As part of the Qatar-UK Year of Culture, the British Council are presenting an arts and disability festival featuring work from the Unlimited season, a major element within the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad. The programme of live performance, visual arts and film includes an exhibition and workshops by disabled visual artist Rachel Gadsden. Tim Hayton blogs about the trip.

I’m an artist-activist working in performance, film, sound and text, and founder of Roaring Girl Productions (www.roaring-girl.com). Drawn to the power of creative work to trigger change, projects range from confrontational and provocative to much gentler inquiry. My blogging will be on current projects and the questions they raise in the doing.

My name's Bonk and I love to write, when my brain hurts and gets too tight! I am bi-polar please don't be scared… don't run… just listen, as I get prepared. Open your eyes… I hope you enjoy my thoughts. And so I'll begin with a poem or some daily reports.

I am currently in my 3rd and final year on a fine art degree and my project I am starting on is exploring the masks we wear in everyday life.  I have BPD and wish to use the blog to record my thought processes and progress in making my final film piece.

My blog follows the process of working on The Electric Cello Diary, a project which uses music to symbolize experiences in my everyday life. It started in March 2012, when I had a huge 3 day reaction to a particularly harsh event. Eventually I realized that as a person with Borderline Personality Disorder

Commissioned as part of DAO's Diverse Perspectives programme, based at Salisbury Arts Centre, and juxtaposing the motivations of creatives and their audiences, Creatives in Con.Text is grown from conversations around access in it's very broadest sense. Con.Text pieces evolve through performance conversations to present research and evaluation as textual art.

Katherine Araniello is a live performance and video artist. She'll mostly be blogging about her work which focuses on experience of disability and will present new works with visuals/ film. She invites you into her exclusive world and promises to unashamedly deliver badly! If you enjoy watching paint dry – you'll enjoy her blog.

Nina Muehlemann is doing a PhD in English Literature on ‘positive’ representation of disability in mainstream culture and Disability Culture. In her blog, she writes about her research, about disability in the media and in art and the gap between mainstream and Disability Culture.

Funded by Awards 4 All, DAO is building an online profile of writing by members of the Grace Eyre Foundation about their activities, interests and aspirations.

Elinor Unwin, Project Manager for Artists in Wakefield blogs about language with some thoughts on how words, spoken or written, can create unintentional barriers for the individual.

I’m not an artist; I create in words and pictures. New Voices is a fantastic opportunity! I’m looking forward to overcoming my blank-page fear, finding out why I draw and, if all goes well, writing interesting articles about the events, exhibitions and other people’s artworks I’ll be covering.

Nicole Fordham Hodges is a poet, and thrilled to be one of DAO's New Voices. In her blog, she would like to untangle her artistic process as if it were knotted string. She'd like to nudge her poetry out into the open, if it will come. She'd like to test the truth of her own and other people's work, by tapping them against each-other. She'd love to know who you are, and hear your comments on what she's written.

Rich Downes is a Disability Equality and Advocacy Trainer, a practicing Advocate for a Disabled People's Organisation, an Activist and Photographer. He says: "I once wrote for life now I write in life. I'm looking forward to developing a blog presence with personality for DAO whilst delivering comment, reviews, photos and views on disability and how it's represented."

Kaite O'Reilly is an award-winning playwright and a recipient of two Cultural Olympiad Commissions. She blogs about writing and the process of writing with a focus on four forthcoming productions, which revolve around disability issues.

As well as being the director of DAO, Trish is also the project manager and co-producer for Freewheeling, the organisation producing Sue Austin's Unlimited commission 'Creating the Spectacle!' Here she blogs about her experiences of this ambitious, underwater wheelchair project.

Artist and wordsmith, Gini's work engages with issues of access - from acknowledged physical needs to perceived symbolic exclusions. After being selected as one of DAO's New Voices in 2011, Gini's online presence has become an integral part of her arts practice

Artist and Filmmaker Gary Thomas looks at the relationship between art and film, why it's sometimes uncomfortable, and how he deals with his own 'strands', (including disability), both personally and professionally. He'll also be writing about his own work as well as developing other projects, including films about the Olympics.

Joe is a disabled Irish writer and emerging-better-late-than-never visual artist living in the UK since the 1970s. While increasingly alienated and terrified by the toxic la-di-da of the capitalist mainstream, he finds that being reborn as an artist makes life worth living again. Joe has also been blogging on the Creative Case for Diversity.

Melissa Mostyn-Thomas is a writer, journalist, visual arts practitioner and first-time deaf mother. She is embarking on a journey as a film-maker and scriptwriter inspired by her baby daughter Isobel. She blogs about her new adventure.

Vince Laws is a poet, artist, performer, campaigner. He writes poetry, performs poetry and make visual poetry: paintings, collage, posters, film, installations and recordings: “As an artist, I define what art is. As a poet, I define what a poem is. If my art can be anything from a painting to a concept, so can my poetry. I am a poem.”

Visual Artist Tanya Raabe makes work around the theme of body image. Her blog concentrates on 'Revealing Culture: HeadOn' - an artwork and piece of research exploring identity, disability culture, in contemporary portraiture and the nude.

Joe Kelly is former Director of Footsteps Arts, in Ealing, West London. He is a writer and campaigner around mental health issues.

Penny Pepper has been a writer and activist within the disability arts movement for 20 years or more. Her blog covers her latest spoken word performance amongst a variety of issues around what it means to be a disabled writer.

Jean-Marie Akkermann gives an account of Cirque Nova's circus skills training programme for disabled people

Dolly Sen is a writer, director, artist, filmmaker, poet, performer, playwright, mental health consultant, music-maker and public speaker. She has published eight books since 2002; has taken on performance roles at The Young Vic, the Royal Festival Hall,

Crippen ... probably now the best Disabled cartoonist in the world ... and you'll find him here on DAO

Oska Bright On The Road has been taking films by and for learning disabled people around the world since early 2008. The Oska Bright steering group have been sharing their travels with DAO

Colin Hambrook has been editing Disability Arts Online in one form or another since 2002. Increasingly he has been posting some of his own artistic output... as well as commenting on the work DAO is engaged with...