Museum programs: from Axel and Levent, 2003
Topic: Museums throughout the world and access for the blind
Art Education and the Blind (AEB, New York) recommends an advisory board with blind
members, and testing suggested programs with one-on-one tours with blind people.
Museum programming: an Introduction: R. Wells & I. Shore: Multiple means are used
to make museums accessible. Key idea: This is an exciting time, of experimentation.
Aesthetic thinking of the visually impaired: Housen & K. Desantis: We are broadening
the museum audience. Key idea: Maximize exposure, and use multiple formats. Aesthetic
Development Interviews assessed the visually handicapped visitor’s understanding of art.
Recall of parts of a talk about a Picasso or an early-Greek statue (Cycladic islands art)
correlated with level of` understanding of art, in blind and sighted.
Stage 1: we identify the depicted objects, and say what we like: “It’s a person. I like it.”
Stage 2: describes the depicted object and the treatment: “It’s a boat. Very few lines!”
Stage 3: classifies the work, describing technique “It is very early Greek, with smooth
borders and few internal features, nicely symmetrical and balanced.” Only 11% of
Housen’s visitors were in Stage 3.
Re tactile pictures: 44% of those who used them said they would again (mostly Stage 2
visitors). They said they were challenging but worth the effort.
Re museum talks: these are Stage 3 in content!
Comments like “Very unique, very nice, very nice to the touch” remind one of Helen
Keller saying touching art objects gives us expressive quality. We need to understand
how aesthetic learning occurs in museums.
Birmingham Museum ALA: In “Hands Across Art,” BMA uses tactile diagrams and
models, music of the period, descriptions. Plus visitors can touch objects through thin
gloves (e.g. Ganesha, Buddha, Japanese bell).
Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens, FLA: Became an affiliate of VSA (Very Special
Arts, for the handicapped) in 1994, and then devised a program to be come highly
accessible. Serves 5000 children and adults with disabilities p.a., especially “Women of
Vision” for adult women with vision problems, “to renew their lives through personal
artistic expression,” including art, dance and literary expression (memoirs).
Finnish National Gallery: Serves prekindergarten through adult, and has a film festival
on disability every 2 years. Improved accessability program in 1999. Tried “sound
pictures” but they were very elaborate (e.g. 20 per picture). Recently used the Internet to
explain a Finnish painter’s works to the visually impaired, with Braille, synthesizers,
enlarging programs.
The Jewish Museum, NY : Has touch tours, 3-D images, replicas. Has programs for
families. Began accessibility program 1993. Several artists made replicas of elements of
one painting. Exhibits now have Braille text panels.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY: The Met began accessibility programs in 1970s. Key:
Egypt: touch the Sphinx, lionheaded woman, two sarcophagi, etc! Independently, with a
guidebook, with raised-line drawings, or guided. Has a touch collection, which was the
target of a visually impaired photographers group. Has an annual concert of the blind
accompanied by slides and verbal description plus raised line drawings (plus a
“handling” session weeks later). Docent: Rebecca McGinnis.
Museo Omero (Ancona, Italy). For the blind and visually impaired, is on architecture
and sculpture. It has 90 pieces, from antiquity to the present.
Museo Tiflogico, Madrid: For the blind, includes reproductions of art-historical
monuments e.g. Taj Mahal. “Tiflos” is Greek for blind. Run and owned by the
organization for the blind, ONCE. Has location indicators of many kinds (relief maps,
floor textures).
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: Has a tactile tour (including Chinese furniture), large
print and Braille brochures for self guided tours, plus a bag with a flashlight and
magnifying glass). Has an Access Advisory Board, and a monthly program of staff
training. Open to the deaf-blind, notably. Film programs have audio descriptions.
Museum of Modern Art, NY: MOMA has many programs for the visually handicapped,
including a Sculpture Garden with a Rodin, a Picasso and a Matisse (use thin gloves
when touching them!) as well as raised line pictures. “The sculptural mass speaks to the
hand.” The programs are for elementary children through to adults.
The National Gallery, London: “Art through words” is a monthly program for the
visually impaired, with c. 15-20 in the audience. Audio is used to suggest distance,
recession, and context (e.g. sound of waves, music of revelry). The self-guided tour is “A
sense of art.”
Philadelphia Museum of Art.: Besides tours, this has weekly studio and art history
classes, and internships for the blind as well as the sighted (first in 1987, second in
1994). The Form in Art program was founded in 1971. Many students stay for many
years. Their products are for sale.
Exhibits have traveled to Japan. Ungloved touch tours are available. Tactile pictures are
included. In 1996, a touchable interpretation of Cezanne’s “Still Life with Apples” was
popular and lead to others.
Queen’s Museum of Art, NY. In 1983, PLEASE TOUCH tours began, with models of
classical pieces. Family days are offered. Bright light boxes are included, and hands-on
workshops accompany each tour. Artists designate installations to be touched.
Tate Modern, London: Has touch tours. Poets and performers were involved in their
design, to get an interpretive vocabulary, and “a metaphorically descriptive approach
provided a particularly powerful route to a shared understanding” including “physical
metaphors” e.g. splintered Plexiglass for brittle, jabbing agony, breast implant for…?.