Reykjavík Grapevine - 10.08.2012, Side 27

27
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 12 — 2012
ments to wheelchair-using travellers.
He's been a part of Sjálfsbjörg’s out-
reach groups since he was 12 and says
that he is still friends with many of the
kids he met there. "We did things that
people said we couldn't do,” he says. “We
went jet-skiing, went up to some of the
glaciers, and went to other countries.”
He admits that sometimes they'd
just stay in and play cards, but the ad-
venturous habits he formed there must
have made an impression on Andri, as
he later reveals that he'd just been riding
in a helicopter around Mt. Esja before
meeting us at Hressó.
Going out with friends from Sjálfsb-
jörg is still a challenge, though. "When I
got to the age where I could go clubbing,
first of all I didn't drink so I didn't go
very often. When I did, I just talked to
the bouncers or people who work there
and they help you up."
“That was the hardest part, always
relying on somebody else to get me
somewhere,” he says. “Sometimes I just
didn't want to go because it was just so
much trouble going up the stairs, so I
wouldn't go unless there was a band
worth seeing.”
It’s easy for Andri to go to Hressó,
which has two ramps in front. But if he
wants to see a band at Faktorý, he has
to get creative. “We carry him up, then
we carry the chair up," says Egill Kak-
tuz Þorkelsson Wild, a friend of Andri's
since 2001. "The chair is fucking heavy.”
Egill and Andri met at a hardcore
show at Hitt Húsið a few years back, but
their friendship is more than that. Two
years ago, the Icelandic government be-
gan to further expand a programme of
direct payments, allowing people who
require personal assistants to manage
their own services.
"Andri is my friend and he advertised
on Facebook for an assistant and I said,
'cut the crap, I'm being your assistant,'"
Egill says with an inkling of a smirk. "If
I hang out with him, which I do, why not
hang out with him and get paid for it?"
Wheelchairs Users Bitten By
Toothless Laws
Roughshod regulations have enabled
the uneven accessibility conditions in
Iceland. While building codes passed
by Parliament in 2012 strengthen acces-
sibility rules for new construction proj-
ects, a history of vague laws and tepid
enforcement has left many wheelchair
users shut out from entering businesses
downtown.
“We will always have a problem with
old buildings. The law wasn’t detailed,
so it was easy to get around,” says Harpa
Cilia Ingólfsdóttir, who runs the private
firm Aðgengi (“Access Iceland”), which
rates building accessibility in the capital
area and around the country.
The City of Reykjavík often calls in
Harpa to check the drawings for new
city building projects and private en-
terprises—but work is slower, she says,
with lagging construction and a govern-
ment that has not prioritized accessibil-
ity.
Both disability advocates and govern-
ment officials say today’s wheelchair
users in Reykjavík are drinking the
backwash of decades of accessibility ig-
norance. Iceland’s key disabilities laws,
like the 1992 Act on the Affairs of Dis-
abled People and city-enforced building
regulations, have not outlined punish-
able offences for inaccessible business-
es, says Helga Baldvins-og Bjargardóttir,
a researcher at the University of Ice-
land’s Centre for Disability Studies.
“The law doesn’t really specify what
to do and who’s responsible. There are
no consequences. Politicians are very
slow to make it their demand,” she says.
“They’re very slow to make businesses
pay damages. They have to have some
kind of incentive because businesses are
not going to make extra work for them-
selves out of goodwill.”
Iceland’s Minister of Welfare Guðb-
jartur Hannesson too admits that Ice-
land is still behind the curve, but he is
quick to hype the country’s renewed
commitment to disability issues, point-
ing to the stricter 2012 building regula-
tions, a strategic plan for disability is-
sues being drawn up in Parliament, and
proposed ratification of the Convention
on the Rights of Persons with Disabili-
ties.
“Some important progress has been
made in laws and regulations. However,
there is a long way to go in these matters
before we can talk about real equality
and same living conditions for disabled
people,” Guðbjartur says.
We Found Laws In A Hopeless
Place
The landscape is shifting though. This
year, Parliament overhauled the rules
that guide building construction—ones
that spell out the need for elevators, the
width of doorways and the height of toi-
lets, for example. Starting next year, if
new buildings lack accessibility, it’s con-
sidered discrimination. Blueprints for
any building under construction must
get the seal of approval from local build-
ing regulators abiding by stricter rules.
For wheelchair users, the timing
is perfect. As Iceland recovers from an
economic collapse that wiped out its
construction industry, city development
is returning to downtown Reykjavík,
which means owners of new buildings
now will have no choice but to ensure
accessibility. With proposed renovation
projects in the Kvosin district, bulldoz-
ers will soon be a frequent sight down-
town—stacking up f loors that now must
be reachable by elevators and putting
up doors that legally must have electric
openers.
