Creatives with disabilities (or impairments): Are you part of a union or collective? If not, do you feel it is useful to join one?

Curious to now if creative professionals see themselves as included or marginalized in their professions.
How does joining a union or collective of diverse members improve your professional life? If you are not part of a union or collective, do you have any thoughts on whether or not this is meaningful to you?

If you have other thoughts to add to this, I'd liked o hear it.

Replies6

  • I agree with all comments. More awareness about disabilities is needed in society. In general, I tend to feel marginalized and misunderstood. I have recently joined a neurodiverse community in my area but is not creative orientated and it has been really rewarding and helpful. I am trying to connect with other creative neurodivergent. In this order of things, I would love to be part of a creative neurodivergent community. If you know any please let me know I would love to join and if you don't know it would be nice to join forces and create one. Where do you find neurodiverse-friendly job posts?
  • I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) so fall under the neuro diverse description/ disability. I have struggled with it for most of my working life and the cocktail of anxieties, loneliness (resulting in the taboo nature of my intrusive thoughts) has negatively impacted my ability to concentrate and complete tasks.

    Since opening up about it three years ago I have found an incredible community of other OCD sufferers/ survivors and their friendship and support has made an immense difference in all aspects of my life. There are charities and groups I am part of that make me feel stronger and more confident to face any difficulties my OCD causes in my work life. Finding those who have gone through the same as you is invaluable. Hope this helps!
  • Never even heard of one, I wish there was more awareness about disabilities in general at workplaces.

    A lot of them, particularly the invisible ones, leave people dealing with the workload and aditional burdens on their own.

    Ideally learning about disabilities should be a part of curriculum at school, so by time people are working they are ready to join diversified teams, but perhaps there could be something done about creative studios and agencies too. As in - if there was series of talks that could be hosted at various locations by agencies, people could meet and learn about what to pay attention to - and what not to - when working in diverse teams. Or how to make sure that recruitment process is inclusive of people with diverse abilities.
  • Pete, I think you're right. It's hard to find neurodiverse creative communities. Some workplaces are aware and open to this but most are not. It doesn't make sense as some of the top agencies and tech company promote diversity from the perspective of "able-minded" majority yet they fail to recgonize those with ASD, ADHD or other spectrum disorders.

    I'm also sure that there are more neruodiverse creatives out there that are not being represented. It's a issue that's been on my mind for a while because I have met a few creatives with disabilitiy who have voiced their discontent about their needs being misunderstood and ignored. I've wondered, "have they found solutions to this problem? are they finding support?"

    As Teddy said, this might be a gap in the industry that hasn't been addressed yet. This might be an unmet need. Thanks for commenting! Gives me lots of think about. Might research this further.
  • Am not currently but in my last job an initiative was conceived for neurodiverse employees to for a group. It was the closes I had to a community.
    I don’t find many people with my type of ‘nurological flavour’ in the creative industry which is largely due to the fact that mind disabilities
  • Hey this is really cool actually. I feel like I have nowhere to go and create when I want to and if I don’t want to be alone. Never been part of a collective however I think it’s a great idea to create a diverse one for many reasons. So basically it’s a great idea

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