SESSION: The History of Museum Access
In the late 20th century, museum spaces underwent significant changes as a result of the United States’ Rehabilitation Act of 1954, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. These laws sought to combat discrimination against disabled people in their use of public facilities. As a result, new forms of inclusion were tested in the museum landscape expanding worldwide. These laws led to the architectural redesign of buildings inside and out, the reform of existing displays, and the implementation of creative art education programmes. Based on the current debate on the topic of ‘creative access’ (Armanda Cachia), this session explores the historical foundations of museum inclusion programmes currently established. By critically analysing the emerging conditions which spawned exemplary access prototypes, we can methodically evaluate their continued relevance. The guiding question is: Can ideas for the present and future of museum access be developed from the conceptual repertoire of the past?
We invite contributions which present progressive inclusion concepts for disabled people developed and implemented institutionally since the post-war period. Or papers which deal with activist interventions in the museum space related to the topic of access. During this post-war period: what approaches were experimented with, what problems were overcome in the process, and what new ones were created? What controversies between curators, conservators and visitors accompanied the development of early inclusion programmes, and what potential do these experimental approaches hold for possible updating? These and other questions will be systematically discussed for the first time in the session, The History of Museum Access.
Session Convenors:
Alexandra F. Morris, Queen’s University Belfast and the Museum Education Roundtable
Tobias Teutenberg, Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History
Session Speakers:
Valentina Bartalesi, Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History
“Framing Perception (1971–1972): Methods and Narratives in an Accessible Sculpture Exhibition”
This project seeks to shed new light on the travelling exhibition series Perception: An Exhibition of Sculpture for the Sighted and Blind (1971–1972), curated by Kathy Church. Accompanied by a catalogue now best remembered for a photographic portrait of Ronald Reagan taken within the exhibition space, the show featured twenty-three sculptures, ranging from prehistoric to contemporary works and presented from a cross-cultural perspective, centred on representations of the human body and accessible to blind, partially sighted, and sighted audiences. Sponsored by the California Arts Commission only a few years before the enactment of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act, the project travelled across a number of public and private institutions along the West Coast – including the Touring Art Gallery for the Sighted and Blind, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the Fine Arts Gallery of San Diego, the San Luis Obispo Art Center, the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Taking this exhibitions series as a case study, the research aims to retrace and reconstruct the project through a body of archival materials, while interrogating its epistemic framework and experimental exhibition practices in order to examine their critical aspects, potentialities, and recurring conceptual patterns. Particular attention is given to the materials produced for the show, including a vinyl recording of its oral presentation). The comparison with contemporary editorial sources allows the exhibition to be contextualised within a broader network of U.S., mostly state-sponsored, initiatives engaging blind and partially sighted audiences with sculptural works.
Wiktor Komorowski, independent
“Artists for the Visually Impaired in the Polish People’s Republic“
In 1979, the Special Education and Care Centre for the Visually Impaired People in Laski, near Warsaw hosted an exhibition of avant-garde artists who prepared dozens of artworks for the visually impaired people. This exhibition was organised as the artists’ own bottom-up initiative which fact reflected the dire situation of the visually impaired people in the country. The exhibition at Laski took place three years before the Polish parliament for the first time attempted to legally define the notion “disabled person”, which move was linked to the decision of the UN General Assembly to proclaim 1983-1992 the United Nations Decade of Disabled Person. The subsequent governments made numerous attempts to exclude visually impaired people from the society by organising their activity through the Cooperatives of the Visually Impaired. This legacy continued after the political changes in the country that took place after 1989. The Museums Act from 21 November 1996 granted the disabled people tickets at reduced price and free access during one day of the week. This act, however, did not make the public cultural institutions to guarantee accessibility for the disabled people. In 1997, and in 2008 subsequent acts were introduced to further assist the disabled people, however, the legislative bodies yet again did not include any obligations which would make the cultural institutions to grant the disabled special access. This paper describes the uneasy legacy of the Polish People’s Republic polices for the disabled and highlights its impact on the state polices of the 1990s.
Renato Trotta, University of St Andrews
“Impact, Benefits, and Pitfalls of Tactile Museums for the Integration of Visually Impaired Audiences”
Museum access for audiences with disabilities is continually improving, thanks to the development of novel strategies and technologies and to more holistic perspectives on disability. Despite an overall mindset change, access for audiences with visual impairment remains a persisting challenge for museums, albeit a recognizably critical target. Amidst enduring tensions between visually impaired publics and mainstream museums, tactile museums advocate for equality and exemplify best practices; they facilitate autonomous, straightforward access to cultural experiences, much as sighted people visit museums, through purposefully designed supports and a welcoming environment. Tactile museums were established in the 80s and 90s in response to exclusionary design and hostile attitudes in museums, but have since been instrumental in shifting the narrative toward an inclusive approach. Despite their proven value, museums of this kind are rare, the most renowned being in Athens, Madrid, Ancona, and Bologna. Their impact and benefits to audiences, neighbouring communities, and the museum sector are severely understudied, a neglect that underplays their significance. It must also be said that tactile museums might be a palliative and should be understood as a first step for visually impaired-coded museum accessibility rather than its endpoint. This paper aims to offer a comprehensive analysis of the work of some tactile museums in Italy and Spain, informed by observations and interviews with multiple stakeholders. It wants to position tactile museums as key grounds for experimentation, advocacy, and inclusion, while warning against the potential pitfalls originating from misinterpreting their function.
Meredith Peruzzi, University of Leicester
“Out of Our Hands: Museum Access for Deaf Visitors”
Although museums are commonly perceived as visually oriented spaces and thus accessible to deaf visitors, a substantial portion of the museum-going experience still requires hearing, and adjustments are needed for visitors with hearing loss. As a result of the early disability rights movement in the 1970s, museums recognized the need to adapt their offerings for disabled visitors, but most did not work directly with disabled stakeholders to determine what changes were necessary. For deaf visitors, the provision of museum accommodations has largely been left to hearing people; although museums occasionally consult deaf people in evaluation settings, they rarely hire them as volunteers or staff. In 1986, a museum in Paris hired a deaf staff member, who later emphasized the importance of hiring deaf workers to serve as experts based on their lived experience and as role models for visitors – but the past 40 years have shown little improvement in this regard, despite the widespread adoption of the social model of disability. The Americans with Disabilities Act, enacted in the United States in 1990, established specific protocols for museum accessibility, providing checklists for hearing professionals and further taking the experience of deaf visitors out of their own control. As the social model has given way to critical disability theory in the twenty-first century, museums have recognized that deaf visitors know their own needs best and have invited them to focus groups, but due to systemic undereducation, deaf people remain on the margins of their own museum access.