Oily Cart receives £80k from The National Lottery Heritage Fund
We are excited to announce that we have been awarded £80k by The National Lottery Heritage Fund to tell the story of our radical and pioneering approach to creating theatre for and with disabled children.
Thanks to National Lottery players we can now create an accessible digital archive that records and preserves 40 years of our ground-breaking work. We will use this award to develop a series of projects that mark 40 years of making innovative sensory theatre for and with disabled children and young people across the UK and internationally.
Funding from The National Lottery Heritage Fund is made possible by money raised by National Lottery players. This grant will fund the creation of a unique digital archive of videos, photos and music from over 80 Oily Cart shows. Oily Cart will restore and recondition sensory props, costumes and puppets to build a fun, accessible resource for theatre practitioners, teachers and families.
Our new touring project The Cart is an interactive, physical embodiment of the archive and inspired by the best of Oily’s Cart’s sensory theatre shows. It is touring specialist schools from January 2022. Teachers, parents and carers will also have the opportunity to attend a Sensory Symposium to explore the archive and the sensory techniques developed by Oily Cart.
Cllr Sutters, Cabinet Member with responsibility for Arts and Culture, Wandsworth Borough Council said: “We are delighted that Oily Cart has received this funding award so that their amazing work can be preserved for future generations. For the last 40 years, Wandsworth Council has enjoyed and nurtured a strong and collaborative working relationship with Oily Cart and we have been incredibly proud to support them on their journey. The work they do with Wandsworth’s specialist schools and the support they give to families with disabled children is both awe-inspiring and leads to tangible benefits in improving young people’s wellbeing and happiness as well as broadening their aspirations for their future.”
Oily Cart was established in Wandsworth in 1981 by Claire de Loon, Max Reinhardt and Tim Webb MBE to challenge the assumption held by most theatre practitioners that under-fives were thought to be an ‘impossible’ audience. Invited to give a performance to students at a specialist school the founders were inspired to apply their radical and pioneering approach to creating theatre for disabled children and young people.
Max Reinhardt, a Founder of Oily Cart said: “It’s just so good to receive an award that will help us celebrate and spread the word to more teachers and staff at specialist schools and to theatre practitioners across the UK about Oily Cart’s unique pioneering and ever-developing contribution to Sensory Theatre. The creation of an evolving archive that lives and breathes is a wonderful opportunity to put our audiences and our seriously inclusive vision of sensory theatre onto the national cultural map.”
Championing the Social model of disability, Oily Cart’s work is made for and with children and young people, regardless of their age or barriers to access. The company promotes equal access to creativity and culture for all and creates ambitious and high quality sensory theatre that everyone can enjoy.
Zoe Lally, Executive Director, Oily Cart comments: “We are thrilled to have received this support thanks to National Lottery players and are confident the project will allow us to share Oily Cart’s valuable heritage in an accessible way. We look forward to celebrating the progress made over the past 40 years in increasing access to theatre with our community of D/deaf,disabled and/or N/neurodiveregent children of all ages and their families, and artists and educators across the UK and internationally.”
The award from The National Lottery Heritage Fund will help Oily Cart to raise the public and cultural profile of young disabled audiences and promote the importance of cultural provision for all.
