Isabel is a Brisbane based artist with disabilities. Isabel premiered a sold out season of her autobiographical performance piece titled Necklace in 2024 in the basement of Brisbane City Hall. Isabel’s creative practice is informed by transformative, participatory processes and involves improvisation, song, movement, storytelling, poetry, and silence. Performance highlights include Anywhere Festival, Sandstone Point Hotel Cellar, and a showcase at Undercover Artist: Online filmed at QLD Theatre. Isabel is also an experienced community development practitioner and holds a Master of Development Practice majoring in Community Development, Graduate Certificate of Disability and Inclusion, and a Bachelor of Arts. Isabel thrives on being able to combine her arts, community development, access and inclusion practices to widen conversations about disability. So far she has worked with disability organisations, local government and community centres to generate change. Isabel is a successful recipient of the National Services Emergency Medal, the Australia Council of the Arts Disability and Mentoring Initiative, and a High Commendation of the Access Arts Achievement Award.

Necklace is created, written and performed by Isabel Stankiewicz. During the creative development of Necklace, Isabel was been supported by a circle of mentors, Ladyfinger (Julie Robson and Dawn Albinger), Rob Pensalfini, Bree Hadley and Harmonie Downes. During the technical development of Necklace Isabel worked with Freddy Komp to custom build lighting and animate props. Embedding access and inclusive performance practices is a critical focus for Isabel. Isabel's preferred accessibility partners are VantagePoint AD (Audio Description) and Megan Bytheway (Auslan).

"It is so important that we share our stories and it was so amazing to watch the faces of the audience as you shared yours. Audiences are hungry to share and to feel empathy and hope, you gave us room to do that. You were brave and splendid and held us in the palm of your hand." Anywhere Festival 2024.

Through the sharing of my tale I galvanise my unique way of combining community development, theatre practice and working collaboratively for socio-economic and political social justice outcomes.

Through the support of the Undercover Artist Online Showcase, Disability Arts Mentoring Initiative and the Access Arts Achievement Award Necklace has a range of resources available. These include:

1. Marketing, presenter and technical packs
2. Images
3. Promo footage - 1 min trailer, top to tail recording and a 3 scene excerpt with embedded audio description and AUSLAN.
4. Digital assets for socials
5. A published academic journal

Isabel is an experienced and well-respected community development arts practitioner holding a Master of Development Practice majoring in Community Development, a Graduate Certificate in Disability and Inclusion and a Bachelor of Arts.

Isabel has led many community development arts based projects and spaces working with people with disabilities, people experiencing homelessness (including young people), Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and people recovering from a disaster. Isabel's cultural legacy is to improve access and inclusion for people with disability. What will be left behind is knowledge about contemporary disability theory and practical access and inclusion skills.

Examples of engagement activities are:

1. 30 min Q&A following the show
2. 1-3 hour workshop including the following topics - Access and Inclusion, Community development, How to generate an autobiographical tale, Tailor-made.

Necklace community engagement highlights include:

1. Hosting an Anywhere Festival workshop for Independent Artists on how to embed inclusive practices.
2. Working with Western Downs Regional Council to widen conversations about disability and person centred emergency preparedness.
3. Presenting at the Qld Community Development conference, re-imagining social justice through autobiographical tales.
4. Providing access and inclusion professional development to Kyabra Disability Services and Murgon Community Centre.