Research shows that people with disabilities are represented in every art there is, whether it is painting, dancing, theatre, music, poetry, photography et cetera. But often, those people are forced to practice their artistic activities in daily occupation institutions or care workshops, because ‘normal’ art houses don’t have the abilities to offer them suitable education. Kunst Inclusief aims to change that.
In 2008, the nonprofit organization Special Arts took the initiative in founding the project after experiencing that care workers don’t have enough facilities to help the mentally and physically challenged develop their artistic skills. The foundation also found that teachers in art centres are not sufficiently equipped to cope with and accompany people with a disability. Research needed to be done to improve the possibilities for cultural and artistic participation.
Special Arts asked the universities of applied sciences Hogeschool Utrecht (HU) and Hogeschool Arnhem and Nijmegen (HAN) to do research for support. In the first half of 2009, surveys where sent to 337 Dutch art centres and workshops. Results from this survey where being used to determine the current effort of art centres to stimulate the disabled in developing their skills and participating in society. After this, twenty art centres and workshops where selected for their inspiring working methods or ideas. These we call ‘good practices’.
Currently, in the second part of the project, knowledge and expertise of these ‘good practices’ are being used to develop new possibilities. New methods and facilities are being ‘tested’ in so called ‘Ontwikkelwerkplaatsen’: developmental workshops; a sort of laboratory formed by researchers, care workers, participants and the selected ‘good practices’.
With more and more workshops and art centres joining every day, Kunst Inclusief feels confident that, in the future, people with a mental or physical disability can use every art facility there is.