In 2023 Vulcana partnered with Art from the Margins, and Art for your Heart, organisations supporting visual artists with disabilities, and Brotherhood of the Wordless, writers and poets with assorted disabilities that impair their communication, to support these artists to participate in and to create an exchange between artists, through a program of circus-based activities leading to a showing for friends and families. This cultural exchange through physical and creative activities that included poetry and visual arts, aimed to build confidence and explore new physical opportunities for people who have limited access to supported activities that safely embrace risk and daring.
As an organisation that uses circus Vulcana identifies that people with disabilities are often assumed to not have a place in this art-form. This project aims to undo these assumptions and provide access for all people to experience the sensations, challenges and benefits of shared circus activity. This project partnered with other arts organisations aiming to raise the awareness and creativity of artists with disabilities. This opportunity used the platform of circus and the unique encounters and interactions this provides, to create a shared experience between diverse artists that fostered new artworks that were shared with the broader community. All forms of the arts are critical to community conversations about the recognition of people with disabilities and the important contribution they make, to our cultural lives, our sense of community, and the richness that increased diversity brings to all of us. Participation in the arts is vital to increase social inclusion, validation, improve well-being for those in our communities who can be regularly denied these opportunities.
This project was delivered in partnership with Art for Your Heart, Art from the Margins and The Brotherhood of the Wordless with additional support from Street Arts Festival.
