Right Not Privilege - Access to Art

The project ACCESS TO ART RIGHT NOT PRIVILEGE, is an occaSion to spread abroad the good pratices experimented in Italy.
I would like to speak about the experience of an italian organization that is now known in the world.

ANTEROS MUSEUM BOLOGNA

The Museum of Tactile Antique and Modern Painting, Anteros, was founded by the Istituto Cavazza in September 1999, and was inaugurated in the year 2000. It represents a unique experience in its genre in Europe. It exhibits tridimentional reproductions of works of art by famous painters in Art History. These were designed and developed by the Associazione Scuola di Scultura Applicata of Bologna (School of Applied Sculpture of Bologna).

The tridimentional reproductions are accompanied by preparatory information material on historical styles and descriptive specification sheets, which are translated in braille. These provide visitors with information on stylistic and iconographic context of each work of art, guiding them in their tactile exploration of the raised design.

The goal of the Anteros Museum is to become in itself a useful tactile \"manual\", gathering and disseminating knowledge of the historical and esthetic value in painting.

The Anteros Museum holds courses in Art History, and interpretation methodology, which are designed to teach both blind and sighted persons. Moreover, there are research projects relating to the cognitive processes involved in decoding images by blind and visually impaired persons. Various visits and initiatives take place at the Museum, as well as collaboration projects with important universities, educational institutions, and organizations. It offers individual visitors and groups personalized guiding and lessons.

The Anteros Museum holds courses in Art History, and interpretation methodology, which are designed to teach both blind and sighted persons. Moreover, there are research projects relating to the cognitive processes involved in decoding images by blind and visually impaired persons. Various visits and initiatives take place at the Museum, as well as collaboration projects with important universities, educational institutions, and organizations. It offers individual visitors and groups personalized guiding and lessons.

I would like to invite those who are interested in the subject to visit the web site:[www.cavazza.it] and to tell your own experience.

Thank you for the information about this museum. It is very interesting for us, because we have not similar museums in Bulgaria.

I think that Italy is a very good example in the field of helping the access to art for people with visual disability.


I would like to talk about the experience of the association “MUSEUM” in Rome.
Is an association of volunteers established in Rome in 1994; Museum has always been working on the promotion of Italy’s rich cultural heritage among the disabled,. for whom access is still limited. From 1995, the association organize training courses and seminars for people with disability with the main aim to facilitate the access to art for them.

During the years the association has developed several projects in different museums and galleries for people with visual disability.
The main projects have carried out in Rome Musei Capitolini, Palazzo Novo, where is possible to do a tactile exploration of some sculptures. At the entrance of the palace is possible to explore a planimetry of the the main rooms of Palazzo Novo. Moreover at the book shope are aavaileble somes book guides with relief drawings, Braille printed.

For more information visit the web site: www.assmuseum.it

There are a lot of brilliant ideas to present different works of arts to visually impaired people in such a way that visually impaired to get the right image of each work of art. The tactile diagrams, the plastic models, the road maps are some of the tools that make these ideas possible. I would like to focus the attention on another point. My opinion is that the quality of the explanation that is going with each work of art is also a tool of a great importance. We may have thousands of tactile diagrams and hundreds of plastic models and if there is not a correct explanation and precise description it is possible that visually impaired becomes more confused after "knowing more of the work of art" than before that. I think that in the explanation of each work of art has to be taken into consideration the collaboration between both perceptions - the perception of the people with normal vision from one side and the perception of visually impaired persons from the other. Each work of art is totally different even some of them to be from one and the same author. So for each work of art has to be created a specific presentation. This is a long process of thinking, going back to practice, testing, making corrections, again testing and of course finalizing the presentation.