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Making Museums More Accessible: report on Conference Day in Barcelona
How can we help blind people see art? Is there a way for people with impaired hearing to hear the power of artistic expression? How can we enable a person with a mental disability get the most out of art? In short, how can we improve access to museums and exhibitions for everyone? These and many more issues were the subject of a very intense Conference Day on 26 October in Barcelona. The venue: Gaudi’s building, La Pedrera. The speakers and audience: museum professionals and representatives of various disabled people’s associations.
A lot of us were looking forward to hearing the speaker from the MoMA, and no one was disappointed. Francesca Rosenberg, Director of Community and Access Programs in the MoMA’s Department of Education, gave a complete exposition of the many initiatives they are involved in, such as
- school accessibility programmes (‘Art Looking, Art Making’)
- ‘Interpreting MoMA’ for the deaf: transcripts of the audio guides
- ‘Touch Tours’: tactile visits, material in Braille and audio guides with descriptions for the blind
- a very interesting ‘Teleconference Courses’ project for people who are confined to the house, in which an educator conducts an interactive art course over the phone
- awareness programmes for medical students
- MoMA Alzheimer’s Project: visits for Alzheimer’s sufferers and their carers
-specific training for museum educators
In the words of Francesca Rosenberg, ‘People with disabilities are part of your general public’ — a truth as basic as it is frequently overlooked.
Among the keys to success she singled out are: good planning, researching disabilities, having an advisory committee of people with and without disabilities, wide-reaching publicity, taking an in-depth look at the physical space and the acoustics, opening times, being flexible and adapting what’s on offer, and monitor.
The Musée du Louvre, too, has for many years been developing inclusive initiatives in four main areas: the building, the museography, the website and communication. The museum has a regularly monitored Accessibility Plan, and in addition to facilitating physical access to its spaces, notoriously complex due to the monumental size and structure of the building, and providing tactile devices, sign-language guided tours and dramatized visits with mime (International Visual Theatre) it also organizes Rencontres, get-togethers with professionals from the medico-social sector. Matthieu Decraene, Chargé de développement des publics pour l’accessibilité, summarized the four key points:
- a policy of accessibility can only be put into practice with the participation of people with disabilities and their representatives
- an accessibility policy can improve access for all visitors and puts users’ needs squarely at the centre of the museum’s concerns
- it is built up slowly over time — a long process that calls for perseverance
- accessibility is a transverse project that has to involve the entire institution.
I’m writing a long post — even though I’ve left out lots of interesting things! — but I really must mention one initiative in Barcelona museums:the project ‘Museum, Common Space of Integration’, at Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (MNAC), addressed to visitors with cognitive disabilities. The Head of the Education Department, Teresa González, ended her talk by throwing out some open questions: how do we go from designing programmes for disabled people to designing programmes with them? How can we carry over into our accessibility policies all that we have learned from working with disabled people? How can we make accessibility the heart of the museum's policy and ensure it is seen as a responsibility by everyone on the staff?
The most memorable part of the day was the round-table with representatives of different disabilities. There was agreement that a lot has been achieved in recent years and that tactile resources, adapted audio-guides and so on are now far more common. Meritxell Aymerich, a journalist who has been blind from birth, said very graphically that ‘when I went to a museum in the old days it was as if the display cases were empty or the canvases blank’. Dolors Òdena, from a psychiatric group, said that for her the MNAC workshops mark a before and an after: ‘you wonder what will come out: you feel emotions, you get to know the materials, you grow in culture and you get rid of the stigma and the fear of doing normal things.’
Among the demands: for museums’ access services to be better publicized in tourist offices, on the internet, etc…; for Braille to be present in museums; for a wider use not only of sign language but of other supports for deaf people who communicate orally; for all videos to be subtitled; for good colour contrast in websites; for integrated action in the physical space, activities and workshops; for education departments to prepare appropriate materials; for agreements to be drawn up between museums and associations of disabled people, and for training of museum staff.
As it says in the Commitment made by the seven Articket museums, among them, our Museu Picasso, organizers of the conference, ‘to enable people with disabilities to enjoy the contents of the museum is a challenge and an obligation’ and we will work in this direction. In improving access for people with disabilities we will be improving access for everyone.
You can read some more details of the Accessibility Conference on our Museum’s blog
What actions to promote accessibility do you think are most urgently needed?
Conxa
@innova2
A lot of us were looking forward to hearing the speaker from the MoMA, and no one was disappointed. Francesca Rosenberg, Director of Community and Access Programs in the MoMA’s Department of Education, gave a complete exposition of the many initiatives they are involved in, such as
- school accessibility programmes (‘Art Looking, Art Making’)
- ‘Interpreting MoMA’ for the deaf: transcripts of the audio guides
- ‘Touch Tours’: tactile visits, material in Braille and audio guides with descriptions for the blind
- a very interesting ‘Teleconference Courses’ project for people who are confined to the house, in which an educator conducts an interactive art course over the phone
- awareness programmes for medical students
- MoMA Alzheimer’s Project: visits for Alzheimer’s sufferers and their carers
-specific training for museum educators
In the words of Francesca Rosenberg, ‘People with disabilities are part of your general public’ — a truth as basic as it is frequently overlooked.
