Imaginate, Take Me Somewhere and Puppet Animation Scotland are preparing a proposal to the Workplace Equality Fund, for a project to support d/Deaf arts professionals in the early stages of their careers in Scotland. As emerging artists, practitioners, arts workers or recent graduates, we would love to have your input into the design of this project, which we hope will benefit you and your peers. Your feedback will help us make the case for support to the funder.
The link to the survey is here
We know that D/deaf people seeking to work in the performing arts in Scotland face many barriers. Including:
- a lack of knowledge in the industry about the access support needed
- limited accessibility in the funding system
- limited opportunities for networking
While we cannot change everything quickly, we want to begin work that will reduce some of this inequality in our sector. Our idea is to run a placement scheme for early-career d/Deaf artists and arts workers over two years. Each of our organisations will support two placements, one per year. Given the experiences of the partners involved, priority will be on areas such as producing, marketing and creative learning, but there will be opportunities for artists and makers also. The d/Deaf artists and arts workers will also benefit from outside mentoring from a more established arts professional.
Over this period our three organisations will commit to a programme of training in how to make our systems and practices more accessible. This process will be informed by our experience of hosting placements and guided by a third sector partner with expertise in supporting D/deaf workers. By the end of two years we hope to have supported multiple Deaf arts professionals to develop their skills & networks in the Scottish performance sector, as well as gathered learning and created resources that we can share, to make the sector in general more welcoming and supportive of d/Deaf artists and workers.
Our idea is still in development and we would love your input by filling out our survey. We want to make sure this proposal is informed by those it stands to benefit, so that we can make the changes we all want to see.
The link to the survey is here
Above is a BSL video of the survey, if you click through to watch the video on YouTube.com there are timestamps for this video to make it easier to follow.
There are 2 ways to complete the survey:
- Fill it out online in written English directly from the survey link: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/2BWBZPD
- Answer the question in BSL. Please email isabel@imaginate.org.uk to book a 10 minute Zoom call to answer the questions in BSL with interpreter Yvonne Waddell, on Tuesday 13 September between 5-7pm.
Please complete the survey before 13 September.
BSL interpretation by Jamie Rea
Captioning by Geraldine Heaney