Augmenting Inclusion
Blind and Visually Impaired Visitors’ Experiences in Museums: Increasing Accessibility through Assistive Technologies
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Roberto Vaz
People with visual impairments generally experience many barriers when visiting museum exhibitions, given the ocular centricity of these institutions. The situation is worsened by a frequent lack of physical, intellectual, and sensory access to exhibits or replicas, increased by the inaccessibility to use ICT-based local or general alternative or augmentative communication resources that can allow different interactions to sighted visitors. Few studies analyze applications of assistive technologies for multisensory exhibit design and relate them with visitors’ experiences. This article aims to contribute to the field of accessibility in museums by providing an overview of the experiences and expectations of blind and visually impaired patrons when visiting those places, based on a literature review. It also surveys different kinds of assistive technologies used to enhance the experiences of visitors with vision loss while visiting museum exhibitions and spaces. From this, it is highlighted that adopting hybrid technological approaches, following universal design principles and collaborating with blind and visually impaired people during the development of museum exhibition projects, can contribute to integrate access across the continuum of visits.
Extended Concept of Safety to Promote Inclusion and Diversity in a Museum: Focus on Dementia, Autism, and Intellectual Disability
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Alexander Sorokin, Evgeniya Kiseleva
Modern museums and other art spaces are designed to be accessible for all visitors and open to all ideas, however, there are still many individuals who may feel insecure and unsafe during a museum visit. People with dementia, intellectual deficit, autism, and other conditions admittedly enjoy specially tailored programs, but during unorganized visits to the museum and when participating in general museum activities, they are exposed to a number of risks that are not routinely addressed, e.g., sensory, emotional, contextual, and communicative overload. Consideration of safety limits in the museum can provide directions for identifying potential with new and established audiences. The paper introduces the concept of safety as a reference point for planning museum activities. The content safety is demonstrated in adaptation of gallery programs for people with dementia.
Considering and Countering Epistemic Injustice and Fostering Knowledge Exchange when Researching Issues of Race, Representation, and Inclusion in UK Art Galleries
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Megan Todman
This study presents theoretical considerations and practical approaches to countering epistemic injustice and fostering knowledge exchange when researching issues of race, representation, and inclusion in UK art galleries. It is vital as a researcher concerned with questions of race, representation, and inclusion in the Museum and Gallery – not to overlook that the origins of dominant research paradigms for social science are in Eurocentric tradition (Held, 2019; Mignolo, 2013; Gunaratnam, 2003; Fanon, 1970). Thematic concerns, agendas, and methods for conducting research are embedded with coloniality. So too is the art history and arts education underpinning collections and exhibitions practices in the UK. Although not titled as such until recently epistemic injustice has long been a key theme explored by classic scholars of race such as Fanon, Du Bois, and Locke. Mindful of these explorations, this paper considers how the doctoral project it draws upon has avoided uncritical acceptance of epistemologies of ignorance (Mills, 1997; Sullivan and Tuana, 2007; Medina, 2018). It is presented how sensitivity to issues of power, positionality, and ideas about different kinds and formulations of knowledge have been considered crucial throughout the research design and development. It also posits how these issues can be mediated in the process of research through approaches of reflexivity, openness, exploratory methods, and the use of an intersectional framework.
