Art Coming Out from Behind Glass Displays

John Olson and 3DPhotoWorks have worked together with the National Federation of the Blind for several years now. From the tactile timeline at the 2015 National Convention to the Newseum exhibit of tactile photography in 2018, they have been working to make art accessible to the blind. And their work has not gone unnoticed.

On May 20, 2019, the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) had its trade show in New Orleans, and the National Federation of the Blind and 3DPhotoWorks were there. They brought the bas-relief versions of photographs with touchpoints that activated audio descriptions of elements of the photos that debuted at the Newseum, large quotes from Federationists posted visibly, and a ten-foot blowup of President Riccobono’s open letter to museum leadership about the importance of finding ways to make art accessible for the blind and visually impaired.

And the museum community is listening. Leadership for the AAM spoke about ways that they are trying to make its collections more accessible for the disability community as a whole: special hours with lowered light and sound levels for patrons who are autistic or have sensory processing disorders, websites or apps designed to work with screen readers for the blind, along with less high-tech methods of accessibility. And it’s not just American museums, either. The Singapore Museum has commissioned three artists to make touchable adaptations of its own works (with more planned), and the Louvre has commissioned small low-relief models of parts of its exterior for exhibits about the museum’s history.

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