Claire Cunningham speaking at Art and Disability Crossing the Borders conference.  ©

Marta Ankiersztejn

The Art and Disability: Crossing the borders conference took place on 4 and 5 April 2019. This was the first ever Polish national conference exploring how to increase cultural opportunities for disabled people as audiences and as artists. The conference was organised by the British Council, the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, the Zbigniew Raszewski Theatre Institute, the Institute of Music and Dance with support of the British Embassy in Poland, and the steering group also included Theatre 21. The conference was part of the European artistic collaboration project Europe Beyond Access, coordinated by the British Council and supported by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union.

The unique approach of the conference was to bring together the topic of cultural access for audiences and visitors (best practice, challenges and solutions), with the unique artistic innovations of high-quality disabled artists. For the organising partners it was important to show that these topics cannot be separated: you cannot talk about audience access to the arts without questioning who is making the art; and you cannot present the work of world-class disabled artists without thinking about who has access to these works.

Guests included: Claire Cunningham (choreographer and dancer), Jo Verrent (main producer of the Unlimited Festival), Marcus Dickey-Horley (curator of open programs at Tate Modern) and representatives of the Culture without Barriers Foundation and Theatre 21.

The conference was part of Europe Beyond Access, coordinated by the British Council and supported by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union.

The full conference programme (in Polish) is here.