Inclusion Arts Programming
Inclusion Arts Programs are designed to include audiences with disabilities, ensuring that the organization represents the arts as a space for everyone to be creative and get inspired, regardless of ability or background.
Existing programs and resources are adapted and redesigned to increase accessibility and drive inclusion on-site. A focus is placed on involving audiences in the artistic process, providing sensory-friendly programming, and empowering disabled communities as artists in their own right.
Recent Projects
Beyond Compliance Training. The Watermill Center. 2022-2024. A series of workshops for staff and volunteers that provided them with the tools to engage with disabled populations throughout the course of their workday, and instructed them on how to build more accessible visitor services.
Christopher Knowles / STAND: Exhibition Programming. The Watermill Center. 2022. “Christopher Knowles / STAND,” was a comprehensive retrospective of Knowles’ career from the 1970s to today, and a robust program of educational opportunities was developed to complement the exhibition. Programming was designed to empower neurodiverse audiences by directly engaging with the practice of a professional artist with disabilities.
Creative Writing Series. The Watermill Center. 2023. Artist-in-residence Robert Taylor led a series of creative writing workshops for neurodivergent audiences. The workshops focused around storytelling as a means of exchange, and collaborative world-building.
Marking Memories Workshop. The Watermill Center. 2024. Supported by a grant from the Kennedy Center VSA Program, “Marking Memories” engaged high-school aged students with disabilities. The program built their skills in arts education through social-emotional and exploratory learning. The program was centered around providing supplemental programming to high-school students, whose access to arts and cultural offerings diminishes as they age through the school system.
Paul Thek Exhibition Programming. The Watermill Center. 2023. A series of engagement opportunities around The Center’s permanent exhibition of works by the late artist. Included sensory-friendly tours and hands-on workshops. Programming included a special engagement with artist-in-residence Alessandro Di Pietro, who led participants in an exploratory exercise in continuing the work of the late artist posthumously as “ghost-writers.”
The FUSÉE Project. The Watermill Center. 2024. The FUSÉE Project was the culmination of a multi-week engagement between the East End Explorers (EEE), a social group for adults with developmental disabilities, and multidisciplinary artist Adam Baranello. The resulting exhibition featured paintings by participants, as well as a collaborative performance and short film between EEE and the artist.
Tour & Explore: Sensory Friendly Programs. The Watermill Center. 2022-2024. “Tour & Explore” leveraged The Watermill Center’s extensive global art collection of over 10,00 objects as a tool to engage audiences with sensory sensitivity, providing an adapted experience of The Center’s bi-weekly guided tours in a safe and comfortable environment.
Featured Artists
Adam Baranello, Brian Block, Philiipe Cheng, Alessandro Di Pietro, Clementine Hunter, Christopher Knowles, Carina Kohn, Maria Louizou, Ola Maciejewska, Passepartout Duo, Pe Mellado Dance Company, Alvaro Restrepo, Robert Taylor, Paul Thek, Robert Wilson
Featured Partnerships
Bridgehampton Childcare and Recreation Center (Bridgehampton, NY), East End Explorers (Southampton, NY), LUV Michael (Southampton, NY), Southampton Cultural Center (Southampton, NY), The Kennedy Center (Washington, D.C.)