History of Disability Arts

This short piece about the history of Disability Arts by Katherine Walsh appeared in the Magazine of the Coalition of Disabled People Birmingham in September 2005:

I became involved in Disability Arts at the beginning of the 1990s following a cabaret in the Birmingham International Women's Festival in 1990. This came about following a meeting that I had with the head of the then women's unit who was keen to see disability (previously in­visible) put on the agenda. Clare Graydon James, Wanda Barbara and Kate Portal took part in the cabaret, supported by Johnny Crescendo. It was performed under the auspices of the Birmingham Disability Rights Group.

In the beginning, Disability Arts performance took place around London (London Disability Arts Forum) and Liverpool (North West Disability Arts Forum). When a small pot of money became available via the EC, a national conference of disabled people was set up in Lancaster with a view to having a national committee. This is now the National Disability Arts Forum with an office in Newcastle on Tyne. NDAF publishes a weekly magazine "Etcetera" available free by e-mail. To get this phone NDAF on 0191-261 1628 or e-mail silvie@ndaf.org

 

Many people saw Disability Arts as a campaigning tool after the manner in which art and music had been used in the Anti-Apartheid struggle in Southern Africa. There was literature and conferences surrounding this debate at the time.

 

Disability artists appeared regularly at the annual conference of BCODP and at rallies in Trafalgar Square and elsewhere in London. Disability performance figured prominently in the two "Block Telethon" campaigns. Artist, Tony Heaton, was commissioned to do a live art performance in which he shattered a pyramid of collecting boxes belonging to the major disability charities who collect money on our behalf, get jobs and build up their own empires.

 

Katherine Walsh

This article was written by Paddy Masefield for Disability Now in 2008

Funding cut 'sounds death knell' for disability arts

The decision by the Arts Council to cut funding to arts organisations beggars belief and flies in the face of a recent vote of confidence, says Paddy Masefield

 

So, it’s official now. Disability arts are to be dead and buried in the 21st century. That‘s the decision of Arts Council England (ACE). ACE’s London regional office wrote to the London Disability Arts Forum (LDAF) on 16 December, advising that their grant would be terminated on 1 April, 2008. Some might see this as peculiarly Scrooge-like timing.

 

But what makes this decision more surprising is that ACE has recently heard that it is itself to receive a larger than expected government grant for the coming four years. Yet it has decided to axe one fifth of all its clients in order to give more to the others. Such action is unprecedented in the Arts Council’s 63-year history. And it is largely the small organisations, including not only LDAF but also five other disability arts organisations who are being sliced to top up the Christmas stockings of the largest.

 

Should the disability constituency be concerned about this action? And have they ever expressed a consultative view? The answers to both are – yes. Firstly, the loss of LDAF will mean the closure of the UK’s only national disability arts magazine – Art Disability Culture – and an end to the country’s only disability film festival.

 

But the second reason is even more interesting. Because as recently as 3 December, LDAF and the Office for Disability Issues had hosted a debate at Tate Modern, chaired by Melvyn Bragg, entitled: ‘Should disability and Deaf arts be dead and buried in the twenty-first century?’ To which, after a fascinating two hours, the packed audience, largely composed of England’s leading disabled arts practitioners, voted overwhelmingly ‘No’. To be followed by the unanimous endorsement of a second motion: ‘We call upon the Arts Council to endorse this by committing itself to increased funding in the 21st century’. As the closing speaker, my comments were eerily prescient: “If ACE makes us wait three to five years for a promised financially committed policy for disabled people in the arts, then at current rates of extinction there will quite seriously be no disability arts movement left.”

 

• Paddy Masefield is a writer and speaker. His last book was STRENGTH: Broadsides from Disability on the Arts (2006).