DaDaFest International 2020 and Artist Commissions
UPDATE - One more commissioning strand has become available as part of our 2020 awards. Find out more about this new co-commission with St Helens Libraries here, deadline 31 July: https://www.dadafest.co.uk/article/libraries-commission-news
As is the case with so many arts organisations, we here at DaDaFest have had to adapt the way we work to meet the new demands of the current situation.
After talking with the artists we are funding through our existing commissions and with those on our Development Programme, we have made a decision to work with commissioned artists individually according to their needs and to pause the development programme until we can meet in person again. We have also postponed our Scratch event planned for July with Liverpool Philharmonic which is now scheduled for March 2021.
At this time we would normally be working with artists, organisations and producers to bring you our International festival of cutting edge, high quality d/Deaf and disability arts in November at venues across the region.
But these are different circumstances – the venues that we planned to use are closed and many of our artists, potential festival participants and audiences are shielding or isolating.
So, in response to this, DaDaFest International 2020 will need to be different too.
Translations
The theme for our 2020 Festival has always been ‘translations’. So we’re “translating” our 2020 Festival into an online celebration of digital work by d/Deaf and disabled artists.
And more than that, we have plans to spread our work across the year to allow those artists for whom social interaction is a critical part of their practice the time, space and opportunity to develop their work in a way that is most appropriate for them.
So, for us, translations will become not just a festival, but a year long season of excellent, new and challenging disability arts.
Artist Commissions
To support our Festival and annual programme of work we have created two new commissioning strands
We would like to invite North West based d/Deaf or disabled artists to apply for 10 micro-commissions, funded in partnership with Unlimited, to create digital work which will be presented as part of DaDaFest’s ongoing 2020/21 season. Supported by Unlimited, celebrating the work of disabled artists, with funding from Arts Council England
We would also like to invite d/Deaf or disabled artists nationally to apply for 4 larger commissions, funded in partnership with Granada Foundation, for digital work specific to the November 2020 festival, in response to the theme of ‘translations’.
Find out all you need to know here.