The National Disability Arts Collection and Archive (NDACA) is a £1-million digital archive chronicling the history of disability arts in the UK, available to the public at www.the-ndaca.org.

NDACA, a Heritage Lottery Fund project delivered by Shape Arts, chronicles the unique history of the UK Disability Arts Movement in which a group of disabled people and their allies broke down barriers, helped change the law and made great art and culture while doing so. The first archive of its kind, this open, free-to-use archive offers a major retrospective of disabled people’s art and activism. 

www.the-ndaca.org is the home of a digital catalogue of 3,500 images, oral history film interviews, educational resources and animations, articles and much more, and as such the Disability Arts Movement can now stake its place within the diverse landscape of UK cultural heritage. 

This massive collection of disabled artists’ work from 1968 to the present day covers every aspect of their creative and political journeys: extensive photographs, ephemera, theatre stills and t-shirt collections relating to the seminal moments in the struggle for disabled people’s rights. The digitisation of thousands of unique deposits will allow new audiences to share and comment on disability arts heritage.

The Archive and Collection preserves the legacy of disability arts, allowing future generations of disabled people to celebrate the creative and political artefacts of disability. Researchers, heritage professionals and those interested in the UK’s cultural identity will be able to share and study a variety of ephemera about disability arts and analyse how the Disability Arts Movement impacted the campaign for disabled people’s civil rights.

NDACA’s physical collection is currently stored in the Archive’s Repository at Buckinghamshire New University, along with the newly built research facilities opening later this year. The NDACA Learning Wing will be the first ever study space dedicated to disability arts heritage in the UK.

Explore the digital National Disability Arts Collection and Archive now at www.the-ndaca.org

Back to NDACA  Back to our heritage projects

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Banner Image: A painting of red and blue numbers on a light grey background. Artwork by Poppy Nash.