Abstract
Access in museums and galleries is often created through codes, audits, guidelines or visitor surveys, and considered as an add on, at the end of the exhibition planning. This additive approach to access and inclusion—addressing demands for recognition, respect, and rights within the currently dominant cultural system, not changing the fundamentals of the system—can only create surface level changes. In this paper, I draw upon 10 years of research into access in museums and galleries, to provide insights into how a co-design method can shift this additive understanding of access towards critical access as a methodology. Drawing on Canadian and Australian case studies and my research in the evolution of access across museum typologies (e.g., art galleries, human rights museums, history museums, war museums and sport museums), this presentation will provide best practice examples of co-designing inclusion and access beyond codes, manuals and guidelines. I introduce innovative haptic interventions, new inclusive technologies, and a new approach using co-design as a method, and access as a methodology, to develop a multi-sensorial visitor experience. Co-design has the ability to create a feeling of community involvement and community ownership in museums and galleries, and my use of co-design as a method focuses on abilities not disabilities, employing expertise and lived experience, to create equal access to our cultural institutions.
Presenters
Janice RiegerProfessor, School of Architecture and Built Environment, Queensland University of Technology, Queensland, Australia
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Inclusion, Multi-sensorial, Visitors, Access, Disability, Inclusive Technologies, Diversity, Education
