Everyone has the right to take part in cultural activities: we are working to make this possible
Our association of professionals was founded with the aim of making culture more accessible at theatres, festivals, museums and other cultural venues. We assist public and private organisations in designing and developing accessible activities, spaces and content. It is our belief that everyone has the right to culture: we use accessibility as a tool to create a fairer and more inclusive society.
We promote accessibility for all, ensuring that everyone has access to culture, with a particular focus on people with sensory disabilities.
The initial stage of our training and support programmes involves actively listening to and engaging with the relevant organisation in order to gain a comprehensive understanding of their needs, ensuring that every aspect is taken care of. In addition to the Fedora team, our projects also involve experts from various fields, as well as people with disabilities, thereby ensuring a diverse range of professional skills and experiences.
We also organise events and meetings that are open to all: they are a valuable opportunity to gain a better understanding of cultural accessibility and emphasise the importance of shared and widespread participation.
Support our work
Are you interested in what we do? Would you like to help us promote cultural accessibility? Find out how you can support our work:
Why Fedora?
Fedora is the name of one of the ‘Invisible Cities’ in Italian author Italo Calvino’s book of the same name: the ideal city that we would all like to live in. That is why we chose this name: a place that encompasses and embraces every aspect of who we are, reflecting the desires and needs of each individual. We believe that culture should be open and accessible to all, while embracing pluralism.
Our history
What accessibility means to us
Making cultural venues, content and products accessible to all ensures that everyone exercises their right to participate in social and cultural life. Therefore, for us, ‘accessible’ does not only mean ‘available’, but also:
- Autonomy, which enhances people’s capacity for self-determination;
- Fostering engagement, understanding and the development of analytical thinking skills in relation to culture;
- Enhancing people’s ability to participate autonomously and promoting best practices within cultural organisations;
- Collective responsibility, because accessibility concerns everyone, including society as a whole, as it can create disabling environments;
- An opportunity to devise new and innovative strategies and solutions when it comes to project design and culture;
- Driving innovation by taking a new approach to project design, production and organisation to bring about positive change.
Our linguistic choices
Fedora has opted for inclusive language across all its communication channels, with the aim of creating physical and virtual spaces where everyone can feel accepted, represented, welcomed and valued. Fedora places significant emphasis on addressing the needs of people with disabilities, acting as their advocate. The language we use is actually a combination of both person-first and identity-first language.
Person-first language is used to emphasise the person before their disability, which is regarded as a characteristic. The term ‘people with disabilities’ reflects this approach by respecting the humanity of those it refers to. We adopted this term, too, as it appears in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and is recommended by the National Center on Disability and Journalism.
However, we also use the term ‘disabled people’, as it is used by many people – including activists – who identify with it. The term ‘disabled’, which was once regarded as discriminatory by society, is now widely accepted. People with disabilities have adopted it as a symbol of pride, seeing it as a defining feature of a marginalised group, just like any other.
Fedora also pays close attention to the role of language in gender-related matters. While recognising the importance of dealing with the lack of gender-neutral terms in Italian, it has chosen to use both masculine and feminine forms at the same time to make its texts more accessible: symbols such as ə, *, u, @, and _ can affect the readability of text for some people and for text-to-speech tools. This is an open-ended issue that we will continue to discuss as the public debate develops.
Who we are
Organisation and transparency
What we can do together
We promote cultural accessibility together with:
Would you like to join our team or suggest a collaboration?
We are always on the lookout for professionals eager to work with us, to help us expand our team and create more opportunities for people with disabilities to get involved in cultural activities.
If you are interested in finding out about our current job openings, or if you want to send us an unsolicited application or tell us more about yourself and what you do, please visit the relevant page.
