Inclusion and the Arts
Ahead of our Pathways session on disability and equality with Birds of Paradise Theatre Group next month, we asked Artlink Central Director, Kevin Harrison to share his charity’s approach to inclusion.
How long have you implemented an inclusive approach in your work?
Artlink Central is first and foremost a participatory arts organisation and over the years we have evolved and developed an inclusive approach to programme design, commissioning and collaboration.
It’s my role as Director to drive the programme of work and build strong partnerships between artists, communities and institutions in a way that supports equal access to professional practice for artists; from support for artists who are disabled, to those artists who may face additional barriers to developing their work or aspirations due to gender, age, ethnicity and sexual orientation. Ultimately this can only happen by using the arts and creativity to open up spaces and conversations, as well as through dismantling systems and process that are overtly or subconsciously biased or discriminatory.
What does Artlink do?
Our work is diverse.
We run:
· creative social prescription services, particularly for people experiencing mental health issues or dementia, such as our ‘dial an artist’ scheme.
· member led arts initiatives such as Artreach, our collaborative and cross-art form programme for people with learning disabilities.
· self-directed support services for people who want to put their creativity at the heart of their social care services, for instance Lauren who is a young artist with an acquired brain injury who we support with access to her own studio and support artists, who help her with her visual arts practice and career path.
· healthcare arts projects, from big public art commissions supporting organ donation or oncology to intimate patient centred music sessions for people living with dementia.
We also co-ordinate two place based cultural programmes, Scene Stirling and Camelon Arts which are committed to developing and supporting arts and cultural activity.
What does inclusion mean to you?
Without activism, we get nowhere. That activism drives me, and others to make changes in our communities wherever we are; whether it is creating a live arts programme for adults with learning disabilities, involving people living with dementia in auditing the access of their city or supporting
disabled artists to articulate a professional practice that resists or bypasses the traditional pathways to recognition and achievement that exclude them.
Most importantly this work MUST be driven and led by the people who are not being included. One of the first and most important conversations I have had in my role at Artlink Central was in the first week when I met Gregor and Karen, two participating artists in a café. I asked them about what they did at Artlink Central and what they wanted to do in the future. Gregor turned to me and said that he didn’t just want to make and perform for his friends and family in a community setting, he wanted to make work that the public would see and enjoy in its own right and on its own merit, not just because of his disability. That is our artistic mission, to ensure that we support artists like Gregor to be seen, as artists, as makers, as creators and to be valued for their contribution to culture as anyone else.
How has your approach helped your organisation and your work?
The approach we have taken has been both rewarding and challenging. Choosing to complexify our projects rather than simplify them and to move towards becoming a social enterprise, rather than relying on charitable income, has come with a lot of sweat and pain at times; but it has ultimately made us more sustainable in the long term. Our approach has evolved over time and every project or idea feeds the next. We have tested commercial trading models, created the first live arts programme led by artists with learning disabilities, developed service design projects and have worked in an eclectic range of settings from prisons and shopping centres to care homes and children’s wards.
What’s unusual about your approach?
We’ve tried to take an intersectional approach to our work, recognising that people are not defined by one characteristic and that bringing people together with a range of experiences and backgrounds can reap great rewards. For example, working alongside with the University of Stirling Art Collection we introduced artists with learning disabilities to an artist with refugee status. They went onto create a flag installation project exploring the notion of borders, which was exhibited on campus.
What more could be done to push the boundary in your sector to make it more inclusive?
Social justice and transformation don’t happen overnight; they’re not achieved through one project or through supporting a few individuals. Each project we undertake helps drive forward small changes and for the most part builds confidence on the part of the people we support, and the partner institutions we work with. We straddle a huge range of sectors and are funded more often than not by non-arts funders, so we have to work extremely hard not just to secure funding and contracts but to address perceptions that the arts is a lower priority than many other more defined types of services. Our activism must sometimes be tempered by making sure that we have an understanding of where the partner or host organisation is at in its inclusion journey. Sometimes we are starting with a first foray into using creative processes and workshops and in other project, we are leading innovation across the sector.
Meeting our participants, partners and institutions where they are at is an important part of the process, as inclusion can’t just be enforced, it must be embraced by everyone involved.
What influence has the pandemic had?
We have had to completely shift our ways of working, while making sure we continue to support the groups we work with. It has been particularly important to continue our sessions with people experiencing mental health issues – either digitally or by posting out art project packs.
Given that our participatory work is predominantly about bring people together, it has also been a very challenging time and will continue to be as the majority of people and institutions we support and work with will be the last to open up their doors. We also have no access to our offices, our community hubs, or any spaces other than the public realm.
However, as an organisation that operates largely without walls and in the public domain as much as possible, we have seen some significant positives. Going digital has allowed us to reach a much wider geographical area. We’ve also witnessed communities across Stirlingshire embracing of creativity and culture in lockdown, with many people creating window displays and participating in other online projects.
Despite all the restrictions, we have managed to curate hospital commissions with local artist such as Karen Strang and Frances Douglas and run socially distanced events in Forth Valley Royal Hospital throughout lockdown and make the arts a visible part of recovery.
We also see so much potential in evolving our inclusive work within neighbourhoods and in our streets and cities. This is an opening for a more informed conversation about inclusive arts as a part of place-making and about moving away from a model that is more impairment, condition or characteristic determined, into a much more public and inclusive model of arts practice than we have been able to deliver before and that is truly exciting.
Through Scene Stirling we have been able to ensure that equalities are at the heart of our programme especially through our Pathways: Unlearning Sessions. A subject close to our hearts is disability arts and we are delighted to have the likes of Robert Softley Gale and Mhairi Taylor from Birds of Paradise Theatre Company join us to help us look at what we as a creative community can do to reduce barriers for disabled people in Stirling.
To book a free ticket for our disability and equality session with Birds of Paradise on Thursday 5 November click here.
Iman Tajik hosted a special presentation of his work at the University of Stirling Art Collection for the start of 2019 Artspace residency by artists with learning disabilities at the Pathfoot Building at the University of Stirling with the group of participating artists, supported by artists Sharon Quigley and Kat Wilson and volunteers, creating flags with Iman as exhibiting artist and exploring notions of borders.
Stirling Castle Apple Tree installation by Nae Arts in 2016 as part of the first Festival of Architecture in Scotland as part of a collaborative Mall of Wellbeing takeover of part of the Stirling Thistles for a month by Artlink Central and Icecream Architecture.
Stirling based artist Lauren Bremner supported by local artist Laura Newbury took part in a creative wall installation at Forth Valley Royal Hospital last Christmas led by Sharon Quigley.
Winter exhibition by Stirling Artspace mental health arts social prescription
Arts and design have been integrated into the new Stirling Health and Care Village with commissioned artworks by Leigh Bagley, Heinrich and Palmer and Jason Nelson. Pictured is the Bellfield Centre with senior social care and arts staff and the Chief Executives of NHS Forth Valley and NHS Scotland beneath an artwall by Leigh Bagley, one of eighteen.
Artreach artists with Jacqueline Marr, Lauren Bremner, Iman Taljik, Sharon Quigley and more at the University of Stirling
Upcoming conversation about Participatory Arts practice post Covid-19 with Artlink Central artists Alan Bryden and Aya Iguchi. Read more
Book for the Pathways event with Birds of Paradise Theatre company here.
