Lindsay Bywood

Devisualising the Museum: From Access to Inclusion

Cultural heritage locations provide sites of learning, social interaction, cultural discourse, and they also play an important role in the enhancement of well-being. In recent years, museums and galleries have sought to address the need to make their collections and galleries accessible to blind and partially blind visitors by providing specialist audio description or touch tours. Audio description is widely used across film, television and theatre, but use in the heritage sector is limited. Where they are available, tours are provided as part of niche access provisions, run infrequently and require advance booking. In addition, audio description is traditionally created by the sighted for the blind and partially blind. This contributes to the marginalisation of blind and partially blind (BPB) people and means that spontaneous museum visits can be difficult, or impossible. Research has shown that audio descriptive techniques can enhance museum experiences in sighted people, and can provide opportunities for museum visits to be more inclusive.

This session presents two interdisciplinary projects, both of which have at their centre Hannah Thompson’s concept of ‘Blindness Gain’ (the opposite of ‘Sight Loss’). This rests on three pillars: the idea that blind and partially blind people experience the world in a multi-sensory way that can promote creativity and stimulate imagination; a belief that non-visual living is an art, and the theory that accessibility approaches developed by and for blind people can benefit the sighted. The research teams consist of academics and practitioners from Translation Studies, Psychology, Critical Disability Studies, and Museum Studies. The first project was based at the Chelsea Physic Garden in London, and the second at the Watts Gallery in Surrey and the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington. Project one sought to create an online garden tour designed with AD principles at is centre and evaluate whether such a tour could provide not only access but also a positive experience for the entire audience. Project two is an ongoing project that aims to broaden participation in museums through co-created inclusive audio description. The overall purpose of both projects is to test the hypothesis that audio descriptive techniques can improve the museum and heritage experience for all visitors. 

Bio:

Lindsay Bywood is a Translation Studies academic and practitioner. She is currently Research Fellow on the AHRC-NEH funded project ‘I don’t see what you mean’: Broadening participation through co-created inclusive digital museum audio, based at the University of Westminster, and also teaches translation, audiovisual translation, and professional development for translators at postgraduate level. Alongside this work, she acts as Public Relations Officer for Voice & Script International (VSI). She holds a PhD in subtitling from University College London, an MA in German and Philosophy from the University of Oxford, and an MA in Translation Studies from the University of Salford. Before becoming an academic she worked for many years in the audiovisual translation industry. She is Director of the European Association for Studies in Screen Translation (ESIST), a Member of the Chartered Institute of Linguists, and a member of the advisory committee for the Languages & The Media conference series.