art smarts

Appendix A: Background information:
The Society for Disability Arts and Culture (S4DAC) and the kickstART! Celebration

The Society for Disability Arts and Culture is a not-for-profit organization registered in British Columbia, with an integrated Board of Directors led by people with disabilities. Our purpose is to encourage the integration of people with disabilities into the creative, artistic and social life of Canadian communities.We will do this by:

• presenting festivals celebrating disability arts and culture
• organizing information sessions, workshops, classes, performances and exhibits for and by Canadian artists with disabilities
• fostering communication and a vibrant creative practice among Canadian artists with and without disabilities

Because when we started “disability arts and culture” was an unfamiliar concept to most Canadians, and because we wanted to involve artists locally, we looked for ways to demonstrate what we were talking about. So we created the Disability Arts Community Development Project (DACDP), which included :

• dance workshops and performances
• art exhibits
• the Swamp Angels Choir
• theatre

The project produced high-calibre work that was very well received by both disability groups and the local arts community, and much of that work was developed further and presented at the kickstART! Celebration of Disability Arts and Culture.

Held in Vancouver in August of 2001, kickstART! was the brainchild of Catherine Frazee, former Chief Commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission, who had attended several of the first international festivals of disability arts in other countries. The work she saw there convinced her not only of the power of art for its own sake, but also of art’s power to enhance a collective pride among people with disabilities and to challenge stereotypes and biases at deep, emotional levels.

Catherine met and shared her ideas with filmmaker and author Bonnie Sherr Klein, and the two of them decided that the time was right to “kickstart” a disability arts movement in Canada. They shared their ideas with Joan Meister, then Chairperson of the DisAbled Women’s Network of Canada and now S4DAC’s Chairperson, and with the Board of the BC Coalition of People with Disabilities, who sponsored some of S4DAC’s first funding applications.

KickstART! was a landmark event, the first of its kind in Canada. Turning out to be everything we hoped for and more, it was transformative for the hundreds of participating artists with disabilities, for their families, friends and therapists, and for the general public, the civic authorities, the journalists and the janitors!

The exterior of downtown Vancouver’s Roundhouse Community Centre was graced with huge colourful banners and the interior was decorated with hundreds of colourful flags painted by local community groups.

At the official opening, Her Excellency the Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson, Governor General of Canada welcomed us all with inspiring words about how essential art is in our lives, most especially the lives of people with disabilities.

In the Roundhouse’s Great Hall, the visual art exhibit Outside the Lines: Self-Portraits by Artists with Disabilities gave us a rare and surprising glimpse of how some people with CFIDS, MS, blindness, and intellectual and psychiatric labels see themselves. Another exhibit, Artitudes, highlighted painting, sculpture and installations by local artists with disabilities.

Over fifty international guests and more than two hundred Canadian artists and other registrants shared their music, theatre, comedy, videos and spoken words. The public enjoyed free performances, art exhibits, displays, and workshops on flag painting, kite-making and “tactile colour” (a system for creating collages or sculpture using a stick-on medium that assigns a distinctive texture to each of twelve bold colours).

It was a feast for the senses, an outrageous celebration of difference, an affirmation that “anything is possible” in the arts. Beyond the opportunity that kickstART! offered to develop and present their work professionally, the local artists who got involved realized that they are part of a worldwide cultural movement, and they were truly inspired by visiting artists and performers.

We have been encouraged by all who participated in kickstART! to do it again and it’s possible that we will do so, though not in the immediate future. Meanwhile, we plan to nurture various art-making activities locally. As a young organization that virtually exploded onto the scene with a very successful kickstART!, the time is right to put time and resources into strengthening and stabilizing our organization, S4DAC. We will also update and maintain a website in the coming year, in part to help create a network of artists and disability-focused arts groups across Canada. If you are a person with any sort of disability who likes to make art, sing, write, dance, act or play an instrument, or you represent a group that enables people with disabilities to do any of those things, or you are a non-disabled artist who wishes to mentor or collaborate with an artist with a disability, then we encourage you to contact us.

Appendix B: Resources and Links