In September 2025 we were delighted to attend and present at the conference on Disability, Accessibility and Representation in the Creative Industries (DARCI) at the University of York.  Executive Director Mairi and BOP Development Officer Morna travelled down to York to meet up with our collaborators Paul and Jane to demonstrate the outcome of our involvement in their University of Brighton AHRC research project, Telepresence Stage. 

We were presenting a demo of the artwork The Importance of Sleep (info about this project and links to all partners here), created during our residency as part of Telepresence Stage, led by Professor Paul Sermon. As well as this being an excellent opportunity to share the artwork created by Deaf Hong Kong based artist Jack Li, being at DARCI was an opportunity to connect with other creatives excited about the potential of enhanced accessibility in the creative industries.

The Importance of Sleep was well received, with delegates from all over the UK and further afield taking part in the telepresent digital performance, and in particular sparked some exciting conversations about immersive performance with inclusive design specialist Dr Hazel Dixon.

It was great to meet Joel Snyder of Audio Description Associates based in Maryland, and to talk about approaches, or lack of approaches, to creatively embedded access in Canada, USA and the United Kingdom. Mairi and Joel discussed the work of Betty Siegal at The Kennedy Centre in Washington and her ongoing work around accessibility to the arts at a time where cultural access is not being centred by the administration there as it has been in the past.

Highlights for BOP:

There was a fantastic keynote speech from Raymond Antrobus, who performed some of his work, including excerpts from his new book The Quiet Ear, An Investigation of Missing Sound. Mairi even managed to get a signed copy of his last book on the day!

Mairi was one ahead in the queue for Raymond’s book with Lindsay Bywood who has joined Vocaleyes.  Mairi may have beaten her to the last book but Lindsay remained very friendly! It was great to learn about project developments at Vocaleyes, including connections to the Sensational Museum which had been the focus of a great presentation earlier in the day.

Professor Hannah Thompson presented a paper about the The Sensational Museum which undertook research into approaches to museum access which aim to move beyond ocularcentric and ableist notions of how people experience museums and what access is and can be.

A performed excerpt of Lived Fiction by Stopgap Dance Company featuring Nadenh Poan. Nadenh’s dance performance was accompanied by a live audio description beautifully delivered by Lily Norton. Lily then went on to detail how creative access (a practice that is also integral to BOPs work) was developed and executed throughout the entirety of Lived Fiction.

Given our long-term collaborations with disability justice and the arts in Nepal and Bangladesh, we were very excited to attend a session that included a contribution from by Khansa Maria (University of Oxford/Georgetown University) on her paper Borders, Bodies, and Metaphors: Exploring Post-colonial; Representations of Disability in Pakistan and India.

Finally, it was great to experience the work of the research team, Enhancing Audio Description, who were behind the conference and experience the enhanced audio description they have been developing for film works. Their awareness of identifying and exploring unique approaches for each creative project really resonated with BOP and it was wonderful watching the response from audience members who had not experienced nuanced, creative approaches to access before.

Lead investigator Mariana Lopez has written a blog about the conference here and you can listen to her interview Mairi in a podcast that explores the work of BOP and our approaches to making work accessible here.