People and partners
The team have audio recorded their descriptions and introductions.
Click on the play icon below their photo to familiarise yourself with their voice.
People
Alison Eardley
Co-Investigator, University of Westminster
Alison is a Reader in Psychology, Cultural Heritage and Inclusion, working in collaboration with museums and the heritage sector. Research interests include inclusion design and access within museums, using Autobiographical Memory to assess the impact of museum experiences, inclusive design and access within museums, spatial understanding, multisensory perception and memory and imagery. She is Co-Investigator on The Sensational Museum.
Image: A headshot of a white woman with long blonde hair, in her early fifties. She is looking into the camera with a small smile.
Anne Chick
Co-Investigator,University of Lincoln
Anne Chick is Professor of Design at the University of Lincoln. Her main research contribution has been in mapping the design for sustainability field, and applying inclusive design research projects using models of co-creation. She has published widely and serves on the board of several international academic design journals. Anne is Co-Investigator on The Sensational Museum project.
Image: A photo of a Anne Chick, a blonde woman, with hair pulled back and black framed glasses. She smiles at the camera, arms folded.
Charlotte Slark
Research Associate, The Sensational Museum / University of Westminster
Charlotte is an interdisciplinary scholar who uses both social science and humanities methodologies to examine museums as institutions. She came to academia from the heritage sector and has experience working both back and front of house in museums. Charlotte is interested in challenging structural inequalities throughout the heritage sector.
Image: A photo showing Charlotte Slark, one of the post doc researchers for the Sensational Museum. She is a white woman in her 30s with shoulder length curly hair and is wearing glasses with large frames. She is looking at the camera and smiling.
Esther Fox
Sector Lead, Curating for Change
Esther Fox is a Programme Director, Artist and Researcher and as the Head of the Accentuate programme, creates opportunities for D/deaf, disabled and neurodivergent people to participate and lead in the cultural sector. She is the strategic lead for Curating for Change, working with over 20 Museums across England delivering a programme for disabled people wishing to pursue a curatorial career.
Image: A full length photo of a white woman in her late 40’s with shoulder length silver blonde hair. She is a wheelchair user, and is smiling at the camera. She is in a museum setting, with dark wood columns and cabinets showing historic objects visible behind her.
Hannah Thompson
Principal Investigator, Royal Holloway University of London
Hannah is a partially blind academic and activist. She is Professor of French and Critical Disability Studies at Royal Holloway, University of London. Her research interests include nineteenth-century French literature, blindness in literature and culture, and audio description as translation. She has developed the influential theory of ‘Blindness Gain’ and is currently Principal Investigator on The Sensational Museum.
Image: A white woman with shoulder-length hair in shades of grey, brown and blond smiles at the camera. She is wearing thick glasses with tortoise-shell and purple frames. They magnify her unusual eyes and the fine wrinkles beneath them.
Lucy McDonald
Project Support Administrator, The Sensational Museum
Lucy McDonald has a background in Public History, and in shaping Visitor and Customer experience. Her work supports the operational and communications part of The Sensational Museum project. She is always keen to hear from people interested in the project, and to enable them to get involved.
Image: A photo of white woman in her late thirties. She has dark brown hair, pulled back, with a fringe and wisps of hair around her face. She has a neutral expression, looking just beyond the camera.
Ross Parry
Co-Investigator, University of Leicester
Ross is Professor of Museum Technology at the University of Leicester and Director of the university’s new Institute for Digital Culture. He is interested in the ways that technology (both digital and pre-digital) has been used, managed, created and understood by museums. Ross is a Co-Investigator on The Sensational Museum.
Image: A photo showing Ross Parry. He is a white man in his early fifties with silver glasses and dark hair, and is wearing a white collared shirt.
Sophie Vohra
Research Associate, The Sensational Museum / University of Leicester
Sophie is an academic and professional public historian. Her academic background and interests include community, history, identity, material culture and memory. She has worked across a number of roles in different types of organisations in the UK heritage sector since 2012. She strives to dismantle intersectional inequity, and champion and support lasting change.
