A lot of arts organizations talk about impact. Far fewer can point to four decades of it.

That is what makes the new DaDa Social Impact Report 2024/25 worth paying attention to. According to recent reporting, the Liverpool-based disability and Deaf arts organization DaDa worked with 148 disabled artists during 2024/25, delivered 36 workshops, supported new exhibitions, films, theatre performances, and a debut album, and helped produce 19 digital projects, nine short film premieres, seven exhibitions, new podcasts, and three theatre productions.

That alone is a serious body of work. But numbers are only part of why this matters.

DaDa, founded in 1984, is one of the UK’s longest-running disability-led arts organizations and is best known for DaDaFest, widely described as the UK’s largest and longest-running disability arts festival. This year’s reporting lands at a useful moment, because it does not just celebrate a birthday. It shows what long-term, disability-led infrastructure looks like when it is trusted to keep building.

Forty years is not a symbolic number

In disability arts, longevity matters.

It matters because disabled artists have spent decades working against short-term funding, shallow inclusion promises, and the exhausting cycle of having to prove, over and over again, that disability-led work deserves sustained support. When an organization survives and grows for forty years, that is not just a nice anniversary line for a press release. It is evidence of endurance, influence, and cultural necessity.

DaDa’s report makes that visible. It shows an organization that has moved beyond one-off programming and into something much more powerful, artist development, partnerships, sector influence, and public access on a serious scale.

This is the kind of story Disabled Art should care about, because movements are not built only by brilliant artists. They are also built by organizations that keep the doors open, keep the funding moving, keep the partnerships alive, and keep disabled artists from being treated like temporary guests in their own field.

Artist development, not just artist showcase

One of the strongest threads in the report is DaDa’s long-standing focus on artist development.

That phrase can sound bland if you have heard it too many times in arts policy circles, but in practice it means something very real. It means disabled artists are not only being invited to show finished work. They are being supported in making new work, building collaborations, learning skills, expanding audiences, and moving through the industry with some actual backing behind them.

The report highlights partnerships with organizations including Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, Liverpool Philharmonic Youth Company, and Liverpool Biennial, showing how disability-led work can shape mainstream cultural spaces rather than just orbit them.

That matters. It is one thing to host disabled artists in your program. It is another to let disability-led organizations help reshape how your program works.

When the arts affect confidence, health, and possibility

One example in the coverage is Alder Experiences, an animation project commissioned by DaDa and delivered with Alder Hey and disabled-led film company Twin Vision. It gave children receiving care at the hospital the chance to create an animated film exploring both the realities and imagined possibilities of hospital life.

That is a beautiful idea on its own, but the deeper point is in the response. One parent described a dramatic change in their daughter’s confidence, saying the experience helped open creative doors and gave her focus during overwhelming moments.

This is where disability arts reporting gets interesting. Too many mainstream stories stop at access, as though getting someone into the room is the final achievement. DaDa’s work points to something bigger. The room changes people. The practice changes people. The chance to create, contribute, and be taken seriously changes people.

Not magically. Not sentimentally. Practically.

Music, mentorship, and the long arc of support

Another part of the report focuses on DaDa Makes Music, created in partnership with Liverpool Philharmonic Youth Company. The program brought professional musicians and young disabled artists together to co-create music in an inclusive ensemble setting.

Again, the key word here is not inclusion. It is continuation.

The report traces the development of Josh Henderson, a DaDa Ensemble member who moved from early workshops to releasing his debut album, Songs of Liverpool for Friends. With DaDa’s support, the album launched at The Bluecoat and later made its way into HMV Liverpool.

That is the kind of progression arts organizations should be judged on. Not whether a workshop happened, but whether a creative pathway was actually built.

Mentor Dave Kelly described watching Henderson grow into an independent musician, which is exactly the sort of sentence that should appear more often in disability arts coverage. Independent musician. Not participant. Not beneficiary. Musician.

DaDaFest at scale

The report also looks at DaDaFest International 40, themed Rage: A Quiet Riot, which featured work by more than 70 disabled artists, all of whom identified as disabled. Reporting says 90% of festival events were free, with an estimated total footfall of 561,234 and 29,600 engagements across festival activity.

Those are not small numbers.

Audience feedback adds another layer. According to the report, 76% of attendees said the festival increased their understanding of disability as a social issue, while 92% rated accessibility as good or excellent. Artists also described the support as creatively nurturing and warm, and 100% of surveyed partners said working with DaDa changed their perception of disability and made them more likely to work with disabled artists in the future.

That last number matters especially. It suggests DaDa is not only producing events, it is shifting institutional behavior.

That is impact.

System change is the real headline

One of the most useful parts of the reporting is what happened after organizations worked with DaDa. Partners including Liverpool Biennial reportedly implemented new access measures, disability awareness training, better Easy Read materials, improved digital accessibility, and new networks of access coordinators and facilitators.

That is the headline inside the headline.

Because the real success of disability-led arts organizations is not simply that they host disabled artists beautifully. It is that they make other institutions less lazy, less exclusionary, and less comfortable with doing the bare minimum.

DaDa’s chief executive Ben Haslam described the report as evidence not just of numbers but of “real change,” while Arts Council England framed DaDa’s role over forty years as critical to increasing access and opportunities across the sector.

In other words, this is not a fringe success story. It is an example of how disability-led cultural leadership alters the field around it.

What this means for Disabled Art readers

For Disabled Art, this story lands in an important place.

We spend a lot of time covering artists, exhibitions, and moments of breakthrough. Those stories matter. But infrastructure matters too. Organizations like DaDa are part of the reason those moments happen at all. They create continuity where the arts sector often offers fragments. They create development where the mainstream often offers tokenism. They create power where institutions often offer visibility without support.

Forty years of disability-led work should not be treated like a novelty.

It should be treated like a model.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is DaDa?

DaDa is a Liverpool-based disability and Deaf arts organization founded in 1984. It is one of the UK’s longest-standing disability-led arts organizations and is best known for DaDaFest.

What does DaDa’s new impact report say?

The report says that during 2024/25, DaDa worked with 148 disabled artists, delivered 36 workshops, supported exhibitions, films, theatre, music, digital projects, podcasts, and more.

What is DaDaFest?

DaDaFest is the UK’s largest and longest-running disability arts festival. The 40th anniversary edition, Rage: A Quiet Riot, featured work by more than 70 disabled artists.

Why is this report important?

It shows what long-term disability-led cultural infrastructure can achieve, not just for artists and audiences, but for broader institutional change across the arts sector.

Further Reading

• Birkenhead News coverage of DaDa’s 40th birthday impact report.
• DaDa official website and the full social impact report, referenced in the coverage.

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