We’ve just wrapped up four intense, inspiring days in Remscheid. The Creative-Lab focused on the question of how artistic work from a disability perspective can be strengthened, deepened, and become a natural part of our cultural landscape.
To explore this, we invited five experts from the UK and Germany, who gave all participants insight into their artistic practices as well as their day-to-day work in organizations that benefit from disabled leadership. Working in small and larger groups, the participants then collaborated on both methodological and artistic projects. They tested ideas, reflected on them, and envisioned the future. A future in which we are all allowed to be different, treat one another with respect, and learn from our differences.
A large part of the time was devoted to practical artistic work. In various dance and theater workshops, the participants developed scenes, improvised with objects, wrote scenarios, and tested them out through play. The artistic exploration of the following questions was particularly exciting: What have we never seen on stage, even though it belongs there? What images and stories are still missing? These ideas were documented and became the starting point for further artistic processes.
There was also an in-depth discussion of structures and how artists with disabilities can shape and lead artistic processes themselves, bring about lasting change in structures, and what conditions need to be created to make this possible. Can “Disabled Leadership” and concepts like “Crip Time” become the norm in cultural organizations? Spoiler: Yes, it’s possible!
However, what also became clear to us over the course of those four days is that places like the Kreativ-Labor are a parallel world. Unfortunately, the reality in the cultural landscape and in our society in general is quite different. There is still a long way to go before the perspectives of people with disabilities are truly taken into account and artists with disabilities have a permanent place in culture, especially in leadership positions.
Inclusion doesn’t end with an invitation to the table. It begins where decision-making power is shared and where people with disabilities not only help shape culture but also have a say in it.
The Creative-Lab took place as part of Access Maker – Innovationshub and was funded by:
