Seventeenth International Conference on the Inclusive Museum

Abstract

Despite heightened attention to inclusion, visitors with a learning disability and their communication needs continue to be overlooked in museum mediation. There has been a rise in employing multimodal tools for museum mediation, but these have mainly targeted the communication needs of specific visitors such as multilingual audiences or visitors with a sensory disability. Moreover, these tools tend to function as a translation of or add-on to written texts, rather than being fundamental features of an art exhibition. This participatory study examines how six participants with a learning disability experience different modes through mediation practices in relation to a contemporary art exhibition. Data were collected through informal conversations and field notes during collaborative workshops. These were organised both individually and in groups and focused on the artworks selected by each participant, combined with at least one mode: written text or spoken dialogue, smell, taste, image, touch, or sound. Through a thematic analysis of the data, each mode was analysed separately. The findings discuss the ways in which participants felt engaged and disengaged with the artworks through each mode. We then consider the implications for the development of an anti-ableist art mediation in museums.