Blog - Page 2 of 4

A group of Courtyard Hereford staff members standing in a line posing for a photo with Anthony, Post-Enhance VI facilitator.

Enhance Year 1

Posted on: 12 Sep 2025

Extant – Post Enhance – Evaluation Summary – 2024/25 (Year 1) Contributions from Caroline Jeyaratnam-Joyner (Enhance Training Manager), Ian Abbott (Operations Director) and Matthew Cock (Independent Evaluator) Background Over the last 10 years we’ve created and honed the idea of ‘Enhanced Performances’, a form of affordable access provision to support small-scale touring companies to engage […]

The Extant team VICS and Holly Gifford stand for a group photo outside ZOO playground. Louisa and Ellen are holding the ZOO playground show board.

Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2025

Posted on: 21 Aug 2025

Extensive BBC Press Coverage for Extant at the Edinburgh Festival 2025 Our aim to make the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2025 more accessible to visually impaired audiences has been a resounding success. Thanks to funding from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation who support our Enhance programme, we’ve been able to attract a lot of press attention, demonstrate […]

Ava is a young white woman. She has long curled light brown hair, wears a necklace and a navy lace-patterned v shaped dress.

Starting Out In The Arts

Posted on: 23 Jul 2025

What’s Useful To Know – Insights for Blind and Visually Impaired People When Starting Out in the Arts By Ava Brewster, Trainee Creative Producer. After completing a Masters in Applied Theatre and gaining experience through internships, placements, and a mix of freelance and contract-based work, I began to reflect on all the things I wish […]

The Extermination of Disabled People at Work

Posted on: 27 Jun 2025

The Extermination of Disabled People at Work – Access To Work in 2025 By Tam Gilbert, Trainee Artistic Director. Each week at our Extant team meeting we offer a nugget of information from the arts news world that has caught our attention. My initial go to place is Disability Arts Online, so imagine my alarm […]

Exterior of ZOO Southside, a large stone church-style building with pointed towers and arched windows. A sign reading 'ZOO SOUTHSIDE' in bold black letters on a white background hangs above the entrance.

Visually impaired access doesn’t need to break the budget

Posted on: 19 Jun 2025

Access for visually impaired audiences doesn’t need to break the budget By Louisa Sanfey, Artist Development Manager. At Extant, we are often approached by artists keen to make their work accessible to visually impaired audiences, but commonly they feel blocked by lack of knowledge, time and resources. We know that for many artists, particularly those […]

8 visually impaired people and a sighted access worker are moving around the space during a status exercise. They’re holding low body positions with their heads down.

No Dramas- The Process of a National Pilot

Posted on: 13 May 2025

No Dramas – The Process of a National Pilot From October 2024-March 2025, we delivered 20* (*actually 21 but who’s counting?) No Dramas workshops across the country. No Dramas had previously only happened in London and online with a focus on improvisation, so our task with this pilot was to create a new 5 session […]

Three people are standing in the space about to perform to an audience. The facilitator stands in between them explaining the task.

No Dramas Meets Some Unexpected Characters

Posted on: 17 Apr 2025

No Dramas Meets Some Unexpected Characters As part of my Projects Assistant internship at Extant I was able to attend 4 different No Dramas sessions. It was interesting getting to learn about the different facilitators’ styles and the importance of creating safe accessible spaces to deliver drama workshops in. My first trip was to The […]

A drawing by Sally Booth of a zoom screen. There are 9 windows arranged in a grid of three-by-three, with a pencil or watercolour sketch of a face in each.

Guest Speakers: Extant Connect

Posted on: 18 Mar 2025

Fascinating Guest Speakers at Extant Connect Every month, Extant hosts an online session called Extant Connect, an informal opportunity for blind and visually impaired creative people to network, talk, learn and share ideas with one another. Sessions are often loosely focussed around a theme, and we regularly host guest speakers to speak on topics related […]

Two women are acting mid-scene, behind them three audience members are watching on intently.

The Halfway Point – National No Dramas

Posted on: 21 Feb 2025

A National Pilot of No Dramas In October 2024, we set out to play our part in building confidence and combating loneliness and isolation through our participatory project: No Dramas. These are a series of drama workshops, delivered by visually impaired drama facilitators, which generate community spirit, collaboration and allow visually impaired adults, with or […]

Maria is talking in a workshop space to participants.

Cologne 2-Barcelona 1

Posted on: 10 Jan 2025

Cologne 2-Barcelona 1 In Autumn 2024, Extant was invited to present at two international European events, Un-Label’s Creative Lab in ‘Aesthetics of Access in Practice’ Cologne, Germany, and Àfora-Focus ‘II International Congress of Spectators’, Barcelona, Spain. While both events were very different, (fruit analogies come to mind) having their own motivations and available resources, there were […]

A square poster which has a light blue background. At the top is the title in bold, dark green text which reads 'Unseen’. Underneath it, in smaller dark green text, it reads ‘a gripping new audio drama by Extant’. Towards the bottom right, there’s additional dark green text reads ‘streaming from 4th March 2024’ and below this is a URL link to the website ‘www.extant.org.uk/unseen’. At the bottom of the poster is a row of 4 pitched rooftops in a line, the houses are painted blue, pink, yellow and green.

Unseen Audio Drama and Live Event – A Touring Case Study

Posted on: 28 Nov 2024

Unseen Audio Drama and Live Event – A Touring Case Study October 2023 – October 2024 Background In winter 2022/23 the Vision Foundation announced a new fund aimed at raising awareness around the impact of domestic abuse on the visually impaired (VI) community following the release of the Unseen Report. Our Artistic Director/CEO and […]

Two Actors stand on a stage in blue lighting. To the left a black woman holding a folder. She wears glasses and is dressed in a smart red top and black trousers. To the right a white woman holding a folder and speaking in mid sentence. She wears glasses and is dressed in a smart green top and black trousers.

Unseen on Tour

Posted on: 27 Nov 2024

Unseen Tour Throughout October, team Extant has been ‘on the road’ with a unique touring event, based around our audio drama ‘Unseen’. It was a fantastic opportunity to re-visit some of the venues we’ve toured to previously and bring our groundbreaking work to both existing and new audiences. Back at the start of 2024, Extant […]