Museums And Archives

The Arcadea Archive: Uncovering the History of Disability Arts and Activism in the North East

In 2025/26, Arcadea will celebrate 30 years as a charity & 35 since it was established. To mark these milestones, we will curate, develop, and present our unseen archives, making them publicly accessible and professionally stored. Arcadea emerged from the disability arts movement and played a key role in the national fight for disability rights in the 1990s. This history is deeply tied to Newcastle, a stronghold of the movement. Our project will create a lasting public record of the charity's impact and the region’s contribution to disability arts and activism. We will celebrate this legacy, instilling pride in our disabled community and the city staging an archive led exhibition, events and contemporary responses from disabled artists. We aim to honour our achievements as an organisation by storing the archive professionally while fostering the continued evolution of disability arts, culture, and activism for future generations.