Among the keys to success she singled out are: good planning, researching disabilities, having an advisory committee of people with and without disabilities, wide-reaching publicity, taking an in-depth look at the physical space and the acoustics, opening times, being flexible and adapting what’s on offer, and monitor.
The Musée du Louvre, too, has for many years been developing inclusive initiatives in four main areas: the building, the museography, the website and communication. The museum has a regularly monitored Accessibility Plan, and in addition to facilitating physical access to its spaces, notoriously complex due to the monumental size and structure of the building, and providing tactile devices, sign-language guided tours and dramatized visits with mime (International Visual Theatre) it also organizes Rencontres, get-togethers with professionals from the medico-social sector. Matthieu Decraene, Chargé de développement des publics pour l’accessibilité, summarized the four key points:
- a policy of accessibility can only be put into practice with the participation of people with disabilities and their representatives
- an accessibility policy can improve access for all visitors and puts users’ needs squarely at the centre of the museum’s concerns
- it is built up slowly over time — a long process that calls for perseverance
- accessibility is a transverse project that has to involve the entire institution.
I’m writing a long post — even though I’ve left out lots of interesting things! — but I really must mention one initiative in Barcelona museums:the project ‘Museum, Common Space of Integration’, at Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (MNAC), addressed to visitors with cognitive disabilities. The Head of the Education Department, Teresa González, ended her talk by throwing out some open questions: how do we go from designing programmes for disabled people to designing programmes with them? How can we carry over into our accessibility policies all that we have learned from working with disabled people? How can we make accessibility the heart of the museum's policy and ensure it is seen as a responsibility by everyone on the staff?
The most memorable part of the day was the round-table with representatives of different disabilities. There was agreement that a lot has been achieved in recent years and that tactile resources, adapted audio-guides and so on are now far more common. Meritxell Aymerich, a journalist who has been blind from birth, said very graphically that ‘when I went to a museum in the old days it was as if the display cases were empty or the canvases blank’. Dolors Òdena, from a psychiatric group, said that for her the MNAC workshops mark a before and an after: ‘you wonder what will come out: you feel emotions, you get to know the materials, you grow in culture and you get rid of the stigma and the fear of doing normal things.’
Among the demands: for museums’ access services to be better publicized in tourist offices, on the internet, etc…; for Braille to be present in museums; for a wider use not only of sign language but of other supports for deaf people who communicate orally; for all videos to be subtitled; for good colour contrast in websites; for integrated action in the physical space, activities and workshops; for education departments to prepare appropriate materials; for agreements to be drawn up between museums and associations of disabled people, and for training of museum staff.
As it says in the Commitment made by the seven Articket museums, among them, our Museu Picasso, organizers of the conference, ‘to enable people with disabilities to enjoy the contents of the museum is a challenge and an obligation’ and we will work in this direction. In improving access for people with disabilities we will be improving access for everyone.
You can read some more details of the Accessibility Conference on our Museum’s blog
What actions to promote accessibility do you think are most urgently needed?
Conxa
@innova2
Views: 104
Tags: Louvre, MoMA, Museu_Picasso_Barcelona, accessibility, museums
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Comment by yves apeloig on December 6, 2009 at 10:25am -
What can be more accessible for visitors than a system all visitors can used ?
Every one, handicaped or not, whatever the handicap : visual, audio, motor, mental !
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Comment by Marina Emmanouil on March 24, 2010 at 7:25am -
I was involved in an Accessibility Programme at the Benaki Museum (Athens, Greece) last year, and I hope my experience to be of interest to the members of this group.
Please read the following text published in the Design History Newsletter, 122, Nov 2009.
Beyond Sight. Accessibility, Usability and Interactivity at the Benaki Museum
In light of the recent Pre-Columbian Art Exhibition (24 June-30 August) at the Benaki Museum in Athens, Greece, an Educational Programme was developed for the first time, making the distant and largely unknown Civilisations of the American Continent accessible to an audience of 21,000 individuals with visual impairments. This can be considered an innovative project in Greece since very little has been offered in the past to visually impaired people in the country.
The Educational Programme comprised mainly of Guided Tours, which were based on a representative sample of Pre-Columbian Art through which the main facets of the Andean Civilisations (and particularly of Mexico, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Peru) were presented. In particular, the facets concerned: a. Religion, and generally their rituals and rites in these regions; b. Technology, and their know-how in technical matters; c. War; and lastly, d. Social and Political formation. These four major topics, which were discussed through selected artifacts, introduced the everyday life of the people who lived in these areas during the ‘Pre-Columbian’ era; the time before Christophorus Columbus ‘discovered’ the Continent in 1492 and major changes occurred in the progress of the New World thereinafter.
