Below, Changemaker Amy shares her research into accessibility in museums and galleries across the UK, and how she conducted her own exhibition to combat some of these issues.
For my Extended Project Qualification (EPQ), I organised an exhibition on making museums and galleries more accessible for people with a visual impairment (VI). I put on an accessible artefacts exhibition at The Royal National College for the Blind (RNC) showcasing historic artefacts from different periods.
People would enter the exhibition wearing blindfolds and would then be able to touch the artefact rather than look at them. Beside each artefact was a braille description as well as a QR code with an audio description (recorded by me) to give more information about the artefacts. I got a lot of positive feedback and it was great to hear the excitement and interest of the people attending.
Since completing my EPQ in Easter, it has made me more aware that making museums and galleries accessible for visually impaired people is more important than ever. Without any accessibility adaptions for people with a VI, going to museums is not much fun and may put them off attending at all. Now, whenever I go to a museum or gallery, I am always interested to see how accessible it is.
There are some cases when the museum or gallery is very accessible, for example, I visited a museum in Sienna which had lots of tactile diagrams of different buildings located in the city and there were lots of artefacts that could be touched. There was also an audio description on an app for your phone.
However, I also visited the V&A over the summer, which was not a good experience as I couldn’t touch anything so gained very little and it was possibly boring. There is an outdoor sculpture exhibition at Newby Hall near Ripon in North Yorkshire, close to where I live, where you could touch everything. What’s the problem with touching if you’re careful?
This more than anything made me aware of how much we still need to do to make museums and galleries accessible and how important it is. When I did my EPQ part of the research I did was contacting museum and galleries to see how accessible they were; most said they were accessible in part and doing their best to make this better, although not totally accessible at the moment.
Below, you can read the article that I wrote for the RNC website when I did my EPQ, which includes more information about the exhibition that I did plus comments from people who attended.
You can’t look, but you can touch!
RNC student Amy Griffin has successfully concluded her three-day exhibition, ‘You can’t look, but you can touch!’. An insightful sensory experience that challenged visitors to explore artefacts through touch while blindfolded.
Each artefact was accompanied by a description, available in Braille and through a QR code linking to a recording of Amy’s voice describing the object. This multi-sensory approach ensured that all visitors could fully engage with the exhibition.
‘It’s gone really well,’ Amy said. ‘A lot of people have attended and the response from people putting on blindfolds and walking through the exhibition has been amazing. Visitors have been guided, which they might not have experienced before and touched things rather than look at them. I’ve enjoyed everyone’s reactions. I didn’t expect it to be as good as it has been.’
Amy’s meticulous research underpinned the exhibition’s success. She contacted numerous museums and institutions, including the National Gallery, the V&A, the Hepworth Gallery, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, a project at Leicester University, and the National Trust, to gather insights into accessibility. Surveys were conducted to understand different organisations’ perspectives. The artefacts themselves were sourced from the Hereford Museum, from RNC, and through 3D printed contributions from friends and family.
‘I’ve always been frustrated when I’ve visited museums as everything is behind glass’, Amy explained. ‘I wanted to do something to give people the opportunity to be able to touch stuff, not just look at it behind glass.’
Amy was very grateful to everyone who contributed to the event:
‘Teachers Paul and Graham from the Media Department helped me record my audio guides, and student Aiden edited them, which I couldn’t have done. Teacher Leanne also helped with the QR codes. My mum has also been amazing – she supported me through the whole thing. She stuck all the QR codes on the Braille cards, she read out what I needed to Braille, and she gave me some ideas which I built on.’
RNC’s Executive Principal Lucy Proctor, who attended the pop-up museum, said:
‘The exhibition was absolutely wonderful. It was so well thought out and there was such a range of different things to experience – some of them are really familiar objects but when you’re experiencing them through touch instead it’s just a completely different experience. You learn about the object in a completely different way. I think some of the replicas of the older artefacts, in particular the Mail Coif (chainmail headdress] and the helmet – the sheer weight of those – it’s not something I could have imagined before. It’s been brilliant and Amy has worked so hard on it and our volunteer Catherine was a wonderful guide.’
Catherine echoed the sentiments, praising the event’s interactive nature, saying:
‘I’ve thoroughly enjoyed supporting the event and showing students and sighted people wearing blindfolds around and hearing people’s reactions to the objects being placed in their hands. Amy has done a wonderful job of choosing such a range of different materials and objects. It’s really kept people guessing.’
Catherine also spoke about her experience of volunteering at RNC:
‘I just feel it’s such a friendly, vibrant and enthusiastic place and it’s just a privilege to be able to come and join in. The students and staff are so friendly and there’s always so much going on.’
Amy has provided a thoroughly engaging sensory experience which demonstrates that with a little thought, museums and galleries can be accessible to all.
