In this newsletter we chart the development of captioning in the performing arts, explore the landscape of the disability arts sector in Sweden, learn about the disability and access work of major funder, the Wellcome Trust, go on a virtual tour of DisArt's latest exhibition and look back at some of our favourite content from the last year.

Following the recent launch of the National Theatre's 'smart caption glasses', disabled writer, artist and curator, Sandra Alland explores how captioning has developed in the performing arts, highlighting a range of international innovations.  Learn about portable and inexpensive closed caption apps like Adelaide’s GoTheatrical and Coventry’s Difference Engine, and creative and integrated open captions from Glasgow’s Birds of Paradise and London’s Graeae. Alland also examines large-scale options – from opera infotainment screens at Vienna’s Wiener Staatsoper, to Madrid’s deep-learning Stage-sync app, to the smart caption glasses at London’s National Theatre.

UK-based disabled journalist and theatre-maker Kate Lovell explores the disability arts landscape in Sweden, speaking to funders such as the Swedish Arts Council and profiling many of the key players including  Danskompaniet Spinn, ShareMusic and Performing Arts, Moomsteatern, Skånes Dansteater and Tyst Teater.


Read the profile of the disability arts sector in Sweden
 

The Wellcome Trust is a charitable organisation which is a major funder of research into health and wellbeing. The Wellcome Collection is its free museum and library in London. Visitor Experience Manager, Orla O'Donnell shares some of the work the collection has done with disabled artists and in making the collection more accessible to disabled audiences, over its first ten years. 

Find out more about the Wellcome Collection

At a ceremony hosted at the European Parliament in Brussels on 28 November, the British Council was awarded an Institutional Award as part of the "Art Patrons of the XXI century" Awards for its work supporting disabled artists and audiences globally. The award made specific mention of Disability Arts International and the recently-announced Creative Europe co-funded partnership project, Europe Beyond Access.

Find out about the British Council's Institutional Award

Co-Directors of Michigan-based DisArt Jill Vyn and Chris Smit share details of their current exhibition Process and Presence: Contemporary Disability Sculpture introducing some of the digital tools they have used to make the show accessible including a virtual tour of the exhibition and an online collection of audio descriptions and soundscapes relating to each piece featured in it (both of which you can explore for yourself). 

Take the virtual tour of Process and Presence

Back in February, we explored two contrasting approaches to disabled access in galleries and museums.

In May, we charted the rise of 'relaxed performances'.

In August, we released a resource listing many of Europe's disability arts festivals.

In October, we looked at one of the first ever archives of disability arts, NDACA. 

Moomsteatern is a professional theatre company based in Malmö, Sweden which works with learning-disabled actors who are all paid a salary and trained at the National Theatre Academy. Moomsteatern's work has an emphasis on high artistic quality

See Moomsteatern's profile

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