Kickstart Disability Arts & Culture

Founded in 1998, Kickstart Disability Arts and Culture is a multidisciplinary professional Disability Arts non-profit committed to showcasing the artistic excellence of artists working within the field of Disability Arts and Culture and supporting disabled artists in BC and across Canada as they continue to push the boundaries of what Disability Arts and Culture can do in this world. Kickstart is rooted in the history of Disability Arts and Culture as being tied to a community and cultural movement, and has prioritized supporting the arts and cultural practices of artists who exist at multiple axes of intersecting oppressions. As an arts organization founded and run by disabled artists for disabled artists, having artistic and administrative leadership who identify as disabled, ensures that decision making is driven by people from within the community it serves. Such a model has provided an example within the field of arts and culture, in that Kickstart both started and continues as an organization that is run 'for us/by us'; rather than simply providing programming for marginalized communities.

In order to promote the development of Disability Arts and Culture, Kickstart is led by disabled Arts administrators; programs, presents, and works with artists who not only identify as disabled but also develop aesthetic markers linked to the canon of Disability Arts and Culture, and centers accessibility in complex and intersectional ways that make it possible for disabled people to take up the role of professional artists, curators, as well as art audiences.