Life Stories of Disabled Artists 2018

The dataset consists of eight written responses and two interviews on disabled and Deaf artists' experiences of their position and status in Finnish society and art world. The participants worked widely in different areas of art, such as theatre, music and visual arts. The data were collected as part of research that aimed to explore the opportunities and challenges experienced by disabled artists in their career. Six of the written responses and the two interviews are in Finnish, and the two remaining written responses are in Swedish. In the written responses and interviews, the respondents were asked to recount their life stories, concentrating especially on the beginning of their artist career and on working as a disabled artist. The respondents' possible arts education, work opportunities in the art field and financial circumstances as a disabled artist were examined. Some questions also focused on the importance of social support both during the respondents' journey to become an artist and while working as a professional artist. The respondents were asked to describe their relationship with the disability movement that stands up for the rights of disabled persons, as well as how society and the art world have treated them as professionals in the field. Background information on the participants is available catalogued in a CSV file. The background information cannot be connected to individual participants. The background information includes, for example, the respondent's age, gender, education and questions on being an artist and disabled. Participation in the study was made as accessible as possible during data collection. The files included in the dataset are available in an accessible ODT format in Finnish and Swedish, and the invitation for written responses is available in video file format. The dataset is only available in the original languages (Finnish and Swedish).