Image: Cropped portrait of an India/white British woman smiling, with short, curly, dark brown hair and brown eyes. Wearing a navy-blue shirt, gold large hoop earrings and a gold necklace with a gold oval pendant. Sepia overlaid maps wallpaper in the background.
Partners
AVM Curiosities
Founded by award-winning artist and food historian Tasha Marks, AVM Curiosities, is a creative practice that champions the use of food and fragrance as artistic mediums. As advocates for the sensory museum, projects have ranged from the designing of bespoke aromas, to the installation of large-scale aromatic artworks. https://www.avmcuriosities.com
Barker Langham
Barker Langham is a leading cultural practice working at the intersection of arts, creativity, culture and business to deliver transformational and sustainable projects around the world. https://barkerlangham.co.uk
Collections Trust
Collections Trust helps museums work with the information that connects collections and audiences. Their standards and advice are used around the world to make museum collections accessible. https://collectionstrust.org.uk
Curating for Change
Curating for Change exists to create strong career pathways for d/Deaf, disabled and neurodiverse curators, currently seriously under-represented in museums. Curating for Change is funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Art Fund. It originates in Screen South’s longstanding Accentuate programme, which launched in 2009 as the Paralympic-inspired 2012 legacy for the South East. https://curatingforchange.org
GEM
The Group for Education in Museums (GEM) delivers a range of services to support museum educators, including professional membership, training and development opportunities, career mentoring, regular publications and dedicated representatives. It works towards its vision of a connected and equipped community of people enabling learning and creating inspiring experiences.
Museums Association
Museums Association is the only organisation for all museums in the four nations of the UK. It works towards its vision of inclusive, participatory and sustainable museums at the heart of their communities. It is a dynamic membership organisation that campaigns for socially engaged museums and a representative workforce. Museums Association advocates for and supports museums and everyone who works in and with them so that the value and impact of museums and their collections is realised. https://www.museumsassociation.org/
purpleSTARS
purpleSTARS brings together artists and technologists with and without learning difficulties/disabilities to transform museum experiences. The name comes from purple as the colour associated with difference/disability and STARS for Sensory Technology Art Resource Specialists. https://purplestars.org.uk
Scottish Museums Federation
Scottish Museums Federation is a membership body for anyone interested in the Scottish museums and galleries sector. Founded in 1937, they support their membership with professional development, networking and informative discussion. Visit Website
The Museum Platform
The Museum Platform is a software and service platform that supports museums to get online, increase their digital independence and confidence and tell their incredible stories with a beautiful, coherent and robust set of digital tools. https://themuseumplatform.com
The Neurodiverse Museum
The Neurodiverse Museum has been set up to change the way museums and the cultural sector as a whole, approaches neurodiversity. It aims to shift the dialogue and provision from deficit, person first, exclusionary models, to presumed competence, identify first, inclusionary models with #ActuallyAustitic and neurodivergent voice at its heart. https://theneurodiversemuseum.org.uk
VocalEyes
VocalEyes believe that blind and visually impaired people should have the best possible opportunities to experience and enjoy art and heritage. They offer inclusive interpretation through audio description, bringing art and culture to life for blind, visually impaired and non-blind people.
https://vocaleyes.co.uk
Wellcome Collection
Wellcome Collection is a free museum and library that aims to challenge how we all think and feel about health. Through exhibitions, collections, live programming, digital, broadcast and publishing, Wellcome Collection creates opportunities for people to think deeply about the connections between science, medicine, life and art. https://wellcomecollection.org
Our partners
Is your museum sensational?
Is your museum sensational? We’re keen to showcase examples of good and interesting practice from museums and heritage sites around the UK of accessible and inclusive design, resources and practice generally.
If you’d like to feature work from your museum or heritage site, please tell us about it using the form below, and include a link to information about it on your website. We’ll be in touch if we have any questions, and to let you know if/when we feature it here on The Sensational Museum.