50 Disability and inclusion at QAGOMA 51 ARTLINES 3 | 2025 DISABILITY AND INCLUSION AT QAGOMA QAGOMA aims to be at the forefront of accessible practice in museums and galleries. In the coming months, the Gallery will launch its inaugural Disability and Inclusion Action Plan, aligned with QAGOMA’s vision to be the most welcoming gallery in Australia, writes Terry Deen. At QAGOMA, action is considered the best form of advocacy, whether through the delivery of access and education programs, the volunteer guide program or regional services. Often, action is most meaningful when it is informed and allied with a bigger vision, part of a unified purpose. In the coming months, QAGOMA will launch its first Disability and Inclusion Action Plan (DIAP). By adopting the Social Model of Disability for its plan, which recognises that it is the role of public institutions to remove barriers to access online, on site and through outreach, the Gallery aims to be at the forefront of accessible practice in museums and galleries. Moving beyond this adoption, the QAGOMA DIAP will act as a roadmap aligned with a broader vision: to be the most welcoming gallery in Australia. Martin Edge, an artist and proud ambassador for Autism Queensland, speaks to this vision when he states, ‘Art should be available for everybody to enjoy. Coming to the Gallery is not just for one person, it’s for everyone. The Gallery is part of so many people’s lives’. The Gallery’s DIAP is developing through a highly consultative process, bringing together the perspectives of a diverse network of stakeholders. The viewpoints of people with lived experience of disability are central to its development, and those voices include staff, volunteers, members of the QAGOMA Disability Reference Group, artists, regular attendees of our access programs, regional arts workers and general visitors. QAGOMA delivers a wide range of initiatives for visitors with disability. Access is built into the daily operations of the Gallery and programmed into bespoke experiences for specific needs. While QAGOMA is proud of its history in creating accessible programming and design, it is equally committed to strategic and holistic improvement, recognising that access — like art, culture and language — is never fixed or static. Through evolving action plans, the Gallery aims to remove barriers to accessing and engaging with art from the state collection and beyond, to welcome new audiences, and to learn from long-term visitors who share a sense of civic pride in the Gallery. Recently, the inspirational physician, lawyer, scientist and disability advocate Dr Dinesh Palipana OAM gave a deeply moving lecture at the Queensland Art Gallery on his lived experience. He noted that the first thing he tells people about QAGOMA is that it is free to enter and that ‘Anyone can wander in and have a look’. He expressed a deep understanding, informed by his unique set of lived experiences, that it is ‘a powerful thing to make art accessible for everyone, whether you are rich or poor’, adding that ‘to democratise art is cool’. The Gallery’s DIAP is an opportunity to elevate QAGOMA’s capacity, to advocate through action across multiple facets of the Gallery. In practical terms, the plan will help QAGOMA to identify, articulate and commit to a set of practical and Above and opposite, above A visitor with low vision exploring the materiality of tactile items during a guided tour of APT11, GOMA, March 2025 / Photographs: Nicholas Umek Opposite, below During a guided tour of APT11 for visitors with hearing loss, with Zac Langdon-Pole’s Another World Inside this One 2024 (Purchased 2024 with funds from David Thomas AM through the QAGOMA Foundation), GOMA, March 2025 / Photograph: Chloë Callistemon measurable outcomes in areas ranging from human resources and digital engagement to facilities, visitor experience and outreach. At ground level, access is about getting the fundamentals right: QAGOMA invests the expertise and diligence needed for adherence to protocols and policies that influence accessibility, such as workplace health and safety and code compliance. Beyond standardisation and regulation, access has emerged as a field of practice that presents dynamic ways of shifting how museums and art galleries operate and function. The DIAP will be a means through which the Gallery can open dialogue with individuals and communities engaged in innovative approaches to co-design for access. Approaching access through the lens of the Social Model enables QAGOMA to learn through, and with, the knowledge and experience of people living with disability. During a recent visit to the studio of Access Arts in Yeronga, Access Program Officer Laura Walker and I heard the stories of local artists living with disability. They spoke about inspiration that they’ve found during visits to QAGOMA; Tanya Darl spoke of being at GOMA during the ‘European Masterpieces’ exhibition, drawn from the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where she encountered the work of Vincent van Gogh. Tanya’s appreciation for the experience was full of awe and was marked by a recognition that the famed Dutch painter represented something of her lived experience of disability. Tanya told us that she feels ‘fortunate in a sense, that I do have the disabilities, because it gives me that opportunity to be involved with such inclusive groups and people’. The importance of belonging and community expressed by Tanya is a value that QAGOMA seeks to foster through the DIAP. Terry Deen is Head of Learning. QAGOMA’s Disability and Inclusion Action Plan will soon be available online. In the meantime, hear from Martin Edge, Dr Dinesh Palipana OAM, Tanya Darl and others who have kindly shared their experiences of engaging with art at QAGOMA, by following the link below. We also invite you to contribute your stories of engaging with art and culture at QAGOMA here at qagoma.qld.gov.au/visit/ accessibility/disability-and-inclusion-action-plan.
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