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In January 2016, I took part of a round table entitled The Disabled People’s Protagonism in the Arts. It was organized by Paula De Renor, one of the directors of the international performing arts festival Janeiro de Grandes Espetáculos (January of Great Performances). This roundtable was our third collaboration working with disabled artists, and it was a huge success. Many conversations blossomed from there.
The questions raised were around leadership in the art field, access to funds and support, how to lead a creative and productive life, achieve excellence on any work of art, especially when you are a disabled person. How can a disabled artist function as any other citizen when society sees them as people who need help to accomplish their tasks, as people who are not able to do things for themselves, or who always need someone to speak for them or be with as if they were children?
In general, disability is not seen to be synonymous with leadership. According to the Social Model, disability is defined as a social construct. Disability is created by the organizational, attitudinal and physical barriers. This approach provides us with a dynamic and positive model that allows us to identify the problems and propose solutions. It differs from the Medical Model that blames the individuals for their impairments. The Social Model brings up the idea that disabled is the society, and promotes the idea that the only logical way to create a fairer world is through better planning and organizing the social environments in a way that it becomes more inclusive to disabled people resulting in a more inclusive society to everyone.
The Social Model allows for the disabled people to express their situation concerning Human Rights, or equality issues, challenging the traditional medical model based solely on assistance and cure. So the disabled artist should be seen as autonomous and able to lead their own field of expertise, as any other citizen. Society is the one to remove the barriers for the disabled persons to develop their skills and function to their full potential and profit from what the arts can provide as for the most profound transformations.
Responding to these issues, Paula De Renor and I designed a showcase to happen in Rio de Janeiro during the Olympics and Paralympics’ period where we could carry on reflecting and empowering the artists by creating more spaces for practitioners to be able to develop their skills. From this conversation we created the Mostra Acessível Rio das Olimpíadas (Accessible Showcase Olympics Rio), to showcase the best works made by disabled people in Brazil.