Abstract:

Museums are not considered any more just as spaces, which collect, preserve and exhibit objects but as audience-centred spaces with a wide educational and social role. In this framework, the access of people with disabilities to museums has become a major issue of interest for museums. People with visual impairments, which is one of the target groups of the present project, face many barriers regarding their access to museums, since museums are considered as spaces “of seeing” and “do not touch”. Many museums around the world develop various practices in order to enhance the access of people with visual impairments, such as touch collections or audio guides but many disabling barriers still exist.

Examples of barriers may be:
a. Museums have a tendency to encounter visitors with visual impairments as a homogeneous group and therefore treat them as a group with a single characteristic, their lack of sight,
b. The poor content of special programmes that museums organize for individuals with visual impairments, and
c. Museum staff’s attitudes and behaviors, who are often not trained to make individuals with visual impairments feel welcome in the museum.

As a result visitors with visual impairments who want to expand their knowledge in the museum are not easily satisfied.

The basis of the present European project which is approved and implemented under the umbrella of the Erasmus+ Programme, aims to bridge the gap between museums and individuals with visual impairments. The main objectives of the present project aim to shape and promote strategic partnerships between museums and educational settings within which students with visual disability are enrolled. In essence, the present project involves primarily academics who are experts in the field of visual impairment, museum education, museum educational programmes as well as experts who work in museums and have experience in touch collections, touch exhibitions, touch tours and tactile diagrams.

The first results highlights innovative characteristics of the projects such as: a. its synthetic character which combines the contemporary role of the museums, the socio-anthropological paradigm for disability and the influence of many political and social movements of people with disabilities, and b. the development and validation of methodologies, workshops and patterns of collaboration among museums, associations of the blind, universities and schools for the blind for the exploitation of appropriate differentiated museum content building bridges among them and share knowledge through the method of action research.

Keywords:

People with visual disabilities, museums, action research, Erasmus+ Programme.