Creative Access & Inclusion Lab
Testing creative ideas with accessibility as the inspiration rather than an add-on.
The theme of this lab was to test ideas for accessible 'hybrid' experiences where people could attend both in person and virtually. Creative offerings from Raquel Meseguer, Rachel Aspinwell, Holly Thomas, and Harsha Bala.
About:
The Creative Access and Inclusion Lab was born out of a city-wide need for a space for artists, producers, venues, and creatives to practically test ideas and play, while centring expertise from disability cultures.
The lab began with a hybrid hand dance led by Raquel Meseguer, where people in the studio joined those on Zoom to perform a ‘hand duet’ together.
The dance was described as an incredibly intimate, playful, and grounding way to connect with people over Zoom. People particularly appreciated how it made them feel more ‘bodily’ as it focussed on their hands and movements rather than their face, as is usually the case over Zoom.
“I’ve never felt anything more intimate with a stranger in my life”
Ashley
Then, Rachel Aspinwall and Holly Thomas from PECo Theatre guided a reflection around how to create a hybrid listening experience using their City of Threads podcast.
Before listening to the podcast, we were invited imagine what a shared hybrid space looked like; visioning a ball of thread connecting all of us together in a virtual sensory web. After listening to the City of Threads podcast, participants described feeling deeply immersed and transported to a different space. The podcast sparked dialogue about accessibility, including how it may feel to have certain access needs.
Closing the lab, Harsha Bala led an exercise in visualising sound:
We co-listened to music and explored what images and words it inspired. Those unable to hear the music were encouraged to ask questions to guide any hearing people into describing more deeply. Harsha said this was influenced by the word for ‘listening’ being the same as ‘ask’ in Tamil, a language she speaks. The exercise provoked deep discussion around how effectively music can be translated into other formats.
Here is a written response to the activity of describing music:
“…Coo-coo calls. Coconut steps. Bouncy sounds. Echo. Snare. Owls, deep water dive, splashing. Constant regular clicks, uneven steps, and fizzy drink being poured. Fizzy drink opening. Underwater constant. Bubbles in the bath. Bubbling water. Gurgles and metal clamours, a great mix of rhythm. Elastic moments. Spatial, excited, whoop, dance, dance, dance, racing, driving, complex, two human voices making rasping vibe noises, together many were heightened, climatic, growing in intensity, fast rhythm, louder, ecstatic, stop, quiet, rattle seeds with chick peas. Echoing with a dancing beat, a watery fizz and bubbles. Growing energy surfacing round and round. It holds a quick breath and it is quiet again. Type type type, click click click, splash water, cohesion together, rhythm, more rhythm, wait, go, go, go, unison, faster, stop, gone.“
Caroline Mawer
Watch a recording of the first hybrid Creative Access & Inclusion lab below…
“Working the bumps out of hybrid feels really really important”
Jazlyn Pinckney
The Future of Creative Access & Inclusion lab:
These labs are a collaboration between KWMC, Liz Counsell, Rachel Aspinwall and Holly Thomas from PECo Theatre’s City of Threads, artist Raquel Meseguer of Unchartered Collective, and creative researcher Harsha Bala.
Each lab invites people to participate in creative exploration around access and inclusion. If you are interested in testing something out at a future lab or finding out more, please get in touch: martha.king@kwmc.org.uk or call us 0117 903 0444.
Raquel Mesengeur is a UK based dance theatre practitioner.
She identifies as dis-abled, and works with rest and horizontality as creative impulses.
She knows disability to be a creative generator, and is interested in interrogating theatrical form, to tell stories about the lived experience of disability in unusual ways.
She is interested in challenging the etiquette of our public spaces and continues to advocate for a Resting Spaces Network and other ways to create integrated spaces. Her 2020 Future Themes research has loads of ideas about how to do this.
Rachel Aspinwall and Holly Thomas are part of Part Exchange Co (PECo) Theatre’s ‘City of Threads’.
PECo Theatre make theatre that connects people and place with the power of the imagination. They create imaginative, theatrically driven experiences whose form evolves depending on the people, themes, stories and performance sites we are working with.
They’re interested in making socially engaged work that matters, in engaging with the important themes of our contemporary world and in creating the conditions for the people we work with to become engaged by them too. Their work aims to transform, celebrate, re-imagine and investigate, start conversations, spark new connections and place audiences at the heart of all these experiences in meaningful and immersive ways.
Harshadha Balasubramanian, also known as Harsha Bala, is an anthropologist exploring the role of creativity in social and technological transformation.
Primarily, her research examines how the sensory experiences and imagination of makers, be they artists, developers, engineers, or co-creating audiences, influence the adoption of emerging technology and media practices.
Harsha works alongside creative practitioners, borrowing from their artistic techniques to expand my research toolkit. Through her work, she advocates a criticality that is unafraid to cross disciplinary borders and will keep open channels for a variety of voices to begin dialogue and co-produce knowledge.
Liz Counsell is a freelance producer
Liz works with spoken word, theatre, accessible arts, and music.
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