Esther Fox
Head of the Accentuate Programme, Artist, Researcher and Cultural Consultant at Screen South
Visual Arts, Fashion and Design
Esther has been pioneering new ways to support and promote disabled people in the cultural sector for over 20 years; both as an artist and programme director. For the last 13 years, she has led the Accentuate Programme, based within the cultural development organisation, Screen South. Through Esther’s leadership, what started as a Southeast initiative, has grown into an England wide programme, with a specialism for working with Museums and University partners to challenge the underrepresentation of disabled people in both the workforce and within cultural narratives.
Most recently Esther designed, fundraised for, and is now leading, the ground-breaking Curating for Change project; placing D/deaf, disabled and neurodivergent people as curators within over 20 host museums across England. These curators are bringing fresh, disability focused perspectives to museum collections, enabling more nuanced, accurate and empowering stories to be told, by disabled people themselves. Based on the success of Curating for Change, Esther has gone on to secure further funding to deliver a new project, Curating Visibility, which launches in the autumn working with 6 new museums, including the Imperial War Museums and the Museum of London.
Alongside her role as Head of Accentuate, Esther is a practicing artist, interested in the connections between socially engaged arts practice, and medical ethics. Works include ‘Pandora’s Box’, exhibited at The Science Museum London, and currently ‘Lost Voices’, a film commissioned by The Francis Crick Institute. Lost Voices provides a moving archive of disabled people’s voices, questioning what might be lost if genome editing becomes adopted as policy.
Esther passionately believes in platforming the talents of disabled people and foregrounding their voices, to disrupt the status quo and challenge ableism. Esther also works on a number of research projects alongside academics, often being asked to contribute to articles and books, currently she is writing a chapter for a book published by Routledge entitled The Accessibility Spectrum. Esther regularly speaks at conferences, is on the board of trustees for Hastings Contemporary and is a finalist for the National Lottery Awards in the Heritage category, being in the last 5 selected from 3780 nominations.
“Disabled people are often under-represented within our cultural organisations, despite the huge value and insights we have to offer our nationwide cultural ecology. I passionately believe in working in partnership with organisations, large and small, to challenge and re-dress this imbalance. It is only by providing opportunities for disabled people to lead this movement from within, that I believe we will see lasting and meaningful change.”
Disability Power 100 2023 profile information has been self-submitted by the profile subject. Shaw Trust understands and respects that disability and impairment descriptors and language use varies from person to person. Shaw Trust assumes no responsibility or liability for any errors or discrepancies in the content of this, or any other, profile page.
Image credits: Derek Seaward; Francis Crick Institute
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