on!
Roger Cliffe-Thompson: Thanks Liz. Did you say “rover” or “roving”?
Liz Carr: Well, it depends!
Roger Cliffe-Thompson: It depends! Well, to start the day I wrote one last night - as you do - and it is called ‘The Ace of Arts’:
The Ace of Arts
is the strongest card in the pack
it trumps all other initiatives
use it
and we’ll never look back
for the Arts regenerates ambition
stems the tide of fear
disarms those opposed to difference
diffuses the knowing sneer.
It’s platform levels ability
it’s the invisible glue that binds
unrestricted by wealth and mobility
The Ace of Arts is a universal sign
of … inclusion.
So let's braid our arts together
into a glittering cord of hope
where Scope
is not limited by prejudice
but based on shared respect.
and
when our tide of social inclusion
submerges those isolate shores
and we becomes world leaders
using the Arts as a primary source
we will build an egalitarian future
for all citizens rich and poor
Watch out discrimination
The Ace of Arts
is your force majeure.
“Biscuit!”
Liz Carr: So, thank you Roger. Roger will be back throughout the day, summing up what we are doing with other bits of poetry from himself and from other people. So we have got that to look forward to.
Tomorrow - er, tomorrow? Yes, let’s talk about the future - no, let’s talk about the past.
Let’s talk about yesterday. An amazing day: so many sessions looking at the arts and human rights; looking at arts as a potential for change; and looking at what is happening, what the richness of disability art is out there through Unlimited and through international programs. An amazing, amazing day.
Today we are going to move on - and continue in the same vein - to look at what is happening. This morning’s session is very much looking at the journey to change and how we get there. And when we get there, what does it look like? Okay? So let’s be thinking about that as I begin to introduce our four speakers. So we have four speakers - sadly one of the speakers can’t be here so we will have a film to replace that person - and then we are going to hopefully have time for your wonderful questions and answers.
So I would like to - grab my paper - and I would like to begin this morning’s session by welcoming to the stage, who has joined us today, Sir Peter Bazalgette: who is the Chair of Arts Council England. So if you would please give him a very warm round of applause. Sir Peter!
Peter Bazalgette: So good morning everybody, and thank you very much for inviting me here today. It is quite exciting and a privilege, actually, to be speaking here on the International Day of the Disabled; that is fantastic.
I suppose I ought to start with an apology after listening to Roger’s brilliant opening poem, as I feel I should be making my speech in rhyming couplets but unfortunately it is going to be prose. So I am sorry about that, but I will try better next time.
But it is really great for me to be here at this festival; and I am delighted the Arts Council supports the festival. And celebrating - it says it just there [indicating slide] - 30 years, I think that deserves a round of applause: it probably had one yesterday, but I think we should have one again.
[30 years] celebrating talent and excellence in disability and deaf arts. So DaDaFest has been a great innovator, and a game changer in promoting the inclusion of disabled artists throughout the spectrum of arts and culture. As I said, the Arts Council has been a consistent supporter of DaDaFest, and we are very, very pleased that we have been able to commit to supporting DaDaFest as a National Portfolio organisation for the next three years, from March 2015. So that, I hope, gives some certainty to the activities of the organisation, which is really important for planning ahead.
So I want to begin today by talking a little about how the work that DaDaFest does relates to our art and culture sector generally and why that is so important. Ruth is joining me on Monday in London for a speech I will refer to a bit later on - a very important speech, which is really a partner of today’s speech - about the general commitment the Arts Council needs to make to diversity over the next three to four years.
Despite a long struggle - and eventual progress - around legal rights, in which many of you here have been involved, disabled and deaf people are still not included in the way our society thinks or works. As you’ll all be aware, there is a vast disparity in educational qualifications between disabled and non-disabled people. Less than half of disabled people are in employment compared to more than three quarters of working age non-disabled people. Disabled people are still not in the picture we have of society. We don’t see you, we don’t hear you, and when we do it is too often in negative contexts.
This great tranche of creative potential has been passed over; I might add, not here, not in the last 24 hours. That is brilliant. By the way, brilliant show last night apparently, yes? Enjoy yourselves?
To many people, our disabled and deaf population does remain invisible: the family member who no one talks about. Now, I know that when it comes to diversity, things in the arts and culture sector in England are far from perfect. And this is the subject, as I say, of an important speech - which I regard as probably the most important speech I might make as Chair of the Arts Council - which I will be giving on Monday. And I will be talking specifically then about what we have to do in the coming years. But there is no doubting our desire to change and our potential to change perceptions about disability. We can help to make the invisible visible.
[Sound of dog shaking in the audience]
And every time that lovely dog shakes itself I know it is agreeing with me!
Bless it. What is the name of the dog?
Julie Newman: “Precious”.
Peter Bazalgette: Precious! I knew it! Precious, thank you for your support.
We can promote talent, wherever and whatever its circumstances, and help it to have a voice and a stage. We can show that disabled people belong in the hearts of our arts; and our arts and culture are at the heart of our nation, our whole nation.
In making the case for public investment in art and culture - more generally - we have been talking about the vital contribution the arts make across all aspects of our lives, our communities and our country. Something we have been doing now for 12-15 months, in a concerted way. How the arts are integral to our growth as individuals: how they are essential to our education, our health and our integrity as a society. How the arts play an increasingly significant role with in the creative industries and how they fly the flag abroad for Britain. So the arts are a critical national resource.
We call this whole map - of why we need public investment into the arts - we call it the Holistic Case for Public Investment in Arts and Culture. And when we foreground the work of disabled artists in this national resource we are sending a message, I think, nationally and internationally - thanks to this Congress in particular - because it is estimated there are a billion disabled people worldwide: that is 15% of the world’s population. And although disabled rights are human rights, United Nations figures show that there are there are just 45 countries in the world that have anti-discrimination and other disability specific laws.
So an event like to Cultural Olympiad in 2012 - which I am sure has come up in your conversations over the last 24 hours more than once - is of enormous significance. It put disabled artists in the spotlight internationally; it can make a huge difference to perceptions. It can change minds, and I believe it did change lives. And that is why the arts are so dynamic and so important.
What we want, of course, is that disabled and deaf artists should be visible in the work of all our arts and cultural organisations, all the time. The Arts Council’s Mission is “great art and culture for everyone”; I should add ‘from everyone’ too, but we weren’t allowed to put that in, too many words. At this stage of our development as a society we want to dismantle the barriers for disabled and deaf people, and - as I touched on earlier - the arts have a crucial role to play in this. First: in providing disabled and deaf people with the same opportunities that everyone should have to participate in the arts. Second: we should be able to demonstrate to the wider world the excellence of disabled artists. That on merit they are shoulder to shoulder with all our creative talent; something you have been demonstrating here in the last day.
The latter point touches upon an important issue about the Arts Council’s approach to disability now and in the future. Much superlative work has been done by particular organisations to promote the work of disabled artists, and to provide them with the environment and support to develop and to promote their work. The contradiction here is that the achievement of disabled artists can be regarded as exceptional for the wrong reasons: not applauded because it is creatively brilliant, because it is aesthetically good, but because it has happened at all. That someone has prevailed against barriers that should not be there. We want an arts and culture environment in which there is no barrier to progress other than the limits of talent, and no higher accolade than the appreciation of the public for the exceptional nature of the art.
All arts organisations that we support should promote diversity in their work and in their workforce, and that includes disabled and deaf people. In my speech that I have referred to a couple of times - because it is an important one - next week, I will be setting out what the Arts Council will be doing to promote diversity across all its work. The speech is going to reiterate and build on what I am saying here today.