Arts For All | Nga toi mo te katoa

Tena koutou

Creative New Zealand, Arts Access Aotearoa and Wellington City Council invite you to attend an important series of events about the arts and accessibility.

Book Launch - Arts For All | Nga toi mo te katoa has been published by Creative New Zealand in partnership with Arts Access Aotearoa. It is a practical guide to help artists and arts organisations become more accessible, build new audiences and market their arts events to the disabled community.

Stephen Wainwright, Chief Executive, Creative New Zealand will launch the book. Miranda Harcourt, fresh from the outstanding success of her performance in Biography of my Skin at Downstage Theatre, will be the keynote speaker.

A panel discussion provided by Wellington City Council and Arts Access Aotearoa will follow the book launch. Entitled Embracing change: new practice and new audiences, the discussion will be chaired by Mike Gourley, Radio New Zealand’s One in Five presenter and producer. The panel comprises Lisette Wesseling (soprano, a Braille Awareness Consultant, who is blind); Bruce Roberts (host, Te Papa); Kirsty Glengarry (Public Programmes and Education Manager, City Gallery Wellington); and Darryl Alexander (actor, co-director and creator of Words Apart; prize winner Deaf Idol).

A word is worth a thousand pictures | Free audio description seminar

Wellington City Council is funding Mary Schnackenberg and Anthony Cooke (Accessible Information and Communications Ltd) to give a practical introduction to the use of audio description in the arts.

Audio description uses the natural pauses in dialogue or narration to insert descriptions of essential visual elements. It helps ensure that people who are blind or vision impaired enjoy equal access to arts and cultural events.