Inclusive Art Encounters For All Children
Published: 19 Nov 2025
In the Norwegian Mind the Gap– project, artists, researchers and educators explore methods to include more children with disabilities.
How can we create inclusive art encounters and good art experiences for children and young people with disabilities? A workshop led by dancer and choreographer Dalija Arcin Thelander explored this theme during the Multiplié dance festival in Trondheim in April 2025.
You must take care of the audience, give them time and space to experience things at their own pace. Long-term art encounters can be super important for children and young people with neurological disabilities. I also learned about how to think about space, how to think about costumes, light and sound, says dancer and dance teacher Ana Romih, who was one of the participants in the workshop.
She is affiliated with the cultural center for children and young people Pionirski Dom in Ljubljana, Slovenia, one of the partners in the European Mind the Gap-project.
Romih came to Trondheim to be a peer. It is an important role for success in sharing experiences, learning and inspiration between European countries.
Workshop with choreographer and dance artist Dalija Acin Thelander
The workshop marked the beginning of the work to develop the method guide. It was led by Dalija Acin Thelander and organized by DansiT in collaboration with Kulturtanken.
Thelander is a Stockholm-based artist who works specifically with performing arts productions aimed at children with functional variations where sensuality, time, light, choreography and participation are in focus. Participants were also invited to observe the artist’s performance “Fields of Tender” as part of their learning and reflection process.
Participants got the opportunity to explore principles from Thelander’s artistic and academic research during the workshop. It also provided opportunities for dialogue, exchange, critical thinking and experimentation.
All the participants completed a survey about their own learning process, and their input and reflections are part of the insight work that will inform the method guide.
Covers Important Needs for Knowledge
The workshop was held during the Multiplié dance festival. Ever since the first festival was held in 2004, the goal has been to push the boundaries of what dance can be and for whom.
The organizer, DansiT Choreographic Center, has long experience in creating inclusive art encounters. The artistic and administrative director Arnhild Staal Pettersen is convinced that there is a need to develop formats that address children and young people with disabilities.
It is important to create and present art that takes children with various disabilities seriously. To take their premises as a starting point and create change from within, so that real meeting points can arise by breaking the many visible and invisible barriers that children with disabilities constantly encounter in our “normative society,” she says.
Arnhild Pettersen believes that the workshop with Dalija Acin Thelander can help meet the knowledge needs of the target group.
The fact that one presents and discusses different ways of creating space for more people, based on functional diversity as a value, contributes to and is crucial for both knowledge development and real change. Dalija has long experience as an artist, and she is also a strong theorist. This connection between the creative, performing art field and theorizing can have a great impact in different directions, says Pettersen.
Dalija Acin Thelander elaborates:
There is a need to develop artistic formats for all target groups, including children with different developmental profiles. Such children deserve to have regular encounters with art on an equal level to everyone else.
It is important that children regularly share the same public spaces and participate in public activities with others, as opposed to being segregated and having activities that only happen for them, for example in special schools or in environments where they are the only users, she adds.
The dance artist hopes that the participants have got new insights about the needs of the target group that can be used in creative development processes. She also wanted to convey inspiration, encouragement and a sense of responsibility.
I believe that the formats we have discussed; the working methods, the mindsets, both philosophical, political and artistic, will inspire artists, encourage them, and hopefully also take them on their own journey to find more methods, more possibilities, explore formats further and look for artistic experiences that expand accessibility possibilities rather than narrow them, she says.
Arnhild Pettersen believes that Thelander’s workshop and performance contribute to increased participation.
Dalija’s performance creates space for exploration on one’s own terms. Children with disabilities may experience that their space for movement, and the opportunity to explore and develop, is limited in a world that is calculated on functional norms. Art can enable this to a greater extent than other spaces, when the one in this production is open for everyone to move freely and on their own terms, she says.
It is good for everyone that everyone is allowed to participate, but most of all for the children with disabilities themselves, she adds.
Further Mapping and a Method Guide
A research team at NTNU: Norwegian University of Science and Technology is leading the work to design the method guide. Researchers Tone Pernille Østern, Libe García Zarranz and Polina Golovátina-Mora have followed the workshop and the performance “Fields of Tender” and are investigating what characterizes inclusive art encounters.
Senior advisor Charlotte Blanche Myrvold from Kulturtanken is the project manager for the Norwegian sub-project in Mind the Gap. The Norwegian partners represent the field of practice, research and administration.
The Norwegian project is designed to bring about interaction between these sector areas in the work to strengthen access to art and culture for children and young people with disabilities.
The goal of the workshop is to develop a method guide to support the development of more inclusive art encounters for children and young people with disabilities and to help safeguard their cultural rights. What we are so happy about, and what is so important about this project, is that we are collaborating with a team of researchers from NTNU in this work, says Myrvold.
The work to develop the method guide is ongoing. The research team is currently gathering insights through both observation and interviews.
In November, a first draft of the method guide will be presented digitally so that experiences can be shared with both Norwegian and European stakeholders. The method guide will be introduced in The Cultural Schoolbag in Norway.
