Abstract

Sonic Bothy is a disability-led experimental music organisation transforming access into artistic innovation. Through inclusive ensembles, learning programmes and community projects, we create radical new sound experiences while challenging barriers that exclude learning disabled and neurodivergent artists from cultural life.

Description

Sonic Bothy creates inclusive, experimental sound projects with Disabled, neurodivergent and learning-disabled artists. Founded in 2012, the programme of ensembles, performances, and learning workshops welcomes and supports Disabled people at all stages – challenging exclusion within music and contemporary arts.

Sonic Bothy supports Disabled artists reshape artistic processes by embedding access into every aspect of the work — from rehearsal structures and communication methods to performance design, improvisation and audience experience. Access is not merely an accommodation to address barriers, but an experimental, creative methodology for artistic works. In Sonic Bothy, creative audio captioning for d/Deaf artists becomes a text score. Sign Language Interpretation becomes a choreographed moving image to draw inspiration from.

Inclusion in the arts is redefined when the people who support access and communication become artistic collaborators. The artists are empowered to define new artistic languages, and new ways of working. Sonic Bothy is a growing creative community embodying disability-led practice to generate artistic innovation and social change. The programme is designed to create long-term progression for artists at any stages of development, from people engaging in experimental music for the first time to internationally recognised Disabled artists and collaborators.

The result is a distinctive body of experimental sound work that sits alongside a wider culture of inclusion, peer support and artistic leadership. Audiences encounter Disabled artists as innovators creating ambitious contemporary music. Sonic Bothy demonstrates how accessible design, community-building and artistic experimentation can work together to create more inclusive cultural futures. It reshapes not only who gets to participate in culture, but how culture itself is created.

ISA Entrant: Sonic Bothy