DOES anyone remember back in the day when Brexit was a dream and people had plans and strategies, blissfully unaware of what was to happen next? Well, during that time Belfast City Council was working on a bid to be the European Capital of Culture 2018 then had to pivot when this was no longer possible.

But all the hard work of putting the bid together was not lost as the Council agreed to have a Cultural Year anyway. Originally planned for 2023, Covid pushed it back another year and announcements are now starting to come in about the seventeen large projects that have been commissioned from the open call in December last year. Expect lots of opportunities to participate, on the river and on dry land. We hope it will reach all the targets it sets and works on helping to transform our city just that little bit more. Only time will tell.

Access to the Arts both as an audience member and artist is an important one. The University of A Typical has been the main driver in supporting and highlighting work in this area and at last weekend's Bounce Festival now in its eleventh year/ 'remains unique as the only festival solely dedicated to the celebration and showcasing of arts created by d/Deaf, Disabled and Neurodiverse creatives regionally' states Chairperson Sean Fitzsimons 

Last weekend the University of Atypical team pulled off a three-day festival across the region which acted as a beacon of hope and entertainment. Catching Alice McCullough's Experi-Mental at the Crescent Art centre was a particular joy.

 Alice McCullough burst onto the creative scene as a performance poet now  as a major artist awardee of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland she has been poet in residence at Disability rights California and by studying at Gaulier school in Paris she has learnt to move on stage and develop more  of a cabaret evening of neuro divergent and disabled artists.

Her evening ended up with the audience, me included, getting up on the stage for a dance. The packed audience heard from poet Nathan-Elout Armstrong – complete with a Literature MA – on what it felt like to be intellectually misjudged as a child in a wheelchair. His poetic observations of boredom, with repetitive days focusing on writing one letter, resonated with the audience. His mighty intellect and writing, often filled with humour, work well with Alice's stage presence.

Simon Jay, editor of the Neurodiversity Review, performed a segment showing what it is like to be neuro-diverse, with too much information coming at you and the details of the coping mechanisms for keeping your overactive brain occupied. This kind of show can  resonate with others and help understand different issues that some people face – and they are simply very entertaining in their own right.

Mari Crawford, over from New York, was selected for the University of Atypical Arts and Disability Award at Edinburgh Fringe. Her segment of the evening  was her one-woman show, 'Bipolar Badass' where she layed out all the empty bottles of her medication on stage and took you through her journey, from suicidal thoughts and staring at the colour magenta on her computer, to her diagnosis and learning to live with it.

Hats off to everyone involved and we hope this is another step towards supporting the amazing untapped talent among artists who are d/Deaf disabled or neuro-diverse and one step more towards a more entertaining, diverse future. Well done to the Bounce team for what they have managed to pull off. Planning on next year has probably already begun.