Connecting us across space, our voices reach each other in ever more diverse and innovative ways. Emerging technologies are generating new conceptions of what it means to 'speak' and to have a voice. Social distancing has brought new attention to the means by which we communicate remotely. It also brings new pressures to bear-highlighting gaps in the conduits upon which individuals, communities and organisations suddenly and solely rely. This accelerated transition to conducting conversations, classes, performances, medical consultations, business and relationships via digitally mediated speech and text transforms our cultural experience of vocality. Crisis has provoked mass adaptation. Later, it will necessitate reflection. Assistive technologies--synthetic voice assistants, text-to-speech programmes, automated transcription, closed captions--have long been used to translate sound into text and vice versa. In recent years, these systems have passed into mainstream consumer use: enhancing inclusivity in some domains and bringing obstacles to access into relief in others. All of these innovations are registered and creatively processed by contemporary artists whose work already interrogates the potentiality of this expanded, multimodal vocality. Voices in the Gallery 2 extends the original project's theorisation of voiceover in contemporary art to engage stakeholders across the creative industries in a cross-sectoral exploration of the transformed nature of 'voice' today. Through partnership with creative industries organisations, advisory access agencies and creative practitioners it asks: a) How are new tools of communication, remote-access and assistive technologies changing our experiences of text and voice, connection and containment, presence, absence and isolation? b) How can art's expanded vocality be harnessed by artists and institutions to incite the development of a more inclusive art environment? Voices in the Gallery 2 will mobilise the multisensorial, technologically-mediated nature of 'visual' art to transform how the cultural/creative industries conceive of accessibility. -Newly commissioned artworks will explore the implications of voice technologies, and activate their potential to produce radically inclusive artworks. -A geographically and digitally distributed exhibition and event programme will galvanise a network of institutions, practitioners, professionals and local publics to gather-virtually/in-person-to consider the changed state of vocality today. -Articles and presentations will analyse the cultural, social and political ramifications of these technologies. -A collection of lecture-poems will explore the relations between speaking and writing, co-presence and delayed connection through critical-creative and formally innovative means. -Access will be enhanced and remote engagement enabled by an audio-guide produced through practice-based research collaboration with a social practice sound artist and in consultation with audio-description specialists VocalEyes. -An education pack developed with a freelance arts educator in consultation with engagement professionals will facilitate teachers and schoolchildren in exploring expanded vocality in everyday communication. -Site-specific community co-creation projects will activate participants in three locations to explore experiences of automated voices in public space. -An inclusively designed accessible broadside pamphlet, developed through tripartite collaboration with Daly & Lyon and the UK Association for Accessible Formats, will facilitate audiences to engage via print and digital formats with the project concept, artworks and investigative strands. -A co-created Inclusive Design for the Arts Toolkit will share insights, model solutions and disseminate best practice in inclusive graphic design to creative industries professionals.

The birth of the British Black Arts Movement (BAM) in the early 1980s was responsible for a paradigm shift in UK art history, bringing to the fore the issues, concerns, practices and aesthetics of marginalised artists. Despite racial bias being recognised and acted upon (e.g., Equality Act 2010), racism is still a reality in British society. The systemic inequality in the representation of Black art history in Britain has come to the fore in the recent months, especially within debates around the killing of George Lloyd in the US, the Black Lives Matter protests, and the fall of the statue of slave trader Edward Colston. However, the history of the BAM and the role of cultural organisations in its development remain understudied. In preparation for the 40th anniversary of The First Black Art Convention in Wolverhampton (1982), this project aims to revisit and promote the region's unique and exceptional legacy in the development of the Black art scene, with a special focus on the role of cultural organisations in supporting artists of colour in the Midlands since the 1980s. The network will disseminate the impact of the BAM in the region, and foster a change of attitudes in the cultural sector towards a more equitable scene by identifying the challenges faced by artists of colour today and proposing recommendations to cultural organisations, policy-makers and advocacy groups. The network activities will benefit academics in the fields of visual arts, curating and Black studies; and non-academic audience working in the cultural sector and on non-for-profit organisations supporting artists of colour. The network activities include: two workshops 1) the first invites members of the BAM to explore the role of cultural organisations in the movement in the 1980s, providing new insights; 2) the second invites practitioners of colour to identify challenges and opportunities in the field for a more diverse and inclusive approach. The workshops will be followed by a public event to open the finds and recommendations to a wider public. Both workshops and event will be recorded and disseminated via the project blog that will outlive the funded period to continue benefitting scholars and practitioners working in the fields of art history, curating, institutional practices, visual cultures, museum studies, visual arts, and Black studies. Following up on these debates, the network will produce an advocacy document with recommendations for a more equitable art programming, workforce and audience development in the cultural sector, which will be effectively disseminated to funding bodies and policy-makers (Arts Council England; Contemporary Visual Arts Network; Midlands Higher Education Culture Forum). In addition, two papers will be published in peer-reviewed academic journals to benefit other scholars in the field, disseminate new knowledge, and influence related debates. The project will be led by PI Professor Carolina Rito and Co-I Professor Paul Goodwin. The network also counts upon the participation of academics and art practitioners of colour whose work has strongly contributed to a more equitable and diverse scene and has focused on the BAM (i.e., Agency for Agency, Dr Keith Piper, Dr David Dibosa, Marlene Smith); with Midlands groups promoting inclusion led by people of colour (Maokwo, Nottingham Black Archive); and four contemporary art galleries in the Midlands with relevant experience with the BAM (the Herbert Gallery and Museum, Wolverhampton Gallery, Nottingham Contemporary and New Art Exchange.)