£1m for Shape Arts to create digital archive of disability arts

An online National Disability Arts Collection and Archive (NDACA) will be created following a successful £1m funding bid. The project will be delivered by Shape Arts, the disability-led arts organisation that champions the inclusion of disabled people in the creative and cultural sector. An interactive website and catalogue will document the history of the disability arts movement since the 1970s. The project will also involve a learning programme and pop-up exhibitions.

The funding is made up of a £853,600 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund and additional support from Arts Council England and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. The CEO of Shape and NDACA project founder, Tony Heaton OBE, praised the funding for allowing NDCA “to preserve and promote that powerful and unique movement – the Disability Arts Movement – for all audiences and for generations to come”. This was echoed by NDACA patron Baroness Jane Campbell, who placed the significance of the funding in a social context: “In these testing times for disabled people, when disability hate crime is on the increase; assisted-suicide pressures intensifying, and support services diminishing – there is no better time to show that great cultural revolution of the disability arts movement.” The archive will go live in 2017/18.