Below is the start to a blog that I wrote for the Seattle Cultural Accessibility Consortium and a link to the full article. – Louis Mendoza
As a new member of the Seattle Cultural Accessibility Consortium (SCAC) steering committee, I have two challenges for the arts organizations in town: make Seattle a national leader on accessibility to the arts for people with disabilities and publicly announce your accessibility initiatives.
In the last quarter of 2020, I was pleased to see two Seattle Times articles about improving the local arts experience for underserved populations. One, about improving arts experiences for people who have disabilities, was titled, “How Embracing Universal Design Could Make the World Better After COVID-19”. It profiled Elizabeth Ralston’s work with the SCAC to support arts groups as they expand their accessibility efforts. The second article was titled, “Seattle Theater Leaders Work Toward Anti-Racism”. What struck me was that while both articles were about improvement efforts targeting specific populations in our community; one effort is being driven by the organizations themselves, the other is being propelled forward by outside influencers. It left me wondering,
“Why are these equally important needs being addressed differently?”.
Read the full article here, dated 2/4/21