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
Sculpture by the Sea adds touch to its tours
On Friday 13 November 2009, three people with low vision participated in the first guided touch tour presented at Sculpture by the Sea. The tour was a huge success engaging three volunteers with extensive experience in the visual arts and touch tours to lead the tour.
Accessible Arts CEO, Sancha Donald, Emily Mierisch, Education Coordinator from Sculpture by the Sea, Bruce Maguire from Australian Human Rights Commission and Anneke Barnes, Access to Festival Coordinator from Accessible Arts also joined the pilot tour.
Sculpture by the Sea presented the guided touch tours as part of their education program at the exhibition. People were able to discover and appreciate sculpture in a way rarely considered or accessible - through touch. In the unconventional setting along the panoramic coastal walk from Tamarama beach to Bondi, this opportunity included feeling such sculptures as May Barrie's time and tide granite monolith II. The 91 year old's sculpture won the $60,000 Balnaves Foundation Sculpture Prize for her granite rock that has been polished until it is cold and smooth, juxtaposed to an unfinished surface rough and jagged.
Anneke Barnes, Access to Festivals Coordinator said "The tour was a huge success, with the main feedback being that people just wished they had more time to explore the large amount of artwork at this year's exhibition".
Anneke will meet with the Sculpture by the Sea team to develop the guided touch tour program for future years and to ensure that more audience have the opportunity to experience the sculptures on offer.