BEST PRACTICE SPONSOR 2020
THE PARLIAMENTARY REVIEW
Highlighting best practice
28 | SHAPE ARTS
Iwasable to succeed by naming and
politicising the barriers I faced, creating
content that captured my anger in an
aesthetic form. I made films and poster
campaigns that played to millions
because I asked tough questions about
the nature of the barriers I faced and
why they existed.
Britain may well be a progressive
country, but awareness of barriers
must be raised in order for the people
whom we champion to be successful.
Although somewhat counterintuitive,
culture and the arts are often inclusive,
but you have to start pushing against
resistance to change to feel the benefit
of this. My own experience of this
journey has led me to head up an
organisation that tries to help others
follow the same path.
Identifying barriers and
creating art
In order to support our artists and
creatives, we first try to identify
the paradigm that our creatives
are trapped in. These barriers can
take a wide variety of forms, from
financial problems, which can lead to
internalised disappointment, to the lack
of a digital footprint for their work.
Throughout all we do, we support our
creatives to achieve excellence, with our
focus always remaining on supporting
a diverse and strong culture in the UK
and internationally. There are countless
individuals creating great work with our
support, and we help them to achieve
the high profile this work deserves. We
have achieved remarkable success in
this endeavour, and our artists regularly
reach combined audiences in the
hundreds of millions.
This support takes a variety of forms,
including bursaries and projects, which
can be commissioned and supported.
At any point in time, we are working
with around 200 creatives, and out of
this mix, we often have breakout hits.
The NDACA project
An example of this in action, and our
wider work, is the NDACA project.
Founded by Tony Heaton OBE, the
aim of the project is to chronicle and
bring to life the heritage story of the
UK Disability Arts Movement. This
movement began in the late 1970s,
and continues to this day, and involved
a group of disabled people and their
allies breaking down barriers and
managing to help change the law
Artist Jo Bannon,
from the David Hevey
Unlimited
films
Our artists
regularly reach
combined
audiences in
the hundreds
of millions
“
“
29SHAPE ARTS |
with the introduction of the Disability
Discrimination Act of 1995 and
muchmore.
Our aim was not only to collect the
heritage story but to find the best-
possible forms of art and creativity
to express it. We combined issues
and aesthetics to create an engaging
narrative; if your only focus is on
the issues, and you neglect creating
engaging aesthetics, you become
worthy but not great.
The project now comprises a catalogue
of 3,500 images alongside learning
resources, oral history films and
various other biographies and art
works that capture the lives of those
who contributed to the Disability Arts
Movement. Alongside this catalogue,
we opened NDACA research facilities,
which are hosted at Buckinghamshire
New University. These include
an NDACA Learning Wing and a
repository of all the physical deposits
that were created for the project.
Adapting to a changing society
Brexit has affected us in terms of its
wider cultural implications. Diversity,
and a diverse culture, are crucial to
our work. If Brexit leads to a sense of
smallness, or a smaller mindset and a
narrowing of diversity and difference,
this would be directly against ourgoals.
Funding, and the future direction of
cultural funding, is also an issue that
is central to our organisation. We are
working to find out this future direction,
and a lot could be decided in the
upcoming Spending Review, which will
determine how much the government
is willing to invest inculture.
Beyond this, the level of funding we
are able to access is also dependent
on the areas the main funders, such as
Arts Council England, are focusing on
in the future. In order to demonstrate
our relevancy and value and offer our
insight into where funding should be
allocated, we often lobby right up to
ministerial level. As well as issues and
great creative content, we also stress
the importance of being entertaining
in creative work: the creative work we
promote is often radical, entertaining
and serious.
Apart from the government funding
reviews, we may also be affected by
future societal trends and whether
people are willing to support arts
and culture charities. In our view,
supporting culture charities promotes
wider harmony and inclusivity and so
is essential. Basically, my view is that
culture stops war. We need progressive
culture and thinking to develop and
thrive as a nation, and funding cultural
organisations such as us is key to this.
As we look forward, we are planning
on continuing to push our disability-
led and barrier-facing business
models and outputs, and we want
to continue to foster the values of
internationalism, progressivism and
also environmentalism. Internationalism
will be especially key, as this is the
direction that digital culture is moving
in, but this needs to be married to local
issues too. Beyond this, we will strive
to keep finding new forms to represent
the way in which we live now and
to tackle the crucial issues that face
modern society. That’s our remit.
Diversity, and
a diverse
culture, are
crucial to
ourwork
“
“
David Hevey’s landmark
BBC series,
The Disabled
Century
Rt Hon The Lord David Blunkett
Rt Hon The Lord Eric Pickles
