This blog post was originally written and started in 2025, after noticing a troubling lack of disability access or support consideration at arts and cultural events and activities I attended.
Here are my thoughts from early last year. They are still as pertinent today.
January 2025
After attending another event where access was poor or very non-existent at the back end of 2024, I began to ask myself this question:
Are disabled people being forgotten about in arts and culture… again?
Continuing health issues and family commitments meant I wasn’t as active in the artistic community. Still, I was shocked to see that access to creative professional events wasn’t even on the radar.
Yet, worryingly, I’ve observed that this is part of a broader trend of disabled people not being considered, whether in accessing arts and cultural activities and events or as artists and creative practitioners.
First, let me outline these observations.
Access issues at events that I attended or wished to attend:
- Hearing – in both instances, the acoustics made it difficult to hear guest speakers and hosts.
- Visual – one event projected their presentation on an exposed brick wall, which made it difficult to see. Coupled with atrocious acoustics, I began to wonder why I had bothered going. When asked by the event organiser if I had enjoyed the presentations and talks, I frustratingly snapped back, “I couldn’t hear most of it”. To which the reply was, “We must learn to do better.” Yes, yes, you should. It’s exhausting having to re-educate an organisation again and again.
- Environment – cold venues and events and presentations with no lift access.
- Streaming of shows/events has disappeared. So much was promised throughout the pandemic about the adoption of streaming by arts and cultural organisations and individuals. Now, next to nada.
- Parking – this seems to be a dirty word, especially for the city/town centres where the local government seems hell-bent on creating pedestrianised zones with very little thought to how it impacts disabled people. In my city, we have a lot of shiny new buildings and a new cultural quarter being developed, yet it is challenging to get to. There is no disabled parking right outside, and when there is, specifically in Sunderland, you are competing with what will be three big cultural venues and a taxi rank that is rarely used.
False Access Hope
Picture this… It’s 2020, and the world is panicking as people are being ordered to stay home because of COVID-19. All businesses and industries are still scrambling to figure out how to operate. The arts and cultural sector is no different.
Disabled people are consulted on how to engage with audiences online.
Funding is suddenly available to deliver online sessions.
Audiences can access cultural events and activities online.
It feels like disabled people can finally engage in cultural activities within the confines of our own spaces and conditions.
There’s the promise of hybrid delivery once the doors are allowed to open again.
Skip to 2026, and I find myself asking the question: are disabled people being forgotten about in arts and culture… again?
Two perspectives
There are two areas that I’d like to talk about here. The first is from a practitioner perspective. The second is engaging in arts and cultural activities as a disabled person.
From a disabled creative practitioner perspective, despite the challenging times disabled people faced in the pandemic, we found ourselves courted by mainstream arts and cultural leaders, as they scrambled to engage with the community and the public outside of their own four walls.
Initially, I found myself feeling resentful that mainstream organisations were muscling into a space and technology that disabled people have been using to engage, build platforms and connections for a good couple of decades. Yet, I did feel hopeful that the cultural landscape – preoccupied with place-based funding would actually see the benefit of funding groups with a particular connection.
It did not come to pass.
Lockdown was lifted.
Funding faded.
The emphasis has been on getting people back into cultural buildings, and the ever-growing emphasis on funding for local engagement.
Same old, same old pre-2020.
For the latter perspective – hearing about workshops, events, presentations, award ceremonies – where no access requirements are considered, and the feigned-shock surprise when brought to task about, or worse still, being seen as a troublemaker for ‘making a fuss’.
So what do we do?
We do what we always do as disabled people.
We campaign, we write blog posts like this.
We model how we want the world to look, treat and include people.
We knock on doors, we complain, we ask – again and again – to be given a seat at the table where decisions that impact our lives and ability to engage in arts and culture are made.
It’s now 2026; all of the above, along with the hostile media hit pieces in the last 12 months (side-eyes The Telegraph), I’m convinced that access and inclusion of disabled people in society have regressed by at least 10 to 15 years.
I’m seeing those who once advocated for us to be in the room, either moving onto other funded groups or moving on themselves.
My heart sinks when I hear a cultural organisation has hired an ‘Access Consultant’ as the catch-all for complying with the Equality Act and relating specifically to building access. Seeing us as one homogeneous group, rather than individual communities with very different access and support needs, with rich histories and stories waiting to be told and platformed.
Being an artist and creative practitioner is challenging, to say the least. Funding and acquiring funding is more difficult to come by than it should be, and it doesn’t require you to burn yourself out on the off-chance of being accepted.
A Plea to Art and Cultural Leaders
I know this post shows a bleak perspective on inclusion in the arts and cultural landscape, yet I urge cultural leaders who have the power to decide who to include and empower to ensure that inclusion of disabled creatives or communities is not forgotten or goes unfunded.