ACCESS CONSTELLATION: Co-creating Inclusive Cultural Futures

About the Project

Access Constellation: Co-creating Inclusive Cultural Futures starts from a simple but radical idea: what does it mean for culture to be accessible from the very beginning — not as an afterthought, but as a foundation?

Access Constellation: Co-creating Inclusive Cultural Futures approaches cultural participation as a collective responsibility. The project is a collaborative European arts and disability initiative that brings together disabled and non-disabled artists, accessibility experts, cultural institutions and local communities to co-create innovative approaches to accessibility in the cultural sector.

This multi-stage project, designed and developed by EUNIC Romania, aims to strengthen professional pathways for people with disabilities while making the cultural sector more accessible and inclusive. It also supports cultural workers in developing the skills, knowledge and commitment needed to create genuinely inclusive spaces, approaching accessibility as an ongoing creative practice rather than simply a technical requirement.

Nine European cultural institutions in Romania – the Italian Cultural Institute, the British Council, the Polish Institute, the Goethe-Institut, the Czech Centre, Instituto Cervantes, the Romanian Cultural Institute, the Austrian Cultural Forum and the French Institute – have formed a collaborative partnership to deliver this initiative.

The EUNIC cluster project has been developed in close collaboration with co-curators Olga Macrinici, a disabled playwright and theatre director, and Ruxandra Mateescu, a disability rights and cultural accessibility advocate, whose expertise has informed its inclusive approach and strategic direction.

Access Constellation runs in four stages across 2026: an accessibility self-audit by EUNIC institutes (from April), the Accessibility Academy in Bucharest (3–4 September), hands-on Accessibility Incubators (September–October), and the Arts and Disability Forum in the framework of the National Theatre Festival Bucharest (22–23 October) — building momentum towards a national framework for arts and disability in Romania.

Local Context

The project draws on the findings and recommendations of the Arts and Disability in Romania: From Fragmented Practice to a National Framework scoping study, British Council, 2026.

Almost one in twenty people in Romania is registered as having a disability, yet disabled people remain largely absent from cultural spaces as audiences, and even more so as artists. The legal framework exists: constitutional protections, anti-discrimination law, and ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2010. But implementation is uneven, and that gap between policy and practice is where accessibility disappears.

The sector is creative and resilient but constrained by structural barriers. Collaboration is underfunded while organisations compete for already scarce resources, and accredited training on inclusive practice is almost entirely missing from professional development. The result is persistent invisibility — and a tacit expectation that disabled people be exceptional in order to fit a world never designed for them.

The challenge now is turning good intentions into coordinated, long-term action: enforceable legislation, proper training, and funding that rewards collaboration over competition, built on trust between institutions, cultural operators and the disability community. Only then can accessibility move beyond declarative policy and become a shared cultural value.

Access Constellation: Co-creating Inclusive Cultural Futures is a process — slow, collaborative, and honest about what cultural institutions in Romania and beyond have yet to learn. Its ambition is to build the ongoing conditions for cultural spaces shaped by, and accountable to, everyone who occupies them.

Access Constellation: Co-creating Inclusive Cultural Futures, a project by EUNIC Romania, supported by the EUNIC Cluster Fund 2026.

EUNIC – European Union National Institutes for Culture – is Europe’s network of national cultural institutes and organisations, with 39 members from all EU Member States and associate countries.

Through its activities, EUNIC Romania fosters international cultural relations, collaboration, and knowledge exchange, while promoting inclusion, accessibility, sustainability, and community engagement.

The project is delivered with the support of our local partners:

• AMAIS
• Animest Împreună
• CODA – Fundația Farmecul Tăcerii
• Constanța National Theatre and și SEAS – Stagiunea Estivală a Artelor Spectacolului
• Creier Divers
• National Theatre Festival, organized by UNITER – Uniunea Teatrală din România
• Pitești Memorial Prison
• Supereroi printre noi