Visually impaired Arts Access users found out more about prehistoric rock art this summer, with a hands-on visit to explore the collection at the National Museum of Scotland, followed by a field trip to discover ancient cup and ring marks on Tormain Hill outside Ratho. Arts Access volunteer and archaeologist Tertia Barnett, and Alison Sheridan, curator at the National Museum of Scotland, were on hand to share their expertise and to answer questions. Sound artist Gavin Fort made a recording of the trip.

Download the audio here. 

Friday 18th July 2pm and 3.30pm

Join a performance created at Greyfriars Churchyard and Sandy Bells pub on Forrest Road. Using the climate, sounds, smells and landscape of the Churchyard and the very different environment, smells and tastes available in Sandy Bells pub, Poorboy Theatre will create a short, immersive work for sighted, partially sighted and blind participants.

Using Poorboy’s trademark site-specific way of working, the performance will use music and song, spoken word performance, smells and tastes to create a short performance based on the tradition of pub stories – true and false.

Artistic Director Sandy Thomson and Associate Director Jeremiah Reynolds have spent the last few years creating work together. This has included the critically acclaimed Pirates & Mermaids – a site specific spoken word performance with music performed in the garden of the Scottish Storytelling Centre. The show was nominated for the prestigious Stage Award for Best Solo Performance last year.

This event is part of Artlink’s Opening Lines, combining description, history and storytelling in response to locations across Edinburgh, creating events for sighted and non sighted audiences.

For more information and to book a place contact susan@artlinkedinburgh.co.uk or phone 0131 229 3555.

Artlink is launching a new website, Investigate Create, providing information to open up the arts for people with sight loss, people with hearing loss and sign language users.

Investigate Create launches on 11 June with an event in the Great Hall of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, featuring live music and work developed as part of the Opening Lines project. Poet Ken Cockburn and artist Julianna Capes will perform poetry and verbal description.

For thirty years, Artlink has been offering support and assistance to people with disabilities who want to enjoy Edinburgh’s vibrant and diverse arts scene. With 200 clients and over 100 volunteers, what is now known as the Arts Access service arranges over 1000 outings a year. The aim of Arts Access has always been to make each outing as enjoyable and hassle free as possible, and to make sure that nobody’s enjoyment is restricted by their particular needs.

Feedback from individual outings has helped Artlink to find out what works and what doesn’t, as well as raising awareness of the demand for improvements and innovations. At the same time, Artlink’s work with galleries to deliver accessible tours for people with hearing loss, and for people who are visually impaired, has introduced them to people whose ideas and opinions demonstrate that there is enthusiastic interest in taking part in a whole new experience of art. Rather than adding on access aids to existing work, why not develop work with access at the heart of it?

The resulting projects, Opening Lines (for people with visual impairment) and Let Loose (for people who are hard of hearing), have brought participants together with professional artists to develop unique and original artworks which can be fully enjoyed and experienced by a wider audience.

The Investigate Create website, which launches in June, aims to spread the word about this ongoing programme of innovative projects, events, and workshops. There are features on events, people and places of interest, and up to date, easy to use listings for accessible events in Edinburgh, which can be tailored to individual preferences.

The listings go beyond the usual categories for accessible performances. Investigate Create aims to enthuse and encourage new audiences into trying out different types of events, in different venues, and to increase confidence by including practical information to make booking and attending as easy as possible.

Below is a small taster of what you might find on the new site. Inspired by the National Library of Scotland and written and produced by Ken Cockburn.

A transcript of the audio is available here.

Saturday 26 April 2.30pm – 4.00pm
National Library of Scotland

Some Bat-squeak Echo of Other Time: a tour guided by fiction. Created by Ken Cockburn as the culmination of an Artlink project with the National Library of Scotland. The project considered the library as both a building and a collection. Within the collection are descriptions of fictional buildings, which have only ever existed in the imagination.

This performance will lead you on a journey through the National Library of Scotland weaving together fictions, description and music. Ken Cockburn’s explorations of the building together with staff and Artlink participants, has resulted in this rich and unexpected way to experience the library and its spaces.

This is a free event as part of Artlink’s Opening Lines which mixes description, history and storytelling in response to locations across Edinburgh, creating events for sighted and non sighted audiences.

For more info or to join the event, please contact: Susan Humble susan@artlinkedinburgh.co.uk or call 0131 229 3555.

Susan Humble, Artlink’s Audience Development Officer has recently been collaborating with individuals with sensory impairments and artists to explore the creative potential of access tools such as audio description or captioning.

The Word Games started to explore captioning with individuals with hearing loss. Rather than thinking about captions at the end of a production – something added on, the idea is to turn this around and use text throughout a collaborative process. Artist Anthony Schrag led workshops which encouraged people to play with text and work closely together.  This started with card games building up to finger poems and finally large scale body poems with everyone working together. One of the participants told us: “We had fun surely – but more than that, we enjoyed interacting with the words, with each other and our confidence grew. I think our brains were freed up from struggling with the communication so we could relax into the buzz of creativity….. We could be silly without feeling stupid. Liberating stuff!”

The Word Games workshops are part of Investigate | Create, a three year project supported by the Robertson Trusts, Creative Scotland and other funders to explore the creative potential of functional access tools through collaboration between artists and audiences. For more information about this work please visit the Investigate | Create blog or contact Susan Humble susan@artlinkedinburgh.co.uk