Background
Engage Scotland developed the Everyone project to look at ways of improving access for disabled people to galleries in Scotland.
In England and Wales, engage had recently completed a two year project called Explore, which supported clusters of galleries to research disability equality and engage Scotland took this as a starting point to inform the Everyone project.
Aims
The Everyone project aimed to support galleries in Scotland to develop sustainable disability equality plans that would impact on their long-term accessibility for disabled people by:
- Working with galleries who were committed to undertaking review in this area
- Providing a programme of development support and training to devise disability equality action plans that would be sustainable following the project
- Funding projects, participatory or research-focused, that would feed into these plans
- Supporting involvement of disabled people at all stages of the project
- Supporting partnerships and clusters to increase peer learning opportunities
Anticipated outcomes:
- Galleries’ knowledge of disability equality increased
- Galleries’ confidence in the area of disability equality increased
- Galleries’ disability action plans improved through the involvement of disabled people
- Galleries’ ability to welcome and provide experiences for disabled audiences improved
Project Coordination and advisory panel
Everyone was coordinated by Mairi Taylor with support from Engage Scotland Coordinator, Sarah Yearsley, and a panel of disabled people and arts and disability specialists.
The panel members were:
- Julie M. Boswell, artist
- Caroline Bowditch, Dancer, Performance Artist and Choreographer
- Pum Dunbar, Artist
- Kevin Harrison, Director, Artlink Central
- Heather Lynch, Research Fellow, University of Stirling
- Rosita McKenzie, freelance Blind Photographer and Disability Equality Educator
- Stephen Palmer, Development Officer, Creative Scotland
- Lydia Popowich, Visual Artist and Community Arts Worker
- The project evaluator was Ruth Stevenson