Museums, galleries and exhibitions are full of fascinating objects and stories, but for someone with a visual impairment, much of that experience can be difficult to access.
Audio description can help bring those objects and their stories to life, and Warwickshire Vision Support has been working with Heritage and Culture Warwickshire (HCW) to help make local exhibitions more accessible.
HCW is responsible for Warwickshire’s museums and the County Record Office, and our relationship with the organisation has developed over several years.
The regular ‘Speak and Tell’ events at the County Record Office offer an accessible guide to some of the fascinating documents held in the archives, and more recently we’ve worked to help create audio descriptions for exhibitions.
We were approached by the Paralympic Heritage Trust (who were staging an exhibition on behalf of British Blind Sport) to bring together a panel of visually impaired people to explore and discuss the objects on show.
Our group examined a wonderfully varied selection of objects, including skis, a goalball, a bowling trophy and a team shirt and gloves.
What quickly became evident was that good audio description can be about much more than simply describing an object’s size, shape and appearance. The conversations explored how the objects felt and smelled, as well as the thoughts and emotions they prompted.
Those conversations were recorded and used to provide audio descriptions for visitors.
The exhibition proved particularly popular with children and the audio description was very well received.
Warwick Castle ‘Unboxed’
Following on from that experience, we have been involved with another exhibition at Market Hall Museum – ‘Warwick Castle Unboxed’.
Once again, one of our groups examined and discussed some of the objects to be displayed. This time the selection included a 17th-century matchlock musket, a 19th-century cocktail set and even a chamber pot.
The resulting audio descriptions can be listened to using a special ‘pen’ device as visitors make their way around the exhibition.
It’s another example of how involving people with lived experience of sight loss can help organisations think differently about the way they make exhibitions accessible.
We hope ‘Warwick Castle Unboxed’ will prove every bit as successful as the British Blind Sport exhibition.
Looking to the future
Warwickshire Vision Support and Heritage and Culture Warwickshire hope to continue working together on future exhibitions, and we would love to see more museums, galleries and heritage organisations consider how audio description could make their collections more accessible.
We’re actively working with Warwick Castle as they develop a new audio-described tour.
We’re looking forward to seeing where that work leads and to continuing to help make more of Warwickshire’s heritage accessible and enjoyable for everyone.