In 2003 we started to develop a public art project for the South East of England that would challenge the current thinking and prejudices surrounding Disabled and Deaf artists working in the public realm. Our inspiration came from delivering workshops on access to public art at the first ArtPlus conference at Oxford Business School in partnership with Dada-South. It became obvious during the research that disabled people have had very few opportunities or resources to develop inspiring and breath taking examples of creative inclusive art in the public realm.

We managed to involve key partners such as Dada-South, University of Portsmouth Estates Department and the Univeristies Architecture School, established and emerging Disabled and Deaf artists Tony Heaton, Sign Dance Collective, Jon Adams, Mark Ware, Joolz Cave Berry and Arts Council EnglandSouth East (ACESE) and South East England Development Agency (SEEDA) under their new scheme ArtPlus to fund and support the developments of ‘Squarinthecircle?’.

We developed the programme and what unfolded has been spectacular, incredible and ground breaking. Diablo-Arts have brought together 9 project partners. We have initiated over a 4 year programme artists residencies within the University of Portsmouth Architecture School and local schools. We have supported and mentored Disabled and Deaf artists and they have all strengthened their professional integrity skills and profiles regionally and nationally as part of Diablo’s team. 

A major key in unlocking the myths and mis-conceptions of society about Disabled people’s skills has been in the selection of the artists for the right elements of the vision.  We needed to retain an equality framework and structure for all the partners but provide space for the partners and artists to bring their unique skills to the centre and communicate the important issues to each other.