Museums and Visual Impairments: Ideas for Potential Participation
Valeria Friso
Ensuring all people, including people with disabilities, have the right to access museum facilities is a commitment that Italy made by signing the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006). In terms of accessibility, it 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 evaluated for the different needs expressed by people and the many different barriers they might encounter, not only physical or sensory barriers, but also communicative and relational ones. In this contribution, we present some ideas that aspire to bringing about effective improvements in museums, especially those that convey contents related to the visual arts, in order to ensure the increasing participation of people with visual impairments too.
Keywords
Artistic culture, Museums, Visual impairment, Participation, Education.