Björn Karlsson, director of the Ice-
land Construction Authority, a govern-
ment agency formed in early 2011, says
the law gives the strongest push yet for
architects to design buildings with uni-
versal access. “The local building con-
trollers don’t want to break the law and
they will most definitely try to make
sure all designs handed in adhere to the
law,” he says. “We will be following this,
and there are special interest groups
who keep a watchful eye on us.”
But the law is not quite a cure-all for
Icelanders with disabilities. Any build-
ing constructed before January 2012 is
exempt from these stronger guidelines,
so the restaurants with basement bath-
rooms or banks without ramps do not
need to bring their access up to par.
The culprit? Costs.
Björn says it’s tough to pin a price
tag on accessibility upgrades for old
buildings, adding, “It would be extraor-
dinarily expensive for society if we tried
to enforce this on all existing buildings.
And that’s usually not done. It’s very,
very seldom that you make new laws and
you enforce them backwards.”
Andri’s All-Access Pass
When access has been taken into consid-
eration, Andri says it makes all the dif-
ference. He estimates that 60% to 70%
of Reykjavík is inaccessible to him, and
he and other disabled Icelanders keep
trying to put pressure on both govern-
ment officials and business owners to
make changes downtown.
“I’m hoping that they will change
most places. I try to be optimistic. It's
not fun not being able to do stuff,” Andri
says.
Growing up, Andri's school and sub-
urb, Grafarvogur, were relatively more
accessible than many parts of down-
town. The suburb was new at the time,
and the school had an elevator. But go-
ing out with friends was a different sto-
ry. Ferðaþjónusta Fatlaðra (“Transport
Services for Disabled People”), requires
wheelchair users to call in advance
(same-day travel has to
Feature | Accessibility
You
Can’t Always Go
Downtown
Continued
Continues over
Öryrki: The Only Normal People Around
Öryrki formed as a group in 2004, making a zine to go with Sjálfsbjörg’s
twice-annually produced newsletter. In 2006, the nonprofit group began
producing its shock-jock videos. Andri says the point was to make soci-
ety disabled, making disabled people “the only normal people around.”
Naturally, some people got pissed, mostly because they doubted
the veracity of the group’s disabled status. “But people really liked our
sketches in general,” Andri says. “They’re allowed to laugh at the dis-
abled person for a change and that is exactly what we wanted, not to be
afraid to ‘treat us normally.’”
The year 2010 brought some change to Öryrki, which is funded by
sponsors and charities. The group formed a radio station known as
Ö-FM 106.5 that broadcasted mostly alt-rock or older music over the
greater Reykjavík metropolitan area during the summer. Andri says not
only was the radio station an enjoyable change in pace to the deadline-
oriented video effort, but it also brought opportunities for amateur DJs.
“We just split up the day,” he says. “We broadcasted from 09:00-17:00,
and after that we allowed people that applied for a show to try it out and
if we liked it, they could stay on.”
Öryrki has been involved with many other awareness campaigns,
including concerts, arts shows, and even on national TV when a national
organization for paraplegics raised funds to repair their house, Stöð 2
(“Channel 2”). These days, you can see what the folks behind Öryrki are
up to be visiting the website (www.oryrki.is) or YouTube page (www.
youtube.com/oryrki).
Orri Snær Karlsson is a 23-year-old illustration graduate from Myndlistaskólinn í
Reykjavík. He's gloriously unemployed, but if you have a job opening, please find
him. He spends most of his free time reading and drawing, which he says is pretty
much the only thing he's ever wanted to do. He's been a part of Öryrki since 2007.
Tens of thousands of Icelanders are getting
a closer look this summer at life as a wheel-
chair user—on the big screen, that is. The most
popular foreign, non-English movie in Iceland’s
history is now ‘The Intouchables,’ a French
film about a rich, white man paralyzed from
the neck down who bonds with his poor black
caretaker.
Nearly 45,000 people in Iceland have seen
the movie since it opened here on June 15, a
pop culture breakthrough that may give more
visibility to the country’s disabled community.
The movie builds on momentum it gathered
in France, breaking several box office records
there before moving onto to more restrained
responses in other countries. Some U.S. critics
have called the plot cliché, even racist, but
Icelandic crowds keep going back to the movie.
“This film comes out of nowhere. We defi-
nitely did not foresee this happening,” says
Ísleifur B. Þórhallsson, who runs the film’s
distribution company Green Light (“Græna
ljósið”).
“The story connects with people,” he says.
“It’s as simple as it can get, and I think when
the summer is completely crowded with Hol-
lywood blockbusters and superhero movies,
people want something else. People are recom-
mending this film to friends and families.”
In Reykjavík, the movie theatres Háskólabíó
and Laugarásbíó are screening the film, serving
up a tinge of irony for a film that stars a wheel-
chair user, says Helga Baldvins-og Bjargardót-
tir, a researcher at the University of Iceland’s
Centre for Disability Studies.
“It’s only been shown in the least accessible
movie theatres in Iceland,” she says.
Film
Intouchables
112 Min
2011
“
I think that if you build
it now, people will come.
As you rebuild, focus on
building with inclusion
in mind. „