Community Ties
I Am Doing My Best, but Is My Best Enough?: Curatorial Perspective on Creating Accessible Exhibitions
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Agnese Zviedre
Before Latvia regained its independence, considerations of accessibility and disability were largely absent from the Latvian cultural landscape. Even after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when Latvian artists and art institutions undertook a change of strategies from socialism to capitalism, from the East to the West, accessibility remained largely unaddressed within the realm of culture. In 2010, Latvia ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, committing to recognizing the importance of accessibility across the physical, social, and cultural domains. However, it wasn't until 2020 that accessibility in the arts and culture sectors received significant attention. Studies showed that cultural and art institutions in Latvia lacked essential knowledge and understanding of the accessibility requirements that are necessary for including people with disabilities in cultural and art events. Moreover, these institutions faced various obstacles, including budget constraints, time limitations, and a shortage of expertise, which hindered their efforts to make their events accessible. This paper focuses on the challenges of implementing Western accessibility guidelines for creating accessible exhibitions. The central idea of the paper is to re-examine the role of curators in creating accessible exhibitions and to explore the extent of their power. By examining the journey towards accessibility in Latvian art institutions, this paper contributes to the broader discourse on social and cultural inclusion. It highlights the importance of understanding, empathy, and collaboration in the quest for a more accessible and inclusive cultural landscape.
How Are the Museums in Egypt Addressing Disability and Accommodating Individual Differences? : Critical View on Accessibility Practices and Limitations
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Nevine Nizar Zakaria
Central to the modern museum sector practice are the principles of access, inclusion, diversity, sustainability, and community participation. Museums of Egypt are morally and legally required to provide reasonable accommodations to remain relevant to the diversifying population. Despite recent legal and accessibility reforms in compliance with the Egyptian 2030 Sustainable Development Goals -SDGs, many initiatives fail to provide inclusive access for disabled people. Although the national government acknowledges disability rights and access have slowly increased in some of the latest museums in Egypt, progress is arguably hindered by two significant barriers. The first barrier is the prevailing bias in society towards the medical/charity model of disability underpins understanding of access. While museums have the potential to address this issue, their role as social institutions beyond education and culture is not yet fully recognized by the state, creating a second barrier. However, there is an opportunity for Egyptian museums to play a more prominent role in addressing these barriers and promoting an inclusive society. This paper discusses the crucial role museums in Egypt can play in challenging these barriers and promoting social inclusion, mainly how museums can confront ableist biases in Egyptian society and transform thinking about disability. The research examines the level of accessibility in Egyptian museums, assessing its current position and the future direction it should be heading. It also proposes actionable steps that can be taken in research, practice, and policy in pursuit of a more equitable and inclusive society for all.
A Review of Challenges and Research Perspectives for the Accessibility of Blind and Partially Blind Museum Audiences
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Renato Trotta
The recent interest of museums in widening access to collections reflects the most up-to-date guidelines recognized by the most forward-looking institutions, such as the ICOM, in museum studies. Accessibility and inclusion are high-ranking priorities in many museums’ agendas, and much has been done in recent years to foster this position. However, when considering blind and partially blind (BPB) audiences, museums struggle considerably to comply with accessibility needs. This may be heavily due to their visual-centricity (especially in the case of many art museums), and a general lack of understanding of BPB’s perception modalities and experiential processes, as their cognitive and emotional responses to museums may differ substantially compared to sighted individuals. This analysis acknowledges the steps forward in providing access to BPB visitors, accounting for educational provision, the removal of physical barriers, and new technologies that aim to support navigation and information acquisition. At the same time, it is important to identify the challenges inherent to opening a preeminently visual institution to BPB audiences, and address emerging barriers that prevent access, be they economic, social or psychological. The analysis also wants to propose the value of diversified research methodologies in visitor studies. As understanding the visitor experience with visual provisions of BPB audiences is a complex, multifaceted issue, a call for cross-disciplinary studies, grounded in empirical aesthetics and spanning psychology, neurology, anthropology, and tourism studies is advanced in the course of this analysis, highlighting the points of contact between these disciplines and the challenges in integrating them.
Museums, Inclusion and Visual Impairments: Ideas for Potential Participation
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Valeria Friso
Guaranteeing all the population, including people with disabilities, The right to access museum facilities is a commitment that Italy has made by signing the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006) which, in terms of accessibility, mentions the need to "develop, promulgate and monitor the application of minimum standards and guidelines for the accessibility of facilities and services open or offered to the public" (art. 9). These standards must be assessed for the different needs expressed by people and the many different barriers they encounter, not only physical or sensory, but also communicative and relational. Valeria Friso is scientific co-responsible, together with colleagues from the Department of Architecture, For the Erasmus + Strategic Partnerships for Higher Education project "InVisiBle - Inclusive and Innovative Learning Tool for Visually Impaired and Blind People," which focuses on teaching strategies and the accessibility and usability of content related to art, art history and architecture for everyone, including people with visual impairments. In this paper, she brings some of his achievements useful for improving inclusion in museums.
