Midsumma Festival launches new skills development program for LGBTQIA+ Artists with a Disability

Midsumma Pathways Bryan BaggioMidsumma Festival is offering a new professional development program for creative LGBTQIA+ people who also identify as living with a disability.

Midsumma Pathways aims to develop skills but will also build capacity for participants in their broader context through introductions and interaction with other LGBTQIA+ creative communities and venues. The aim is to expand skills and networks that can be further built upon by participants in the future.

Contextually, this is a sister program to Midsumma Futures, a highly successful mentorship program for early career artists, nearing completion of its first year. This inaugural program involved workshops and the pairing of twelve participants with mentors, both local and international.

“Midsumma is an organisation that intrinsically creates safe and inclusive places for all, with diversity at its very core,” says Midsumma Chief Executive, Karen Bryant. “We know that when our communities feel safe and supported they are able to build stronger connections within their own groups, further enabling deeper relationships with other groups in the broader community”.

Midsumma Festival holds disability cultures as one of five identified priority areas, as demonstrated with a range of access initiatives across event programs implemented for the 2017 and 2018 festivals.

Applications are now open and close at midnight Thursday 31 May 2018. For more information, visit: www.midsumma.org.au for details.

Image: Deaf artist Bryan Baggio aka Krista Herrington performs at The Cocoa Butter Club: Midsumma Special 2018 – photo by Alexis D. Lea