The Black Box is a registered charity based in Belfast. It’s a grassroots organisation with a dynamic programme of events spanning all art forms, including music, theatre, dance and poetry. The organisation is passionate about removing barriers to accessing great events for disabled people and people with learning disabilities, improving the ability for all to experience, enjoy and engage with the arts. Its publicly funded programmes include Gig Buddies, a project for adults with learning disabilities and/or autism to attend gigs with a buddy and Black Moon, a monthly nightclub run by and for adults with learning disabilities.
The Black Box’s not-for-profit venue, which is housed in a Grade II-listed building, is also utilised by other organisations with a social interest to help realise their own EDI agendas and objectives.
We interviewed Deirdre McKenna, Participation & Outreach Officer, to learn more about the organisation’s ambition to create a better, fairer world and the importance of achieving stronger representation across the board. We explore how The Black Box supports self-advocacy within its community and what makes its approach successful in addressing equity and diversity.
Can you tell us a bit about what you're doing in the EDI space and the team behind it?
I'm a disabled person and I work alongside other people who identify as having learning disabilities and/or autism and/or other disabilities. Within our organisation, a number of our team identify in lots of different ways, so it's very important to us all.
We have a group of 7-9 people that meets every two months called the Constructor Team. They are a cohort of people who are a representative body that acts as an advisory board to me, my director and our board of directors about what people with learning disabilities want, care about, want to challenge, want to do, want to try, etc. They’re a cornerstone for everything we do, specifically around our outreach programmes.
We have a nightclub that we run called Black Moon. We invite people to perform, particularly those from the disabled community because we want to make sure that representation is a practice, not just a theory. It’s an important calendar moment for the people who attend, and it impacts things like numeracy, literacy, and social connectivity, ultimately breaking down isolation and marginalisation of individuals with learning disabilities. We also have our Gig Buddies programme, which is about pairing two people with a shared interest to go to a gig or a gallery or whatever it is, depending on their interests.
Some people call it work but I call it a gift because our projects are ultimately about the empowerment of individuals and the development of self-advocacy.
What is it you're trying to achieve?
A better world and a fairer world—the inclusion of individuals across the board, be it around religion, race, gender identification, etc., and making sure all protected identities are incorporated into what we do.
In my role, specifically, around outreach and participation, I connect with so many people who speak about being told they're doing something rather than asked what they'd like to do. What we want is to encourage active participation and not passive. So, we're not saying to the person, "Today we're going to make this" or, "Today you're going to do this". What we say instead is, "Today this is on offer to you, do you want to be there?"—and if they don't want to be there or be involved in a particular way, that's okay.
Sometimes, especially around disability, you may have a plan or a vision that you're going to achieve something. However, sometimes, owing to your disability, that might be a good day for that to happen or it might not. We understand that we all have human experiences and that means that sometimes the plan needs to get ripped up and started again. It’s about self-advocacy.
How is The Black Box supporting this self-advocacy?
Strategically, we are putting in place decision-makers from the learning disabled community and the disabled community. They're called the Constructor Team and they self-nominate and self-advocate. We also have people who volunteer with us who identify as having a learning disability. So, it's about learning how we can make things happen but it's also about learning how to self-organise.
We also try to support more freedom of decision-making and to reduce the amount of additional admin the disabled community have to navigate to get from A to B, to attend a show, to be at the [Black Moon] nightclub, etc.
How do you reach your community to engage with them?
We do it in more of a subversive way. For example, there's a festival called Being Human run throughout the UK by the academic institutions. They want to open up the door to people who have typically been alienated or not included. So we go, 'Hey, we're coming along and we want to be part of your festival'. Then, they can get to understand more about the requirements of individuals who have come through the institution now that they might not have understood before.
Or Pride, as another example. I'll get on the phone coming up to Pride and I'll ask, 'Have you got your programme in Easy Read? There might be people who identify as LGBTQI+ who won't be able to access your online manifesto, etc.'. Then I'd invite them to come along and join our merch table so I could share some information with them.
My colleague who works on Gig Buddies is knocking on the doors of local promoters, local festival organisers and local nightclubs asking, 'Do you offer Personal Assistant (PA) tickets and are they free?'. Often they don't even know what that means. So then, slowly, we build a relationship and we build trust because it's not just specifically about our venue. It's about the gentle raising of awareness.
