Evaluating Access & Accessibility at VoCA
Conversations around access and Accessibility in the arts increased suddenly and significantly with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic. Necessary accommodations benefitting many, but denied to disabled artworkers and audiences for decades prior, seemingly popped up overnight.
Flexible working options, video conferencing, a 2-meter radius in which to navigate the physical environment with more ease, infection control, and touch-free technologies, saw the spaces in which we work, leisure, and learn transform. Four years on and, at the time of writing on the advent of Disability Pride Month, I am confronted by the realization that complicity with these measures and the subsequent accommodating of additional access needs, is waning; a peer who wishes to “meet properly” at the prospect of another Zoom call, a team meeting of my in-office colleagues plunged into silence for the third time this morning, and the enacting, or threat, of mask bans across several states despite a significant spike in COVID-19 cases in more than twenty.1 For sick and/or disabled people, these are not just inconveniences but can mean the difference between being able to connect, to work, to be in public, or not.
This difference is underscored by increasingly alarming statistics about inequities across our field. Despite 1 in 4 adults in the United States having a disability2 , it is estimated that only 7% of artists and artworkers in permanent employment are disabled.3 Further, according to Americans for the Arts, disabled creatives can expect a lower annual income ($16,000 total annually) and higher rates of unemployment (67%) than their nondisabled peers4 . It is an inequity crisis which requires structural rethinking and radical change on a huge scale, and yet most institutions I have encountered in my career and research are risk-averse, taking a long time – if dedicating any at all – to change the internal organizational structures, recruitment practices, and partnerships required to center and inform practice around access and Accessibility with disabled perspectives.
Definitions around access and accessibility can differ from person to person, institution to institution, and language related to inclusion work is sensitive, important, and continually evolving. My distinction of the two terms ‘access’ and ‘Accessibility’ in this article is intentional. I use ‘Accessibility’ to recognize and promote an understanding of the design features and assistive technologies enabling the participation of people with sensory, mobility, cognitive access needs in arts programming, and ‘access’ in an attempt to encompass the myriad ways in which disablism and ableism are exclusionary, and the countless opportunities decision-makers have to redress inequities on a daily basis. In national art museums, for example, the latter might look like flexible ticket options benefiting chronically-ill visitors, more accessible language in public talks and publications to help mitigate educational bias, thoughtful content warnings for those facing Severe mental illness, and more consideration for how these experiences often intersect for the communities in which arts organizations are in service and proximity. I am reminded of a quote from Dr. Crystal Jones, which informs much of my work and thinking around expanding access, “There is a huge difference between, ‘all are welcome’ and ‘this was created with you in mind.’”5
Carolyn Lazard,
In Sickness and Study, 2015-present.
Installation view, The Body Electric, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.
Photo by Charlie Villyard. Courtesy the artist.
As an enthusiastic VoCA network member, I feel strongly that our network can play a central role in creating a field with disabled audiences and artworkers in mind. From a research perspective, a VoCA sample is significant given the breadth, variety, and reach of the organizations we work and study in. Advocating for necessary and thoughtful accommodations for disabled audiences and artworkers in our respective institutions could have a significant impact locally and nationally as colleagues learn, adapt and become inspired by one another and new approaches to institutional design. Further, collaborating with artists, conservators, writers, and oral history practitioners through diverse and expansive means, we have an opportunity to platform wider discourse about the structural need and change in our intersecting fields. My experience in the 2020 Artist Interview Workshop cohort underscored my passionate belief that artist oral histories can be a mode of access to art in and of themselves. Listening to artists’ narratives helped me to catch up on years of missed education due to illness, aiding me to listen, rather than read, on days that I am floored by the fatigue of my disability, and providing exposure to direct and diverse perspectives where the dominant academic or institutional voice through which an artist is filtered is so often an ableist one.
