Centring Equity and Access

Creative Dundee exists thanks to the community that surrounds us and guides all we do. Our work is rooted in enabling people to imagine and act together to benefit our communities and place, so that we’re all able to play a part in building a collective and equitable future.

It is our ongoing responsibility to proactively recognise and remove the barriers that prevent people from being part of this collective work, and to make our aspirations clear so that this obligation does not fall to our community. This commitment means continued learning, questioning and willing change to ensure we build equitable, caring, and safe(r) spaces to be heard and take action together.

There’s still so much to be done to build a creative and cultural sector that is fair and inclusive for all. The barriers that marginalised people and communities face include inaccessible pathways to creative careers, lack of diverse leadership, underresourced community-led support, a diminished welfare state and systemic discrimination – and this is compounded by issues facing the wider creative community, such as poor pay, lack of opportunity, reduced value of creativity and exploitative working practices.

We hold responsibility as an organisation to be part of and lead on this work, and to understand the intersectional social contexts that people are working within and against. On this page we’ve gathered projects, programming and features that have supported our continued learning and evolving work in centring equity and access in all that we do. We’ve also collected further reading for creative practitioners and organisations, as well as signposting to projects and organisations leading the way towards a fairer future.

Access Rider

Everyone has access needs, although some people’s needs are more readily met than others. We know that it’s necessary to consider a breadth of different expectations, experiences and needs in order to ensure that our projects are accessible, inclusive and welcoming to those involved in them. One way to do this is by using an access rider.

Guided by freelancers and creative practitioners, we’ve created an access rider form. We use this as an invitation to the people we work with to discuss access and how we can support their needs.

To further share this work, we’ve created an access rider template with two main priorities: so that people can use it as a guide to help them create their own access rider when working with others, and to influence the start or continuation of similar work in other organisations and sectors.

Find out about our access rider template

Exploring access and inclusion

Open to All?

A three-part series exploring access to Dundee’s cultural spaces.

Fair Work and Freelancers

Sharing our commitments to Fair Work and exploring the implications for freelancers.

Ripple Effects

A reflective report sharing more on the CULTIVATE programme’s approaches, processes and impacts.

Creating a Positive Recruitment Process

Reflecting on embedding access and inclusion in the CULTIVATE selection process.

Bring the Chair, Create the Table

Exploring activism, anti-racism and disability justice with the Fabric participants.

Room to Be

LGBTQ+ creative practitioners share what it means to feel safe and included in creative spaces.

Press Change

A pilot project supporting and developing young peoples’ creative voices and journeys.

Resources and further reading

Projects and organisations amplifying un(der)represented creative practitioners in Scotland

We Are Here Scotland – supporting and raising the voices of Black and Global Majority creatives in Scotland.
Pass the Mic – tackling the under-representation and misrepresentation of women of colour in Scotland’s public life and media.
Neuk Collective – bringing together, supporting, and advocating for neurodivergent artists in Scotland.
Scottish Working Class Network – a space for Scottish working class artists to share and platform their work.
Scottish BPOC Writers Network – connecting BPOC writers with the wider literary sector in Scotland.
Solar Bear – connecting, supporting and platforming deaf, hard of hearing, deafblind emerging and professional creatives in Scotland.
ESEA Creatives – showcasing East & Southeast Asian creatives in Scotland.

Guides and tools for equitable working, planning and support

Working with Disabled Illustrators – helping commissioners widen pools of talent.
DIY Access Guide – for bands, musical artists and promoters setting up accessible gigs.
Inklusion Guide – making literature events accessible to disabled people.
Access Toolkit for Artworkers – how to plan, produce, and exhibit accessible art projects.
Working With Neurodivergent Artists – a Neuk Collective guide for cultural organisations.
Our Voices: A Diverse Artists’ Guide – testimonies from Culture Collective peer groups.
The White Pube Funding Library – sharing examples of successful arts funding applications.
Culture Collective Manifesto – a public statement of learning and action.
Easy read artist contract – by Jack Tan for FACT.
Where We Meet – for arts organisations and artists with lived experience of displacement.
Performing Anxiety – for people who want to make audience-facing or participatory arts projects about mental health.
Tools for Sharing Power – a DISRUPT toolkit for artists and organisations working with communities.

Guides and tools for digital access

Digital accessibility: best practice – detailed digital access guidelines for the cultural sector developed by The Space.
Signposting – a Solar Bear introduction to making digital performance work more BSL inclusive.
Inclusive Storytelling and Accessibility in Museums – accessibility guidelines developed by digital-first museum The Lyme Museum.
Accessible Social – a free resource hub sharing best practice for accessible and inclusive social media content.
How to write good alt text – a concise guide to alt text best practice from Sense.

Collected resources to support creative practitioners and organisations

Unlimited – includes a venue access checklist, accessible marketing tips, and a toolkit for freelancers asked to work for nothing.
Disability Arts Online – includes an Access to Work guide, a directory of organisations supporting disabled artists, and gathered resources from other projects and organisations.
Birds of Paradise – includes event planning and marketing toolkits, live captioning guides, and signposting to mental health resources in Scotland.

This is not an exhaustive list of resources and we hope it will continue to grow, supporting our team and the wider sector in this work. If you have any further resources or know of something which would be helpful to highlight here, please let us know!

Creative Dundee

Creative Dundee