When designing and delivering activities for different audiences, it is necessary to consider audiences with special needs. In general, as cultural education specialists are rarely trained to work with people with disabilities, it is essential to have collaborations with relevant organisations with expertise in this field. Of course, the training of human resources to understand the specificities of groups with disabilities becomes absolutely necessary. It is even advisable to have within our organisation a representative specialised in working with such groups. In addition, we need to ensure that we have the right infrastructure for this.
A positive example is the Ethnographic Museum of Transylvania in Cluj-Napoca. This museum in the historic city centre has a permanent tactile exhibition, at disposal of the visually impaired. Of course, access for people with locomotor disabilities is provided by servo-platforms. Details of the museum here.
An article on activities for the public with special needs, namely Educational programmes for people with special needs, in Revista muzeelor nr. 3 / 2009 (Nițulescu, Ozana Raluca, Iacob, Angelica), is available here.
Some funding programmes are dedicated to people with disabilities. One such programme has been proposed for some time by the Orange Foundation, namely the World through Colour and Sound project competition funding fund. Through this programme, which has also benefited cultural organisations, the Orange Foundation contributes to improving the quality of life of people with visual and/or hearing impairments by supporting education, health and culture projects to ensure their independent living and improve their social integration.
Funded by the Orange Foundation, the ARTtouch and ArtMobile projects, carried out by the National Art Museum of Romania since 2013, involved the creation of multisensory tours for people with visual and hearing impairments, as well as the production of materials about works of art interpreted in mime-gesture language. The works made accessible through digital technology were considered to be representative of the museum’s collections, with each work being approached from a new perspective and allowing connections to other works in the museum’s collection.
The works made accessible through special applications were designed both for inclusion in the museum’s art galleries and for presentation online.
The National Art Museum of Romania’s YouTube channel features 17 videos interpreting European art, old Romanian art and modern Romanian art in mime-gesture language. They are available here.