When offered the chance to undertake a work placement through my current PhD program via the Knowledge Exchange Hub6 , I approached VoCA to share my thinking around their potential influence in this arena. With VoCA platforming important discourse around access to the arts through Issue 10 of VoCA Journal, in which voices from many corners of the art world reminded us of this shared responsibility for expanding access, I anticipated that my research and its findings could build upon a promising foundation. Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum – arguably a best practice example for expanding access, notably with the recent publication of their Accessible Virtual Programming Toolkit – reminds us that “Accessibility and equity must not be afterthoughts.”7 All too often, particularly since the summer of 2020 and the increasing mandates on arts institutions to be more socially responsive and responsible, initiatives with the intention to diversify our field have been tokenistic; the accommodations we are now seeing waning, short-term appointments of lived experience experts (often on precarious contracts) all heavily promoted through social channels to ensure visibility of such efforts. Several studies have evidenced that initiatives with the specific intention of providing a pipeline to career opportunities for those historically excluded from our field owing to systemic ableism, racism, and class bias, has not transformed recruitment practices in the global arts or brought more voices to the table. Dr Gus Casely-Hayford OBE, Director of V&A East in the U.K and former Director of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art has witnessed, “a deeply frustrating structural lag in the diversification of staffing”.8
In the hopes of avoiding temporary or unsustainable efforts, the small VoCA team agreed that this project would and should take time, and necessitated vital input from our generous and growing network. Setting an objective to find out more about how fellow network members understand, experience, and navigate access and Accessibility in their own work, personal lives, or while engaging with VoCA programming was an important starting point. The data we gathered would serve as a ‘temperature check’ to help us to recognize where our champions of access are across the network, where people are keen to learn more, and whether there were any immediate accommodations we could make to better support existing network members.
A screenshot of a post on VoCA’s Instagram calling for colleagues to complete our Access & Accessibility Survey.
My review comprised two distinct phases with the objective of gathering and validating qualitative and sentiment feedback from across the network about definitions of ‘access’ and ‘Accessibility’ and how network members imagine expanded access to VoCA’s programming. We sought to survey a wide-range of audiences engaged with VoCA to ascertain where our existing network was at currently in relation to this vital work. The Access and Accessibility at VoCA Survey, a Google Form promoted through VoCA’s social channels throughout 2023, invited network members to respond to two directive questions:
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- What do the terms ‘access’ and ‘Accessibility’ mean to you?
- In practical terms, what could VoCA implement that would make our programs more accessible to you and those in your network?
Over 60% of 29 total respondents related the terms ‘access’ and ‘Accessibility’ to barriers facing existing and prospective artworkers, artists and audiences. They identified barriers which were physical (46% of respondents mentioned this, including “The ability to meaningfully engage for everybody, and I mean “body” inclusive of physical abilities or limitations.”9 ), lingual (18%, “translating materials”10 ), economic (18%, “Ability for a person to participate without economic constraints.”11 ), geographic (9%, “Physical constraints include geographic locations as well as physical and mental disabilities.”12 ), and ability (9%, “Delivery at point of entry to all regardless of ability.”13 ).
“I think of access as points of entry for participation and understanding. As different people have different needs, ensuring that programs and platforms are accessible requires multiple pathways and approaches to meet people where they are.”14
Across the remaining 40% of responses, definitions expanded to include a need for better access to training resources for conservators, a desire for more digitized collections, and a lack of access to the art market for artists seeking exhibition, acquisition and commercial opportunities.
Next, it was important to cross check these findings for resonance at other engagement points across the network to ensure that we were collecting the broadest range of perspectives, as well as gaining a better understanding of how they relate to specific areas of VoCA programming. Honing in on qualitative feedback we had received in the initial phase relating to the importance of digital access given VoCA’s growing virtual presence, I designed a multi-choice grid surveying network members’ awareness and use of digital Accessibility features including Closed Captioning, Image Alt-text, Audio Description, Screen reading technology, and Keyboard-only navigation. Respondents were invited to add any Accessibility features or assistive technologies not listed – though no respondents did this – and to share anything else they would like to about their digital access needs. This survey was circulated in Spanish (with the help of VoCA Program Consultant Pablo Quiros Garcia) at VoCA’s first Spanish-Language Artist Interviewing Workshop, presenting the opportunity for cross-language and cross-cultural sampling. Survey responses found that 70% of respondents, participants of VoCA’s Spanish-Language Artist Interviewing Workshop, use closed captioning. This underscores the importance of subtitles as a means to dismantle lingual barriers, but with over half of all Americans using closed captioning “most of the time” on streaming services15 and over 15% of American adults deaf/Deaf or experiencing some hearing loss16 , the continued use of closed captioning on VoCA Talks through Vimeo will also ensure Accessibility for this audience, as well as meeting mainstream demand for subtitled content.