What have been some of the outcomes that you've seen from your EDI activity and how do you know it's working?
I know it works because I see individuals who have been shy, withdrawn, unsure, and lacking confidence coming forward and saying, 'I want to be involved in that' or 'I want to volunteer at that'. If somebody's confidence is growing and they're feeling less isolated then they're hopefully feeling more empowered—and that's what's happening. With our Gig Buddies programme, for example, it's more one-to-one relationship-building but what happens is you then have friendships that grow and social connectivity that grows.
We also invite feedback in more personal ways. Different people have different levels of literacy and numeracy, for example, and respond differently to different things. Some people may be non-verbal or can't read or write but they can make a visual response. So, we do gather feedback all the time, but it's very personalised. I wouldn't typically send out a Google Form with 'on a scale of one to 10' type questions. If you want things actually meaningfully understood and answered, it's going to take some time and effort—you may need to rethink how you ask for information.
In your view, what makes The Black Box's approach to EDI successful?
It works because we're enhancing what is already there in a person who maybe has been silenced for a long time through lack of educational opportunity, belief or understanding within the world.
Sometimes, it's even just something as simple as knowing what infrastructures are in place. I think, often, people assume that everybody knows they can tap into Disability Action. A lot of people don't know things like advocacy or somebody who will be a workplace advisor and talk to your boss on your behalf exists. They don't know they can tap into flexible working hours, counselling or a chair that works for their body—things that can support them to live a full, meaningful life. Hopefully, that also includes a social creative life that isn't just about surviving.
People shouldn't have their option to participate taken away but they have been traditionally excluded. We want more for people and we want to do whatever is within our power to make that happen. We're a small team but we're a powerful team of people that have the desire to move things forward and knock on doors and say, 'Hey, this doesn't work'.
What have been some of the limitations or challenges you've faced?
I suppose it's the attitude of, 'Oh, but it's always been done like this' and the only way we could possibly understand how something impacts somebody's life is if they can fill out a Google Form. Some people mightn't have access to the Internet, or might not have a smartphone, or might not be able to read or write—they can't access something like a Google Form. It means those people then can't participate in that gathering of information. There's then that lack of effort to get to know what they think.
It's also about a lack of imagination. I think there needs to be more imaginative thinking about how information can be related and gathered—and therefore be more meaningful.
What advice or key learning would you share with other organisations considering delivering similar initiatives?
Make sure it's meaningful. Make sure it matters. Make sure you care and make sure you understand that there's more than one voice in the room.
There's more than one way of doing things so when you're devising things or putting together a collaboration or a partnership, think about whose voices are being elevated, whose ideas are being shared, and who is bringing something new.
What do you perceive as being the risks of not addressing equity and inclusion in the arts?
If we didn't do this, we'd be cheating people and we'd be cheating society. It would also mean that some voices and some agendas don't get met.
Where disability is concerned, it's also important that it is disabled-led as well. For many years, non-disabled people have been making decisions for disabled people about what their interests are, what they want to do, how they can do it, if they can do it, when they can do it, etc. This is still an ongoing problem as well.
We shouldn't be shying away from our disabilities. We should be standing in this room together, or sitting in this room, or rolling into this room in whatever way we come. We're not broken. We don't need to be fixed. We have something to offer, we should be valued and our voices should be heard.
To find out more about The Black Box or to explore any of its brilliant programmes in more detail, go to www.blackboxbelfast.com.
Other Black Box Inclusion Projects to Explore:
Black Moon Club Night - social club for adults with learning disabilities and their friends.
Belfast Sound Collective - Open Musical sessions for adults with learning disabilities.
Express Yourself Social Café - project provides a wide range of arts-based activities and workshops for, and by adults with learning disabilities.
Mini Moon - early years sensory club for children who identify as being disabled and/or autistic and their families.
Black Box Constructor Team - Disabled lead advisory group informing the trustees about what disabled people want and directly informing the planning and programming of activities.
Gig Buddies Belfast is part of an international project matching volunteers (18+) with an adult with learning disabilities and/or autism, who share similar interests to explore local night-life and cultural events together. The main aim of the project is to ease social isolation and help to improve the confidence of both the volunteers and participants.
Explore other case studies today at diversity.wearecreative.uk/case-studies.
