ARTS FOR ALL? A LOOK AT EQUAL ACCESS TO ARTS FOR THE DISABLED COMMUNITY IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

Persons with disabilities (PwDs) constitute a significant portion of Singapore’s population. However, they are often underrepresented in the national discourse, as PwDs have remained unaccounted for the longest time in national census data, and disability-specific fields like disability arts remain severely underdeveloped. In order for Singapore to become a truly inclusive society, greater attention must thus be diverted towards issues of access, inclusion and exclusion in our society, with greater public awareness about accessibility and barriers to access for underrepresented groups like PwDs in all aspects of social life. As such, this thesis seeks to zoom in specifically on the field of disability arts, looking into the question of how PwDs access, participate in and produce art in Singapore as compared to persons without disabilities. Through qualitative interviews and archival research of NAC annual reports and past policy papers, this thesis argues that due to prominent factors like state policies and ableist attitudes prevalent in Singapore, disability arts have largely been viewed through the lens of charity and rehabilitation. This has created unequal terms of access to the arts for PwDs compared to persons without disabilities, where access can be perceived as being able to participate in arts activities out of personal interest and passion, as well as to produce art professionally. Consequently, due to unequal terms of access to arts, this paper posits that PwDs’ arts participation gets reduced to a primary rehabilitative function and art production and distribution is subjected to a tendency of disempowerment of PwDs.