Barikat Art Foundation
Equal participation is not a privilege. It is a fundamental right.
For more than 36 years, Barikat has brought disability rights together with the unifying power of art, cinema, literature and sport.
years of rights advocacy, experience and collective action
Who we are
A civil society movement built around rights, dignity and access.
With more than 36 years of rights advocacy, experience and accumulated knowledge, Barikat Art Foundation is an international civil society organisation working to ensure that people with disabilities can participate equally and accessibly in art, cinema, sport, culture and every sphere of social life.
For Barikat, accessibility is not charity, a privilege or a gesture of goodwill. It is a fundamental human right. We see people with disabilities not as passive recipients of assistance, but as equal individuals who create, think, lead, compete, take the stage, make art and directly shape social life.
Guided by this understanding, for many years we have brought together the unifying power of art, cinema, literature and sport with the struggle for disability rights. We do not stop at describing problems. We create initiatives that make visible what people with disabilities can achieve in every sphere of life.
Our position
Rights, participation and accessibility belong at the centre.
We focus on the conditions that make equal participation possible and on the people who actively shape cultural and public life.
Rights, not charity
Accessibility and equal participation are obligations grounded in human rights, not acts of generosity.
Participation, not spectatorship
People with disabilities belong within creation, performance, competition, leadership and decision-making.
Access from the beginning
Accessibility is most meaningful when it is built into the first idea, not added after everything else is finished.
A landmark international initiative
The 2018 Silent Scream Bicycle Journey
A 4,521-kilometre journey across ten European countries, carrying a peaceful and direct call for equal citizenship.
One of the most important international initiatives in this struggle was the Silent Scream Bicycle Journey, which we organised in 2018.
Beginning outside the Consulate General of the Netherlands in Istanbul, the journey brought together participants with visual, hearing and physical disabilities. Together, we cycled 4,521 kilometres across ten European countries.
This was not a bicycle race, nor was it simply a sporting event. Our purpose was to travel directly to the doors of international institutions with decision-making power and make the legitimate demands of people with disabilities visible.
Throughout the journey, we voiced the challenges faced by people with disabilities, their demands for equal citizenship and our call for peace at the Broken Chair in Place des Nations outside the United Nations Office in Geneva, in front of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, the European Parliament in Brussels and the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
Every kilometre carried the same message: people with disabilities are not outside society. They are at the very heart of life.
Follow the international call
Select a city to explore the institutions addressed during the journey.
Stop 1 of 4 · Geneva
United Nations Office
At the Broken Chair in Place des Nations, we voiced the challenges faced by people with disabilities, demands for equal citizenship and our call for peace.
European Court of Human Rights
We carried the call for equal rights to one of Europe’s most significant institutions for human rights and justice.
European Parliament
We brought the demands of people with disabilities to the heart of European democratic decision-making.
International Court of Justice
The journey reached The Hague with a final message of equal citizenship, visibility and peace.
We called this journey Silent Scream because sometimes the most powerful cry is not the loudest one, but a struggle for rights that must be seen and understood. With no sound beyond that of bicycle wheels and pedals, we travelled thousands of kilometres seeking to make the voices of people with disabilities heard.
How we work
Art, culture and sport as spaces of equal participation.
Barikat’s work did not end with bicycle journeys. Across disciplines, every initiative serves the same purpose: to remove the physical and attitudinal barriers created by society.
01International Barikat Film Festival
Through the International Barikat Film Festival, we have developed a festival model that strengthens access to cinema for blind and visually impaired people, as well as deaf and hard-of-hearing audiences.
We treat audio description, subtitles, dubbing and other accessibility practices as a natural part of culture and the arts.
02A shared cultural and rights platform
We do not see our festival merely as an event where films are screened. We approach it as an international platform for culture, the arts and rights, bringing together cinema, music, literature, sport, dialogue and social awareness under one roof.
03Inclusive sport and visible achievement
In sport, we have organised matches bringing blind footballers together on the same pitch with well-known and former footballers. These encounters show that people with disabilities are not only spectators in the stands, but athletes who belong directly within the game.
From cycling to futsal, and from cinema to music, our common purpose has remained unchanged: when opportunity and accessibility are provided, the real barrier is not ability, but the physical and attitudinal barriers created by society.
International recognition
A long-standing movement recognised across borders.
Over the years, our work has gone beyond national and international participation. It has also been supported and documented through official letters, messages, documents and visual materials sent by diplomatic missions, cultural institutions, public bodies and international organisations in different countries.
Support from the Turkish National Commission for UNESCO, institutions and representatives from Canada, France, the Netherlands and other countries, as well as organisations such as Instituto Cervantes, a global representative of Spanish language and culture, demonstrates that Barikat’s long-standing work has also found recognition internationally.
Our vision
Not merely visible, but equal.
Today, through work extending from Türkiye to the Netherlands and to other countries, Barikat Art Foundation continues to unite artists, athletes, people with disabilities, academics, cultural figures, public institutions, diplomatic missions, volunteers and civil society around a shared purpose.
For us, the task is not to speak on behalf of people with disabilities. It is to create, together, the spaces in which they can speak in their own voices, demonstrate their abilities and participate equally in decision-making.
Because we want a world in which people with disabilities are not merely visible, but equal.
Our shared dream
We dream of a world without barricades.