Access Fringe
Access Fringe is a bold, year-round commitment to equity, care and leadership by d/Deaf, Disabled and Neurodivergent creatives — driving change across Melbourne Fringe and the entire cultural sector.
Accessibility might bring to mind inclusive spaces and access services, but it’s a lot more than that. At Melbourne Fringe, it’s a philosophy – and a creative superpower.
“Access is the juiciest creative opportunity that we have available to us,” says Caroline Bowditch, Melbourne Fringe’s Cultural Equity Consultant and part of this year’s expanded Access Fringe team. For her, access isn’t a limitation, but an inherently innovative provocation that expands the possibilities of creation. “Like when you see beautiful captions or hear really poetic audio descriptions,” she says. “It’s a chance to explore and express artistic ideas in new and original ways.”
Access Fringe affirms Melbourne Fringe’s commitment to making the festival more inclusive for artists, audiences and volunteers, while establishing the organisation as a national leader in accessible arts practice – reshaping how we think about who gets to participate in the arts, and how.
Alongside Bowditch, this year’s Access Fringe team includes Milly Cooper (Program Manager), Carly Findlay OAM (Access Advisor), Madeleine Ruskin (Marketing Coordinator), and Hana Kanzaki (Volunteer Coordinator). The team works collaboratively across departments to embed accessibility throughout the organisation, and supporting artists with tailored resources, advice, and initiatives, including a newly developed guide to presenting sensory-friendly performances.
Volunteers also play a key role. A dedicated Access Champion cohort ensures the wider team can confidently support audiences with access requirements, particularly at the Festival Hub, where a new sensory room provides a calm and welcoming retreat for Neurodivergent visitors. “Providing access training to volunteers empowers them to support audience members with lived experience,” Cooper says. “It gives them the confidence to both approach, and be approached by, people who may require assistance.”
For artists, the Access Fund continues to remove financial barriers, supporting services such as Auslan interpretation, live captioning, and even audience comfort measures like fidget tools and colour-coded wristbands for navigating social interaction.
The work of the Access Fringe team is bolstered by Radical Access, a development initiative for d/Deaf and Disabled artists creating ambitious, genre-defying new work. With artist fees, access budgets, and creative support, the program ensures access is not just how work is presented – it’s how it’s made.
The impact is already visible. More Fringe artists are engaging with access from the outset of their creative process. More audiences are attending events with confidence. And more festivals are looking to Melbourne Fringe as a model for embedding access across every level, as core to a festival’s identity.
“There’s this idea that accessibility is too hard,” says Bowditch. “But not when you plan for it, budget for it, and treat it as part of your moral code. It’s not about ticking a box. It’s about removing a sense of segregation – which in turn grows your audience.”
The Access Fringe team emphasises that accessibility is not one-size-fits-all. It requires dialogue, experimentation, and care. “One person may find something fully accessible, and another person might find it makes them feel more disabled,” Findlay notes. That’s why Fringe approaches access as an evolving practice – one that invites feedback, learning and adaptive thinking.
For artists and organisations across the country, the message is clear: accessibility isn’t about perfection. It’s about progress. “Every one of us is learning about how to make access better, more interesting, more creative,” Bowditch says. “That’s the process.”
Radical Access
Radical Access launched in full in 2022, beginning a ten-year social change project in partnership with Arts Access Victoria that imagines a radical version of best practice accessibility for the independent arts sector and moves the conversation beyond the provision of access services into cultural equity.
Radical Access is a provocation for change and a call for accelerated action. We’re talking commissioning bold new work by d/Deaf and Disabled artists, providing R&D opportunities for artists who identify as d/Deaf or Disabled, running a series of workshops, masterclasses, mentorships and of course, employment opportunities for d/Deaf and Disabled artworkers. All of this with the aim to significantly increase access and inclusion for d/Deaf and Disabled artists across the independent arts sector.
d/Deaf and Disabled artists are vital contributors to Australia’s arts and culture, with unique perspectives on lived experiences that challenge and redefine aesthetics. But even still, artists with disability earn less than half the income of their non-disabled colleagues. Radical Access seeks to close that gap and have real impact on the lives and careers of all independent artists, artworkers and audiences.
Conduit Bodies, Melinda Smith, 2024 Radical Access event
FAQs
What do we aim to achieve?
• Creating structures and resources to support artists who are d/Deaf or Disabled to be the drivers of change
• Increasing the visibility of d/Deaf or Disabled artists into mainstream cultural life
• Developing empowered, skilled and knowledgeable artists, arts workers and participants
• Offering year-round opportunities for d/Deaf and Disabled artists to develop and present their work
What are we doing?
Supporting artworkers through jobs at Fringe
- Create identified employment positions at Melbourne Fringe for d/Deaf and Disabled arts workers, including leadership development through customized professional development programs.
Support artists through an exciting series of new program and projects
- Offer large commissioning fees for mid-career d/Deaf and Disabled artists to present high quality outcomes at the Melbourne Fringe Festival
- Provide Creative Development fees for d/Deaf and Disabled artists to generate new ideas
- Provide professional development and mentoring for d/Deaf and Disabled artists
- Create Community connections for d/Deaf and Disabled artists and arts workers
- Support Sector Development through conversations and training to influence the practice of the sector including delivering a program of workshops and forums centred on the idea of Aesthetic Access, embedding access into the creative and producing process.
Building new audiences
- Establish a paid Radical Access Advisory Panel to connect the program with the d/Deaf and Disability communities, advise on accessible marketing practices, contribute to the Access Fund selection process, consult and contribute towards the ten-year vision of Radical Access
- Develop Accessible marketing strategies and facilitate Access Services for d/Deaf and Disabled audiences
- Establish an annual $20,000 Access Fund to distribute funds to support Fringe shows to be accessible
In each area of this program, we’ll be providing accessibility as part of our delivery.
Radical Access will be a game-changer for Melbourne Fringe, our artists and the independent arts sector. For more information on how Radical Access contributes to Melbourne Fringe vision of a more accessible and inclusive organisation, please check out our Deaf and Disability Action Plan.
For more information on the program, please feel free to email our Access Advisor Carly Findlay, at [email protected] or give us a call on 03 9660 9600.
Radical Access Conversations
Hosted by Caroline Bowditch, the 2025 Radical Access conversations series invites industry leaders from across the globe to share their insights on access and inclusion, moving the conversation beyond the provision of access services into a space of cultural equity. These artistic leaders share their ongoing discoveries about how they navigate barriers and turn them into ground breaking opportunities. Watch the 2025 Conversation series via the button below, or continue scrolling to watch Radical Access conversations from previous years.
Radical Access Partners