The Exhibition artifacts (dating roughly between the 4thc BC and 17thc AD) exemplified the unique character of these communities, bringing into light both the strong survival instincts and the artistic expression of the local people. For example, cylindrical ceramic pots with impressive decoration of god-shaman figures; ritualistic vessels of an exceptional technical quality; ceramic cups with iconographic symbols of warriors and the four cardinal directions; and a stone-carved throne that demonstrates the local hierarchical social structure, were some of the objects discussed during the Tour.
Accessibility and Usability
Printed informational material, in the form of a two-volume Catalogue, was provided in Braille placing the objects within a historical context. This Catalogue was also available online, and along with the text of the Guided Tours, will remain so beyond the end date of the Exhibition. However, the Programme’s greatest asset was the touch-on activities, which were particularly enjoyed. The Tour attendants could touch the original objects or their copies, and perceive supplementary information on their shape and decorative details from tactile diagrammes. The latter included 2-d representations of the selected objects and geographic maps of the regions making use of the Information Design principles for Usability.
From the designer’s perspective, the greatest challenge in designing these 2-d diagrammes generally, is the effective symbiosis between two elements: efficiency and clarity; efficiency with respect to the required level of information; and clarity in relation to the successful rendering of the information to be interpreted. To achieve these qualities, two main design principles were put in practice: firstly, visual hierarchy (i.e., defining which of the elements are primary, and which secondary), and secondly, simplification process (i.e., the process of erasing the unnecessary elements of the image, so that it can be clearer, and thus easier to feel in the raised format). The result should produce a pleasant and informative tactual experience for the widest range of tactual capabilities possible.
Interactivity
However, beyond the informative potential of the Guided Tours, the Educational Programme was set out to achieve another important goal: to establish an interactive relationship between attendants/visitors and museum. This relationship was achieved by the active/direct engagement of visually impaired people with the Collection’s artifacts. In particular, after touching the original objects at the Benaki Museum, members of the Ceramic Pottery Workshop (of the Lighthouse for the Blind in Greece) re-produced them in the laboratory with amazing results. The created pottery was on public display at a defined space within the Exhibition gallery next to the originals. In effect, this allowed people with sight to engage with the works produced by people with little or no sight at all, making the interaction work in more than one direction; between the museum and visually impaired people, and between visually impaired and people with sight.
More generally, when designing educational programmes for people with special needs, it is worth keeping in mind that implementation and co-presentation of Educational Programmes for people with disabilities within the Exhibition galleries could meet multiple challenges. Apart from treating people with disabilities in equal and fair terms, the co-citation contributes to the consciousness awareness and normalisation of the behaviour towards people with disabilities, fighting in this way social discrimination, and stopping forgetfulness concerning the presence and contribution of people with special needs in society.
A paradigm to be followed…
The Benaki Museum, a leading private organisation in Greek Culture, warmly embraced the proposal for this Programme putting in practice the politics it carries towards making Culture broadly accessible. Even though, the target audience seemed little familiar with these sort of events as seen from the relatively low turnout, those who attended the Tours expressed their excitement and strong support to the Programme. It is planned therefore to make the informational material of the Guided Tours (copies of the originals, tactile diagrammes, and the Catalogue in Braille) available to Schools for kids with special needs, creating in this way a portable exhibition/guided tour after the Exhibition’s end.
In assessing the effectiveness and usefulness of the particular Programme, and in order to improve future projects, some targeted questions were included in the general Exhibition’s questionnaire. An academic review of the outcome of this public response is planned to be published soon, however, it is important that some data be cited so that the strong message given by the public can be passed on. Nearly thirty-eight per cent (37,8%) of those who filled in the questionnaire found the Educational Programme ‘Very Good’ (being the highest point of reference), and seventy-four per cent (73.8%) would like to see a similar Programme for the Museum’s Permanent Collection. The latter project is among the immediate plans of the Educational Department of the Museum given the allocation of a fund for this purpose. The implementation of that project would bring into wider public awareness the Museum’s rich and diverse Collection (at the Main building), which cover the main periods in Greek history; a fact that has made the Benaki Museum a popular cultural venue amongst domestic and foreign visitors.
Closing this brief report, we should underline the presence of the media and their contribution to making the Programme known to the general and targeted public. The awareness of the benefits of such programmes could encourage other Museums in Greece to follow the paradigm set by the Benaki Museum, given of course a raised demand and support by visually impaired people and their institutions for like-minded projects. Perhaps in direct demand for a similar project would be for the recently opened, and long-awaited, New Acropolis Museum in Athens. It is all up to be seen and assessed in the future, yet, a promising step towards museum accessibility in Greece has been taken.
Marina Emmanouil
Programme co-ordinator and tactile diagramme designer
Athens, September 2009
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