Focus on Arts and Disability: Audio describing for the arts sector

Stories
Mar 01, 2017
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Keen to utilise our new skills, several members of our audio description team have recently volunteered their time to describe external arts events. Our group provided all the audio description at the 2016 Arts Activated Conference and the 2016 Live Works Festival (run by Performance Space). We hope to advocate for the adoption of audio description and build the profile of this service across the Australian arts sector.

Our group is looking forward to furthering our describing skills in 2017. First up, several of our team are collaborating with Jodee Mundy Collaborations on “Imagined Touch”, a recent development of which recently ran at the Sydney Festival. We will be collaborating to build further audio description into the work and to make the performance a richer experience for blind or vision impaired audiences.


Image credit: Gisella Vollmer

We will also be focused heavily on delivering the audio description activities outlined in our Disability Action Plan, including:

  • Recording and publishing an audio described tour of our building (for our visually impaired visitors)
  • Ensuring images and videos on our website, including infographics, are described when possible
  • Profile audio description and other access activity by Council and other arts organisations

We want to ensure that people with vision impairment feel welcome to engage with our services, programs and events. We look forward to working towards this goal.

If you would like to learn more about making your work more accessible to people with low vision, contact Vision Australia or Access2Arts.