Unlimited was a ground-breaking three year initiative at the heart of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad, that commissioned 29 new pieces of work by deaf and disabled artists from the UK. By developing, producing and showing high quality work by deaf and disabled artists on an unprecedented scale, Unlimited generated a substantial amount of interest both nationally and internationally, raising the profile of disabled artists and contributing to the growth in the scale and range of their work. Following its success in 2012, Unlimited continues to support disabled artists through the commissioning of new works.
On 17 June 2015, the British Council hosted a forum in partnership with the Agency for Cultural Affairs, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan Foundation and Arts Council Tokyo, inviting six speakers from the UK and Japan. By sharing the UK’s practices around arts and disability and the impact of London 2012 and Unlimited, they discussed the value of arts for people with disabilities and how we can develop a society which celebrates diversity, in the lead up to the Tokyo 2020 Games and beyond.
Forum: Inspirations for the Future: Arts and Disability
Speaker:
Jo Verrent (Senior Producer, Unlimited)
Chisato Minamimura (Choreographer / Dance Artist / BSL ART GUIDE)
Kenjiro Hosaka (Curator, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo)
Shunji Yamanaka (Design Engineer / Professor, Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo)
Dai Tamesue
Moderator:
Kumi Fujisawa (Co-Founder, SophiaBank)
Video Archives
Video archives from the forum are available below.