Creativity is Mistakes

Creativity is Mistakes was a collaborative project between Disabled artists and visual arts organisations in Wales including Disability Arts Cymru, g39 and Mostyn, with additional specialist expertise from Manchester-based organisation, Venture Arts. The project centred the voices, talents and lived experiences of Disabled, Deaf and neurodivergent visual artists in developing innovative models for collective access in the visual arts and aimed to:

• Develop novel ways for artists and organisations to embed intentional access in their artworks and programming in meaningful ways, making the visual arts in Wales accessible to as many people as possible
• Create opportunities to ensure Disabled, Deaf, and neurodivergent artists, curators and creative practitioners are empowered, promoted and included within the visual arts sector
• Share the project findings through a freely available ‘Visual Arts Access Toolkit’

The first group of six artists worked together and created a new collective ‘Meerkats’ who continue to meet and support one another’s practices. In January 2023, for the second cohort, Creativity is Mistakes invited 15 Disabled, Deaf and neurodivergent artists living and working in Wales to work together with the partners to contribute to research into the act of embedding accessibility for artists and arts professionals into organisations in Wales. This included workshops, professional development opportunities, one-to-one artist mentoring, research and public events.