Charts mapping the findings of VoCA’s Digital Accessibility Survey, generated by Haley Moyse Fenning.
VoCA’s ongoing use of Image Descriptions on social channels will continue to be helpful in improving the visibility of this Accessibility feature, though the surveyed sample suggests that network members are not necessarily implementing this in their own work. Through workshop training and resources, there’s an opportunity for VoCA and partner organizations to provide guidance on compliant and meaningful image descriptions, as well as other Accessibility features which findings from this survey show are still a long way from general practice in our fields. In the meantime, readers can refer to Cooper Hewitt’s Guidelines for Image Description and extend their own invitation to audiences who use screen-reading technologies to engage with their daily social content.
The Access and Accessibility at VoCA survey remains open for network members beyond the conclusion of this review and I encourage readers to contribute your perspectives if you have not already done so. It is hoped that this will increase our research sample of 40 respondents over time, as well as providing an opportunity for network members to identify and disclose access needs, and ensuring that VoCA stays up to date with language and learnings related to this area of work. Survey questions could be incorporated into service evaluation elsewhere in VoCA programming (i.e. event surveys) and through alternate forms of media (e.g. social media polls, QR codes at live events.)
Based on the findings of this study, and two decades of lived and professional experience in the Accessibility purview, I offer three recommendations for organizations looking to audit and improve their work in this area:
Firstly, reflect on the current evaluation processes of your organization. In my day job, as Head of Impact for an arts and mental health charity, I have come to learn the importance of evaluation not just as a means to measure the impact of programming with a view to identifying service improvement insights and attracting funding, but as an essential tool for accountability. Effective evaluation allows us to check that we are doing what we say we are doing in direct consultation with the communities we serve. Subsequently, it is an opportunity to find out more about the needs of our audiences, our team, or our wider partner networks so we can know what to prioritize. If your organization uses event surveys or similar, you can add a transparent question asking about the ease with which the respondent experienced the event, whether they faced any particular barriers to access, or feel that accessibility could have been improved. In pre-event communications and registration, ask similarly about access needs and how you can ensure full participation for the prospective attendee.
Secondly, it will be important to identify and address any immediate service improvements based on responses via this evaluation, best practice examples referred to throughout this article, and low-resource, high-impact implementable design features. Upon learning through this evaluation that network members would benefit from larger font sizes, low-band spectrum website to ensure access for all countries, browsers, and screen-reading technologies, and dyslexia-friendly typeface, VoCA implemented the UserWay web Accessibility solution. You can navigate to this transformative feature in the bottom right corner of the screen you are viewing now.
Third, include and make space for the voices of those you seek to serve. While the benefits of empowering and incorporating lived experience perspectives are necessary and numerous, several distinct areas of influence have been cited by organizations adopting these models in the arts – whether paid consultation or, critically, the permanent hiring of disabled staff into decision-making positions. Outcomes can include informing the design and delivery of services, strengthening an evidence base about the experiences of people with lived experience of disability, being involved in the recruitment of disabled staff and partners, helping to shape organizational policy in support of disabled staff and partners, and leading with deeper empathy.
Panteha Abareshi,
Ableism Feedback Loop, 2020
As Panteha Abareshi’s work Ableism Feedback Loop (2020) generously guides us through, there is a lack of accessibility within the art space which creates a closed feedback-loop where a lack of representation (and misrepresentation) discourages or altogether prevents disabled individuals from fully participating.17 As a network of art and life story enthusiasts, we should be taking every opportunity to seek out and prioritize the voices of disabled artists and individuals in our field.18 We can look at artist Carolyn Lazard’s extraordinary work examining concepts of intimacy and the labor of living involved with chronic illness, as well as her comprehensive Accessibility guide for small-scale arts nonprofits, Accessibility in the Arts: A Promise and a Practice.19 Alice Wong’s Disability Visibility Project, now partnering with StoryCorps, has published audio and transcripts of over fifty life story interviews centered on the lived experience of disability.20
By incorporating and learning from these voices, implementing the small but necessary recommendations arising from this Access and Accessibility review at VoCA, and thinking critically about the role of the ableism entrenching our day-to-day work, we have the potential to enact some genuinely meaningful change in our sector. Utilizing the platform, reach, and interdisciplinarity of our vital network, we can take this work beyond “all are welcome” – where we risk prematurely patting ourselves on the back for a job well done – and create a field with disabled people in mind.
