Following the success of the audio-described Tactile Tour program in 2010, Sculpture by the Sea are partnering with Accessible Arts to offer people with vision impairment and people with intellectual disability the opportunity to engage with art in a hands-on guided experience.
Accessible Arts hosted the Festivals Forum in July 2011, to review access for people with disability at festival events throughout NSW. Representatives from fifteen festivals large and small, and supporting arts organisations, gathered at the Utzon Room at Sydney Opera House to attend the three hour forum.
As part of an agreement to support festivals to develop accessibility, Accessible Arts has provided training to Sculpture by the Sea staff for the third consecutive year. Twelve staff from all sections of the organisation attended three hours of Disability Awareness and Access training to further embed accessibility practices throughout their organisation.
Festivals are increasing in popularity and continue to give expression and exposure to innovative creative arts and culture, which in turn adds greater vibrancy to communities who share in these occasions. Accessible Arts will present a forum in July, to bring festival producers together to discuss the unique challenges they face when improving access to festival events.
Nastasia Campanella is a Sydney based freelance print, radio and online journalist who also happens to be blind. She recently attended one of the audio described tactile tours presented by Sculpture by the Sea in partnership with Accessible Arts and reported on the experience.News
Accessible Cinema at the Sydney Film Festival third year running
Sydney Film Festival is inviting Sydneysiders to get off their couch and experience the real deal from 3-14 June 2009.
For the third year running, the festival will feature a program of Accessible Cinema, with a range of movies exploring disability and access issues. In partnership with Accessible Arts, the accessible cinema program will be launched on Saturday 6 June 2009 at 2pm by Professor Ron McCallum AO, United Nations Special Rapporteur for Disability. The launch will include a screening of A Good Man (Australia), a documentary and love story about a struggling Australian famer, his wife who has quadriplegia and their plans to open a brothel.
Other films included in Accessible Cinema will be Blind Loves (Slovak Republic), a film examining the ways in which people who are blind find love, and The Horse Boy (USA), following the journey of an American family to Mongolia to see if traditional healing can help their autistic son.
An industry forum Representation and Engagement: enriched filmmaking by cast and crews with disability at 4:00 pm on Sunday 7 June 2009 in the Statement Bar at the State Theatre, will involve discussions with film makers and directors about the rewards and challenges involved in producing films with a cast and crew of people with and without a disability. Australian films such as the Black Balloon and Be My Brother will be highlighted as recent examples of successful productions.
Rear window technology that can provide captioning and audio description will be trialed for the first time in Australasia in 2009.
In keeping with its commitment to accessibility, all Sydney Film Festival screenings will be honouring the Companion Card and all venues are wheelchair accessible.