Accessible Museum
Accessible environments are the kind of environments where everyone can act equally. The more accessible environments the less disabilities.
In the end of the 1990s the Nordic countries started a project to improve acessibility in museums. In Lapland the Accessible Museum project was launched by the Rovaniemi Art Museum in the Autumn of 2002. The national Accessible Museum project funded by the Finnish Museums Association aims to increase accessibility in museums. The project involves six museums that have among other things improved their information activities and done multisensual exhibitions in collaboration with different groups as s part of the project. They have also planned joint accessible exhibition projects together with other museums in the project. One of them is called Encounters in Art.
The first exhibition based on accessibility in the Rovaniemi Art Museum Give Me a Hand – Art from Humanity was an educational exhibition especially directed to immigrants. The exhibition from the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation Collection emphasised the differences and diversity of people. The exhibition, workshops and guided tours were organised by the students of Art Education from the University of Lapland. In the opening of the exhibition some children from the immigrants class introduced the audience their own cultures.
The project secretary Sari Salovaara from the Finnish National Gallery has worked as the specialist and instructor of the project. Along with an education day in November 2002 the premices of the Rovaniemi Art Museum were charted for the problems regarding to accessibility. The second education day in February 2003 gathered together more than hundred participants from different specialities from all around Lapland. During that event the collaboration with for example different local dissabled organisations, immigrants, special schools, the Sami people, other museums and different interest groups was firmed and speeded up. The education day was about communicating experiences and information to the visually disabled, taking multiculturality into account in the museum work, information about accessibility and goals of accessibility as well as steps in puting them in practice.
In the Spring 2003 the educational exhibition I Exist in Another Way brought up questions about our differences in experiencing art. Special groups were taken into account when choosing the works and setting up the exhibition. The art works were set up the way that they told a story together with their different shapes and colours. Also the names and themes of the works were leading the visitor and her/his experience of the exhibition as accessible as possible. The exhibition was planned by the students of Art Education together with the Rovaniemi Art Museum. The main focus of the workshops and guided tours was to produce multisensual experiences.
The project continues with developing accessible exhibitions and web services. Multisensuality is taken into consideration in planning exhibitions and different functions. The main event of the European Year of the People with Disabilities theme year 2003 in Lapland was held in the Rovaniemi Art Museum. The Week of Accessible Interaction was opened in the International Disabled Day the 3rd of December and the conclusion event was celebrated in the United Nations Day of the Human Rights on the 10th of December. Circuit sound installation is a part of A Chance for a Small Dream exhibition from the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation Collection. Also other exhibitions, workshops, guided tours and other events are organised together with different disabled groups and schools.
A Nordic environment and community art event PANG – Public Art Nothern Genre organised in the summer 2004 emphasises accessibility. Art was produced to town residents without boundaries, which encourages the citizens to feel safer and more satisfied with their surroundings. About twenty works of art were made accessible in different ways. Some of the works were made communally.
Additional reading:
Museo kaikille / Museum för alla. Pohjoismainen esteettömyys- ja saavutettavuusopas. Taidemuseoalan kehittämisyksikkö Kehys. Valtion taidemuseo 2003.