Marrying Arts with Disability

Art pieces shared by keynote speaker Myra Tam, Arts with the Disabled Assiociation (HK), during her presentation at the Arts & Disability Forum 2017.

We are all broken in beautiful ways.

Beautifully broken in our own ways.

Perhaps that's why there's something charming about the union between arts and disability.

There is always gold in between the cracks of vulnerability, making life real for all of us.

The Arts, in every form, extend welcoming arms to whoever brave enough to share a story and a layer of himself/herself. Sharing stories help to connect, sharing stories help to heal.

How can we then, return the favour and make arts inclusive for every single broken person out there?

A prime example is illustrated through the art pieces you see above. The original artwork is the one on the left, and the one on the right is the translated piece.

The visual artworks have been translated into a language that includes the blind. By creating a secondary piece of art based on touch, the art piece can be felt and re-interpreted on a whole new level, for both the blind and the seeing.

The distinguished speaker goes on to cite another example. By downloading an app, the blind person can navigate around an art space and be notified when there is an artwork displayed nearby. The app will then go on to introduce the artwork to the user.

How do we create music for the deaf, and colours for the blind? We still have a long way to go, for disability covers a wide spectrum of different needs. In the process of meeting those needs and making arts inclusive, we will discover a new sphere of art translation that births a myriad of languages for all.