Charmaine Ashpole shares her experience of one of our Sensational interventions and explains why it means so much to her.
On the penultimate day of my family holiday in the Lake District, I arranged to “view” the Keswick Museum’s contribution to the Sensational Museum collaboration, the “Keswick School of Industrial Arts (KSIA)” exhibition.
As a partially blind and partially deaf woman, who has always loved the arts, heritage and cultural creativity, both before and after sight & hearing loss at age 45 (7 & a bit years’ ago), I was eager to “see” this wonderful exhibition through all my senses. I was not disappointed: in fact, my experience was multi-sensorily marvellous!
I arranged to visit Keswick Museum & Art Gallery during their “Quiet Time” (held on Friday mornings).
My hungry family were kept happy and out of trouble by the museum’s cafe and shop, whilst I had time, space and quiet all at my disposal. The museum’s curator Nicola Lawson was a wonderful guide: she took me to the KSIA Exhibit after first guiding me around the spacious, bright, welcoming and very accessible museum.
I’ve been learning Braille from scratch for the last 3 and a bit years. This has been a challenge, but thanks to the encouragement of a fabulous blind friend, I’ve improved my sense of touch significantly and Braille and my sharpened sense of touch have become a lifeline.
For me, part of the attraction of the KSIA Exhibit was the inclusion of Braille and other tactile elements. Touch and spatial awareness are essential elements of connection, both with ourselves and others, whether we’re blind, partially-blind or sighted. In an informationally-heavy, visually-chaotic world many humans seem to have forgotten their non-visual senses.
So I was happy to indulge all my senses in a very welcoming and accessible space. If you are reading this, you are already familiar with the value of good access for all. Keswick Museum and Art Gallery is a bastion of good access and everyone I met was welcoming and ready to help.
As well as reading the Braille labels, I enjoyed touching the luxuriant moss of the Lakeland hillside, shimmying a solitary finger over the smooth copper of the KSIA plate, and probably best of all, listening to the poetic, grounded, co-created audio-description. The AD was co-created by members of the Keswick community, who are named collaborators on this project.
One of the central elements of The Sensational Museum is access choice and the AD provision in Keswick is an example of this: visitors could choose access via their own smartphone or via headsets. The headphones were very easy to find and played the AD track as soon as you put them on. The track was also available via a raised QR code which was also easy to find and use.
I absolutely loved this easily accessible AD element. I really appreciate being able to play AD on my own phone so that I could then navigate to the entirety of the Sensational Museum website This gave me access to fascinating additional information about Keswick Museum and Art Gallery and the KSIA Exhibition. This also meant that I could take the AD away with me and continue to peruse it and reflect on the immersive experience afterwards. Too often, access for blind and partially blind people is temporary and short-lived. But at Keswick I felt included and taken seriously as a valuable museum visitor.
Thank you so much to the team at Keswick Museum & Art Gallery and the members of the Keswick community who made this exhibition such a multi-sensory-success.
