THE New Visuality Arts Awards, held to celebrate the creativity of the city's young talent, will lead to a series of exhibitions, says According To McGee director Greg McGee.

New Visuality is the charity arm of the McGee gallery in Tower Street, and earlier this month the Lord Mayor of York, Cllr Ian Gillies, and the Sheriff of York, John Kenny, attended the charity's awards evening at the Melbourne Centre, in Escrick Street, to mark the integration of young artists with young people with learning disabilities.

"In total, 50 young people received an arts award at discover, explore or bronze levels and it was a blast," says Greg.

"We run Art Camp every school holiday and integrate the camps with creative sessions for young disabled people. An arts award at bronze is a percentage of a GCSE, and when you have someone who had previously never picked up a pencil receiving a qualification like this from the Lord Mayor, it really hits home just how fulfilling involvement in the contemporary creative industries can be. Physical disability is no longer a barrier to creativity."

Not that the art sessions depend on digital prowess, stresses Greg.

"Traditional skills will always provide the building blocks; the digital skills are there to consolidate skills like sketching, colour schemes, painting," he says. "The young people love it, and the nature of the sessions means that a lot of their aesthetic, digital choices are based on research on art history. It's never going be one thing or the other."

All the young artists who attended the evening will have their work displayed in a variety of innovative ways, including on a multi-touch surface and in light projections in this year's Illuminating York festival, running from October 28 to 31.

"The planets have lined up, and we can pretty confidently say that now is the perfect time to bring the art of children and young people with learning difficulties into the limelight," says Greg.

"We have the UNESCO status; we have York increasingly seen at home and abroad as a centre for media arts; the libraries have successfully been transformed into these multi-faceted, exciting places. We thought, 'why not have the story of the city at this time be told by some of the most energetic, and some of the most marginalised people?’ "York has a lot to be proud of, and one of them is how the creativity of children and young people with complex disabilities is nurtured and celebrated.

The young people love it, and the nature of the sessions means that a lot of their aesthetic, digital choices are based on research on art history. It's never going be one thing or the other. It's like York itself. It's all about the continuum, having one foot in the traditional past and one foot firmly planted in the digital future. This isn't Beamish. If we're City of Media Arts, then our young and disadvantaged are going to help us sketch that future, whether it's in a sketchbook or as a computer-aided design (CAD) file."

Greg is ebullient about York's creative future. "It can just keep getting better. The nature of these partnerships means that we're all on it, together. The Melbourne Centre and Blueberry Academy are doing such great work, consolidating the employability of young people with learning difficulties," he says.

"Blueberry at Silver Street is doing a cracking job. Thirsk company GoPrint3D work with the designs created by our disabled participants and produce the coolest 3D prints on the scene. We have support from City of York Council, Arts Council England, MENCAP, and a whole host of local schools. It's a motley crew of movers, shakers, altruists and teachers, but when we go into battle we're a force to be reckoned with."

New Visuality exhibitions, based on work from Art Camp and Disability and Creativity, will take place at According To McGee, first on April 21 and then during Illuminating York in the autumn. "As well as these physical exhibitions, we'll have all the work exhibited on a swipe-able gallery on a multi-touch surface, which will rotate around the city," says Greg.