BOOK LAUNCH
Vancouver Arts Centre, Albany Western Australia Friday 13th April at 5.30 pm.
UNHIDING – ALBANY, CREATIVITY, COMMUNITY & DISABILITY !
Between 2001 – 2005, a partnership between Albany, Western Australia’s Lower Great Southern Community Living Association, the Vancouver Arts Centre, DADAA and local artist arts workers and local people with disabilities resulted in new relationships, exciting artistic outcomes, and real opportunities to contribute to and enrich the living culture of this small southern port city.
Unhiding: The Book tells the story of the Un-hiding Disability Arts Project - celebrating and evaluating the community arts and cultural development practices employed, and the creativity of everyone who participated in unhiding and making visible the talents of local people with disabilities.
INVOLVEMENT IN THE ARTS MAKES A REAL DIFFERENCE TO PEOPLE’S LIVES
The Unhiding Project in Albany, Western Australia grew from the expressed wishes of local people with disabilities to become ‘visible’. At a community forum in 2001, people spoke of ‘longing for greater recognition of their abilities, aspiring to extended opportunities for creative expression, and chances to participate in and contribute to their regional community in ways that enriched relationships and created independence and freedom.’
Every year, the aims of the project were re-visited and re-worked by everyone involved to ensure that programs responded to the incremental changes occurring and the funding support available for the project.
The project took an innovative approach to people’s desire for visibility and greater inclusion in their community. Rather than offering disability arts workshops in discrete settings and depending on exhibitions to develop wider recognition of the talents of people with disabilities, it was decided that all Unhiding workshops would employ artist arts workers of the highest quality, and be so exciting in their practices that the whole community would want to participate with people with disabilities. In Unhiding: The Book, David Doyle says, opening up our workshops to the wider community and promoting the cultural experiences of people with disabilities through artistic expression and the shared creation of meaningful art works and performances were a radical approach to overcoming isolation that had wonderful outcomes for all concerned.
Similarly, local participants speak of their growth of self-confidence, artistic and musical skills, and their realization that they could contribute to the culture of their community.
Un-hiding: The Book, like The Un-hiding Arts Project ), evolved from the participants’ desire to disseminate the story of an important arts project. Funded by Country Arts WA through the Regional Arts Fund, and the Rio Tinto WA Future Fund through DADAA’s 2007-2009 Disseminate research and publication
project, and written by Jan Teagle Kapetas, Unhiding: The Book will be available on-line at this website (click on Disseminate) after May 1st 2007.
Click on the link below to view a PDF of the event.