Seventeenth International Conference on the Inclusive Museum

Abstract

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.