The Essl Foundation is committed to the equal participation of people with disabilities in all areas of society. The experience of art is a particularly important concern.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 15 percent of the world's population, or more than a billion people, live with a disability. However, the majority of these people are excluded from things that are normal for people without disabilities. And this despite the promise to "leave no one behind", as stated in the Agenda 2030 signed by all 193 member states of the United Nations with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals, the SDGs.
The commitment to inclusion is formulated even more clearly in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which has been ratified by more than 180 member states, including Austria. This requires people with disabilities to be enabled to "participate fully, effectively and equally in society".
For a world without barriers
The Essl Foundation, which was founded in 2007 as a non-profit private foundation by Martin Essl, his wife Gerda and their four children, aims to support social innovations and projects with a focus on people with disabilities. With the Zero Project, launched in 2010, it also aims to make a contribution to the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Enabling everyone to access art is a particular concern of the Essl Foundation, not least because of the personal experience of its founders. The commitment is not limited to supporting innovative approaches to art education. Artists should also be inspired to recognize the added value of making their work tangible with multiple senses, as the following three selected examples show.
"Human dignity is inviolable"
Wilfried Gerstel's artwork deals with the sentence set out in the fundamental rights of the European Union: "Human dignity is inviolable". For his installation, the artist chose ten EU languages to show the diversity of languages and scripts found in the EU. These are supplemented by a line in Braille, which is used by people with visual impairments.
Martin and Gerda Essl have made the inclusively designed work of art available to the renovated and barrier-free parliament building as a permanent loan.
“Corona Monument of Hope”
The Corona Monument of Hope is a work by Emmerich Weissenberger and Nora Ruzsics, realized in collaboration with the Austrian Institute for Sustainable Development.
The walk-in blackened wooden sculpture has the shape of a lemniscate, the symbol for infinity. The two wings are dedicated to the themes of sustainability and inclusion, which are of central importance for a post-Corona renaissance. The barrier-free room in the middle represents the all-encompassing love that leaves no one behind. Seven bronzed seals symbolize the seven cardinal virtues.
The memorial was dedicated to all victims, sufferers and heroes of Corona. In 2022 it stood on Vienna's Heldenplatz, and in 2023 it was donated to the Medical University of Vienna, where it can initially be viewed in the entrance area of the Vienna General Hospital and later in the foyer of the new Audimax of the Medical University of Vienna.
In 2021 and 2022, a second sculpture of the Corona Memorial was created in gold bronze of the same size. This "Monument of Hope" is to go on a world tour as a symbol of renaissance and inclusion. For this purpose, a sled was constructed with which the work of art can be pushed into a container. There are also plans to then convert the container into an inclusive "pop-up museum" in order to bring inclusive art to the people.
Inclusive Street Art now also in Austria
Street Art Belgrade has been researching and promoting street art and graffiti in Serbia for 20 years. An important concern is the inclusive design of this art in public spaces.
Through contact with the Zero Project, Street Art Belgrade designed three inclusive murals for the first time in Austria at the end of 2022. The graffiti were selected together with Jakob Kattner, the founder and director of the street art festival “Calle Libre” in Vienna, and are located on Karl-Farkas-Platz in Vienna's 7th district.
In the entrance area of the park there, a section of each of the three murals will be designed as a 3D relief by summer 2023. Below there is a description in Braille.
In addition, there is a fourth panel that contains information for the sighted and a QR code that can be used to access further content.
In another collaboration between Street Art Belgrade and the Zero Project, an inclusive work of art will be created as part of the Zero Project Conference 2023. This mural will then be exhibited in the House of Philanthropy in Vienna as a “good practice” for inclusive art.
This article is available here also available in easy language.