Abstract

FONTES, Fernando; PATO DE CARVALHO, Cláudia  and  MARGARIDO, Susete. The Mediating Possibilities of Art: A Case Study on Artistic Experience and Theatre Participation of People with Visual Impairment. RLEC/LJCS [online]. 2023, vol.10, n.1, pp.91-111.  Epub June 30, 2023. ISSN 2184-0458.  https://doi.org/10.21814/rlec.4465.

This article draws on the experience of implementing a project of inclusion through art - A Meu Ver (In My View) - by a professional artistic structure in theatre in the city of Coimbra: O Teatrão. It is a three-year theatre training and practice project for people with blindness or low vision, funded by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and La Caixa Foundation under the Partis & Art for Change programme. The project combines training and intervention in the cultural space of Coimbra. The aim was to analyse and rethink the possible roles of artistic education in cultural mediation, as an intervention model, between the entity O Teatrão and a group of disabled people, traditionally out of the artistic circuits. This research privileged a qualitative approach, conducting a case study of exploratory nature, which took place between October 2021 and August 2022. The data reported here were collected through four data collection techniques: participant observation, questionnaire survey, semi-structured interviews and focus group. By demonstrating the importance of the artistic creation experience in recomposing disabled people’s identities, the project stimulates the deconstruction of disability conceptions based on the individual model and promotes a social concept of disability. In bringing together visually impaired people and Teatrão professionals, A Meu Ver demonstrates that the problems of disabled people do not derive from their impairments but from the dominant forms of social organisation and culture. This deconstruction made it possible to analyse the individual impacts of the project for its direct participants and to highlight possible cultural mediation formats for developing projects with this approach in the cultural sector.

Keywords : cultural mediation; artistic practice; disability; cultural participation.

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