Shining together

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Dear JI Ki-ryong, President of People with Disabilities and Friends of Five Continents 

Dear Colleagues, Dear participants, Dear friends,

I am delighted to welcome you to the first ArtPara Forum. This forum is an excellent opportunity for artists from around the world to network and discuss current issues in the field of free access to artistic creation. 

Artistic creation is a means of transforming practices and perspectives. It is also the oldest form of communication; before words there were gestures and before books there were frescoes. Rock paintings and church ceilings bear witness to this, punctuating human history with images that have reached us over the centuries.

Artists with disabilities have developed unique talents and points of view that are a distinct and enlightening part of human history. By supporting the disabled artists’ work and by offering them opportunities for creation and exhibition, we all benefit by listening to their voices and recognising their talents.

From the shadows to the light, these previously ignored artists join the public stage, alongside the athletes, who are the focus of the Paralympic Games. They invite us to work together to share our experiences, evaluate our practices and make proposals to improve the conditions for artists with disabilities.

This first ArtPara Forum is an excellent opportunity to share our ideas on how to expand access to artistic creation, whether as artists, cultural operators or ordinary citizens. We will discuss current issues, the definition of cultural policies, the training of artists, access to culture, access to creative spaces, residencies and other artistic exchanges in Europe and around the world.

The creations of artists with disabilities presented in the ArtPara exhibition will inspire future collaboration and promotion of the creative perspectives of artists with disabilities from around the world. We plan to ensure that artistic creation attains its rightful and integral place as a means of individual expression and fulfilment among people with disabilities, (*versus transforming the practices of helping people) and that it helps the rest of the world re-evaluate its limiting perspectives of disability.

Through the ArtPara Forum, with leadership for the host city of Paris, I invite the participants here today to lay the foundation of a universal approach to art that reaches new sublime heights by transcending form and diversity. When the end of the Games, let us engrave in our memories the paths the artists have opened up to us and the El Dorados, in which they invite us to wander.

Photos : https://photos.app.goo.gl/tTwHmrn4xoQ156uV7