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
Sydney Writers' Festival Wrap
The 2009 Sydney Writers' Festival wrapped up at the end of May this year. It was another successful year for the festival with over 76,000 people attending and 350 plus events that took place in Sydney and throughout NSW. This made the 2009 festival the third largest in the festival's history.
Accessible Arts would like to congratulate the SWF for providing Auslan interpretation for the first time in the festival's history. ‘International Voices' was Auslan interpreted in one of Sydney's most prestigious venues, the Sydney Theatre in front of over 600 audience members, with several audience members from the Deaf community attending. Five authors read in their own voices from their most recent works. Accessible Arts would like to thank Tanya Miller and Robert Knock who interpreted some very challenging pieces of literature and for doing justice to the words on the page and the passion in the stories.
Over the past five years Accessible Arts has partnered with the SWF to develop and deliver access goals. This has included the introduction of clear and accurate symbols in the program including venue access information, hiring a fully accessible shuttle bus that runs from Circular Quay to Walsh Bay throughout the festival and this year an Auslan interpreted evening.
Accessible Arts sought feedback from audience who used the Auslan interpretation service and intends to meet with the SWF organisers in early August for a debrief of the 2009 festival.