»Bitte mehr DisCo!« (De)

Sometimes having the best of intentions isn’t good enough. More and more cultural projects are addressing the issues of inclusion and accessibility. That’s good and indeed necessary. But on closer inspection, people with disabilities themselves are usually not sufficiently involved in these processes, sometimes not at all. Considering that about 20 percent of society lives with a disability, a large group of people is denied the same opportunities to participate and shape public life in an equal and self-determined way.
This exclusion is particularly evident in the cultural sector. People with disabilities are hardly visible on and off stage and, especially in leadership positions, are massively underrepresented. Cultural institutions and festivals are often not even adequately accessible to visitors with disabilities.
The creative potential of the disability arts movement, empowerment processes in the disabled community (DisCo) and ongoing discourses on intersectionality in cultural work have already provided fertile ground for urgently needed change. So what are we waiting for?
The panel »Bitte mehr DisCo!« (»More DisCo, Please!«) brings together curator Noa Winter (Making a Difference), Lilo Unger from the Berlin club SO36 and Lisette Reuter from the networking initiative Un:Label to explore this issue in a talk hosted by the blind music journalist Amy Zayed.