Mobility Webinar: The International Mobility of Disabled Artists and Culture Professionals

Portraits of the four webinar speakers -  Onn Sokny, Lisette Reuter, Maria Vlachou, Jordi Baltà Portolés.

12 March 2024, 11:00-12:30 CET - Register Here

As part of its pluriannual programme co-funded by the European Union, On the Move twice a year proposes Mobility Webinars to investigate collectively international artistic and cultural mobility.

For this Cultural Mobility Webinar, On the Move builds upon the two large-scale studies it carried out for the British Council, as part of the EU funded project Europe Beyond Access, Time to Act: How lack of knowledge in the cultural sector creates barriers for disabled artists and audiences (Baltà, Ellingsworth, Floch: 2021) and Time to Act: Two Years On, Data-led Insights on Performing Arts and Disability in Europe (Baltà, Ellingsworth: 2023). It follows recent online and in-person initiatives led by On the Move members to raise the awareness of the variety of specific conditions and needs of disabled artists and arts workers.

Today, an extensive literature of commitments, reports, case studies and toolkits is available to guide culture professionals in providing greater access – but these are not widely circulated, partly because they are often focused on a single country, or available in only one language. Moreover, they mostly focus on increasing access to disabled audiences but rarely tackle issues related to providing greater support to disabled arts workers.

Unsurprisingly, we observe gaps in addressing structured forms of guidance and training to support the international trajectory of disabled artists and culture professionals. Equal access to cross-border mobility, and its many opportunities to explore, create, learn or connect, is yet to be achieved. Across art forms, the culture field needs to come with concrete steps for disabled individuals to access creative research in another context, to access artistic production means at macro-regional, European or international level, to access new knowledge and skills away from their home country or to connect with international peers.

Thanks to our panellists, this Webinar will allow us to take stock of the situation after the latest initiatives at national, European and international levels and continue to propose steps to foster change.

Preliminary schedule

11:00 Welcome words
11:10 - 12:25

Panel discussion and exchange with participants

Moderator: Jordi Baltà Portolés, Cultural Consultant and Researcher (Spain)

Panellists: Maria Vlachou, Executive Director (Acesso Cultura, Portugal); Onn Sokny, Senior Manager (Epic Arts, Cambodia); Lisette Reuter, Director (Un-Label, Germany)

12:25 Conclusions and perspectives
12:30 Closure of the Mobility Webinar

For more insights on the programme, the panellists and the moderator, download the full programme and panellists’ biographies.

See past webinars on our resources page