Upgrade Yourself Monthly: Access as a Creative Catalyst
Join us for our December Upgrade Yourself Monthly as we explore how accessibility can spark creativity with Shape Arts’ Creative Producer, Elinor Hayes and artist Joe Rizzo Naudi.
For 18-30 year olds
| Dates | Weds 3 Dec |
| Times | 6pm - 9pm |
| Space | The Exchange New Wing |
| Price | Free |
Please note this event is for 18–30-year-olds.
Join Shape Arts’ Creative Producer Elinor Hayes for an interactive session exploring how accessibility can be a generative tool for creativity, not just a practical consideration. Drawing on their experience of developing exhibitions and commissions, Elinor will introduce ways of approaching access as a curatorial framework - one that can open up new possibilities for collaboration, design, and storytelling across disciplines.
The session will also feature artist, writer and audio describer Joe Rizzo Naudi, who will lead a hands-on creative audio description workshop, inviting you to experiment with sound, language, and imagination as forms of translation and artistic expression.
Together, they'll unpack how access can drive innovation, shape your process, and expand who gets to participate in making and experiencing art. Whether you’re an artist, producer, designer, or creative practitioner, this session will offer practical tools and inspiration for embedding access meaningfully into your work.
As always, free drinks and food provided by Butch Salads will be available throughout the evening.
✨ And here’s the bonus:
All attendees will receive a free ticket to the Wayne McGregor: Infinite Bodies – a groundbreaking exhibition dedicated to the polymath practice of internationally renowned choreographer and director Sir Wayne McGregor CBE
Header Photo Credit: Rachel Cherry.
To get involved in the session, please sign up below:
Sign up will close 10am Tuesday 18th November, successful participants will be notified by Wednesday 19th November.
Spaces are limited, and participants will be selected at random. If you're chosen, you'll need to confirm your attendance - otherwise, your spot may be offered to someone else. Please check your spam folder!
By signing up for the session, you will automatically be added to the waitlist if the session is full
About Shape Arts
Shape Arts is a disability-led organisation breaking barriers to creative excellence. We deliver a range of projects supporting marginalised artists, as well as training cultural venues to be more inclusive and accessible for disabled people as employees, artists and audiences. All of Shape's work is informed by the Social Model of Disability. Running alongside this portfolio is the NLHF funded National Disability Movement Archive and Collection (NDMAC), a radical collecting and retelling of the Disability Rights Movement’s heritage story that builds on our delivery of the National Disability Arts Collection and Archive (NDACA), a £1-million digital archive chronicling the history of disability arts in the UK.
About Elinor Hayes
Elinor Hayes (she/her) is a London-based Producer, Curator, and Access Consultant whose work explores accessibility as a creative and generative framework for curatorial practice. As Creative Producer at Shape Arts, Elinor develops exhibitions, commissions, and events with disabled and marginalised artists. Their work focusses on reimagining access, participation, and public art through collaborative and inclusive approaches.
About Joe Rizzo Naudi
Joseph Rizzo Naudi is a blind writer and facilitator based in London, United Kingdom. He is a Techne postgraduate researcher at Royal Holloway, University of London, where he is exploring artwork description, fiction technique and blindness gain. His work has been supported by Arts Council England, the Arts & Humanities Research Council and Spread The Word’s London Writers Awards. Listen to his radio programme 'Ways of Not Seeing' on BBC Sounds.
with thanks to The Linbury Trust