Are there inclusion policies in Mexico for artists with disabilities? Are calls for support generated in all formats that give access to creators with visual, hearing, motor or other disabilities? Are suitable platforms offered so that they can facilitate their applications? Are the representatives of the institutions trained to trigger cultural programs of origin with this perspective of inclusion? Is there a true awareness of the public for access to art by creators with disabilities?
“There is a lack of equity and accessibility in the country,” acknowledges Lorena Martínez, Arts Project Manager for the British Council in Mexico. “Artists with disabilities do not have access as indigenous artists do not. If you have a call that is not in your language, as is the case with the Mexican Sign Language (LSM), how are you going to find out about that call? In Mexico we have a very powerful, highly developed community of artists with disabilities. For example, we have Signo y Verbo: Theater of the Deaf, the Blind Theater, the actress Sofía Olmos, the singer Mary Camarena, the writer Edgar Lacolz. I can mention a lot of artists with disabilities and all of them are recognized for being artists. The case that they are artists with disabilities is one of the characteristics of their lives ”.
Although he points out that a group of artists with disabilities is beginning in our country, it is the creators themselves who are taking the initiative to generate an entity not only artistic but one with political and social positioning. But he considers it essential to raise awareness on the subject both from the institutions, as well as from the press and spectators. We must create avenues of support, dissemination and access to the arts from disability.
The British Council advises institutions
For at least six years the British Council in Mexico has promoted different initiatives in coordination with other institutions to accompany, on the one hand, artists with disabilities and promote the development of their artistic practice, but also advises institutions in making of conscience towards artists with disabilities. One of the columns of this initiative are the awareness workshops with the officials or operators of the institutions.
“The art and disability movement has been led by the English for many years,” explains the interviewee. “It was born in the 1970s and is an activist, artistic and political movement to demand the rights of people with disabilities through art. This is important because it becomes an entity and not just an artistic movement: it is political and social in its own way ”.
In the case of our country, he resumed, it is necessary not only to launch calls for support accessible to all types of languages, such as LSM or in audio for blind people, to give two examples, but also to accept applications in the same sense. There must be a political intention. This is one of the points on which the British Council has an impact.
“There is a law to prevent discrimination (the Federal Law to Prevent and Eliminate Discrimination). This law in essence ensures the exercise of rights of all communities that are oppressed, it includes the spectrum of people with disabilities and to promote and accept the exercise of their rights. But we are quite far from being able to carry it out and I consider that many times it is due to a lack of information beyond a lack of will. If you do not know that population, their needs and requirements, you will not be able to meet your objectives, ”says Martínez.
For this reason, the British Council is developing a formal program for the incidence of institutions, bringing them closer to accessibility, diversity and inclusion and, at the same time, supporting the development of artists.
The advice of the British Council on art and disability has already been adopted in the country by some institutions, such is the case of Cultura Jalisco, especially in its Innovation for Culture program, as well as Culture UNAM and, above all, other secretariats of local culture, such as Cultura Michoacán and Cultura Hidalgo.
Shortly, anticipates the manager of Arts Projects of the British Council, there will be an official launch of the program. The intention is that many institutions join in and become accessible.
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