As I work with creative minded students from primary school age to graduate age – I want to understand how we can support students within the creative arts from the initial curiosity – all the way through to graduation and beyond.
Christine Sun Kim is a non-hearing artist and mother living in Berlin after emigrating from America. During this video she discusses the impact of her non-hearing on her daily life, her decision not to learn to lip read and how her lived experiences inform her practice as an artist. She also discusses instances when she was told ‘no’ to a number of classes due to her disability – specifically art related classes, throughout her life. She later talks about the impact motherhood has had on her work and how angry she is that many Americans are shackled with debt because of parenthood, studying or purchasing a home and how different it is where she lives in Berlin, as childcare is free. It made me wonder how many artists are not practicing because of being told ‘no’ or as a result of the shackles of debt.
(Accessed 23/4/26)
Chay Brown is a transman who is also disabled and neuro-diverse. This video interested me because it touched upon many different viewpoints with regards to accessibility. He discussed physical accessibility – enabling wheelchair access, but then how sometimes there may not be accessible toilets within the venue. He also discusses other possible accessibility barriers including noise barriers and that for neurodivergent people who has noise aversion, social events can sometimes be anxiety inducing for fear of busyness and noise. He went onto describe a well-planned trans community event, in which all accessibility barriers had been considered and the organisers had included a quiet board game space on top of a disco to enable all to participate.
(Accessed: 23/4/26)
Both these video’s made me think about intersectional identities within people that may cause barriers to arts education; disability, neurodiversity, socio-economics, gender, parenthood, mental health and more. Considering my different educational hats (teach KS2 primary children, and as an hourly paid lecturer at London College of Fashion), the different ways this could impact the students learning.
For primary aged students – I ask all parents to fill in a form detailing any additional learning needs (specifically neurodiversity and disability focused) so that I can plan to support my students consciously aware of potential barriers (currently 50% of my class have neurodiversity’s that parents are aware of). This is in paralel to 20% known disabilities (including mental health and neurodiversities at LCF (see chart)
(Accessed 29.04.26: https://dashboards.arts.ac.uk/dashboard/ActiveDashboards/DashboardPage.aspx?dashboardid=5c6bb274-7645-4500-bb75-7e334f68ff24&dashcontextid=638681486282992055)
In primary education, it can be complicated as the children are still learning to be people and may not know what they need as yet. Therefore, I consider how I can make this easier for them. Whereas my higher education students may have developed more of an awareness of what they need, but I may not know what their disabilities or neurodiversity’s are unless they are willing to discuss them with me. Therefore, it seems essential that all barriers are removed for each lesson no matter what age.