1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] Current Epidemic Growth Status for States, August 2024. (accessed July 17, 2024)
2. CDC, Disability and Health Data System (DHDS), May, 2023. (accessed June 9, 2024)
3. Raynor, O and Stoffmacher, B, State of the Arts: The Inclusion of Persons with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities in the Arts Community in Impact: Careers in The Arts for People with Intellectual, Developmental, and Other Disabilities, Volume 34, Number 2, 2021.
4. Sheppard, A and Harwell, L, ‘Arts Philanthropists Need to Change the Way They Think About Disability. Let’s Start by Collaborating With Disabled Artists’, Artnet, July, 2021 (accessed July 17, 2024)
5. Crystal Jones (@drcrystaljones), “There’s a huge difference between all are welcome”, Twitter, March 17, 2019 (accessed June 9, 2024)
6. The Knowledge Exchange Hub is an initiative from the Consortium of the Humanities and Arts South East England (CHASE) providing work placement opportunities for doctoral students. The author’s placement with VoCA was generously funded by CHASE via their PhD program at the University of Sussex.
7. Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Museum, Accessible Virtual Programming Toolkit, March 7, 2023. This toolkit for museum professionals provides step-by-step guidance on how to develop and execute virtual programs that are accessible for disabled participants. It is available as a PDF at www.cooperhewitt.org (accessed June 9, 2024)
8. ArtFund, Culture&, It’s about handing over power’ The impact of ethnic diversity initiatives on curatorial roles in the UK arts & heritage sector 1998-2021, November 2022, (accessed August 31, 2024)
9. Respondent 4, Survey: Access and Accessibility at VoCA, February 7, 2023.
10. Respondent 11, Survey, February 7, 2023.
11. Respondent 9, Survey, February 7, 2023.
12. Respondent 10, Survey, February 7, 2023.
13. Respondent 11, Survey: Access and Accessibility at VoCA, February 8, 2023.
14. Jenny Gill, VoCA network member and survey respondent, Survey: Access and Accessibility at VoCA, February 14, 2023.
15. Preply, Survey: Why America is obsessed with subtitles, April 17, 2024, https://preply.com (accessed June 9, 2024)
16. Madans J H, Weeks J D, Elgaddal N. Hearing difficulties among adults: United States, 2019. NCHS Data Brief, no 414. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2021.
17. Panteha Abareshi, “ABLEIST SPACE // [DISABLED BODY],” in VoCA Journal, December 11, 2020, https://journal.voca.network/ableist-space-disabled-body/. (accessed June 9, 2024)
18. Panteha Abareshi’s article for Issue 10 of the VoCA journal cited above details some groundbreaking examples of first-person narrative works exploring sickness and disability, including recent Turner prize winner, Jesse Darling.
19. Lazard, C, Accessibility in the Arts: A Promise and a Practice, https://promiseandpractice.art (accessed June 9, 2024)
20. Disability Visibility Project, https://disabilityvisibilityproject.com (accessed June 9, 2024)
Main image
A still from the video CALL/VoCA Talk: Mildred Howard,
an interview between artist Mildred Howard (left) and Lori Fogarty (right)
filmed in Howard’s studio in November 2020.
Image description:
A still from a video interview featuring two women, artist Mildred Howard and Lori Fogarty, seated across from each other at a glass-top table. Mildred, on the left, has her long hair in a braid, and wears black clothing and thick-framed glasses. Lori, on the right, has short brown hair and is dressed in a gray cardigan and a purple scarf. Behind them, a white wall displays various artworks, including a large abstract painting, a wooden sculpture, and a series of smaller prints and drawings. The video is closed-captioned, with white text at the bottom of the image reading: ‘And it was like magic to me, I was just hooked.’