This is a transcription of the Disability Gain episode of the Sensational Shorts podcast, produced and recorded by The Sensational Museum Postdocs, Dr Sophie Vohra and Dr Charlotte Slark
Audio
Speaker vocal descriptions
Sophie speaks in a clear and considered way, with a lyrical, soft and lower vocal tone… and occasionally some loud laughs! Putting on her more ‘formal voice’, here she speaks with a ‘non-typical’ north-western accent (aka suspend your disbelief that everyone there sounds like they are from Liverpool, Manchester or Bury), with dropped ‘a’s and stronger annunciation. She often wonders if her different code-switching voices that make up critical parts of her identity (day-to-day, Macclesfield, Yorkshire, academic/telephone, British Indian, Spanish) come through.
Charlotte speaks animatedly and talks faster when she’s excited. She has a southern English accent, which a local person would identify as a somewhat polished combination of Slough and Staines upon Thames (think quite hard consonants!). It’s the accent of someone from a working-class background who has spent a lot of time having to fit-in in middle class spaces.
Notes on transcript style
- Punctuation is used to indicate the way the content was delivered, rather than necessarily being grammatically correct. Please try and read it with these pauses (or not as the case may be) in mind.
- Words in square brackets and in italics, [like this], indicate delivery types (e.g. softly; animated), audible occurrences (e.g. laugh; sigh), and sound differences (e.g. quieter delivery) in the recording.
- Ellipses (like… this) indicate a short break between sentences.
- Italicised words (like this) indicate emphasis placed more heavily on the words as they are delivered.
- Quotation marks (“like this”) mean we are suggesting this is something someone might have said (e.g., she said, “oh, that was weird”, and I could see why)
- Whereas quotation marks (‘like this’) mean we are emphasising it as a useful term (e.g. ‘the fourth wall’).
Transcript
[The podcast starts with The Sensational Museum audio logo: A conspiratorial female voice says ‘The Sensational Museum’. Lower in volume, almost distant, people are chattering excitedly in a large, echoey space. A warm, major chord chimes and fades out]
Sophie 00:06
Hi and welcome to the Disability Gain episode of the Sensational Shorts Podcast. I’m Sophie Vohra.
Charlotte 00.13
And I’m Charlotte Slark.
Sophie 00:16
Today we’re talking about something that is really central to The Sensational Museum project, and the work that both Charlotte and I are doing. But perhaps it’s not something that you have encountered before. Now, before we get into talking about disability gain, is it time for us to give our visual description Charlotte?
Charlotte 00.38
Of course, yep. So I am a woman in my 30s. I have got highlighted blonde, curly hair, which is tied up into a bun today, and I’ve got round red wire framed glasses. I’m also wearing a jumper with snails on it. [Sophie chuckles in the background] What about you, Sophie?
Sophie 00.55
I’ve also got red metal rimmed glasses on today. I think that might be the TSM brand [laughs] And I’m wearing a very boring kind of grey top. So, it’s one of those moments where if you were trying to pick me out of a crowd, you might just notice me for my boringness. [Charlotte laughs]
So Charlotte, let’s delve into this… perhaps slightly complex but absolutely critical concept of disability gain. And I suppose, what that means for The Sensational Museum and the work that we’re doing.
Charlotte 01.27
Yeah, so disability gain, really refers to this crucial idea that all of the interventions that are put in place to make specifically museums in this context, accessible for people with disabilities, actually make the experience better for people who don’t identify as disabled. So, to give you an example of that, putting in a ramp instead of stairs is not just useful for somebody who is a wheelchair user, it’s also useful for somebody with a pushchair, for example. Or if we’re thinking about the exhibition side, having audio description is not just useful for somebody who’s blind or partially blind, It’s also really helpful for somebody who just wants to know more about what they’re looking at, or who maybe doesn’t feel comfortable looking at something like a work of art, who doesn’t necessarily know how to look at that, maybe because they come from a background where they’ve, not been taught that or not felt included in these spaces, we take a really intersectional approach to access and disability gain. Could you tell us more about that Sophie?
Sophie 02.29
I think that this is where, it’s really helpful for us to notice the real benefit of disability gain, sensory gain, in the concept of how it helps everybody, a step away from just the kind of traditional definition of disability and disabled. And just as you said, there Charlotte, which was such a wonderful example, is, culturally, people may not know how to engage with art in a way that has become ‘the etiquette’, but you know, etiquette that I don’t think anybody necessarily signed up for. And so, if you haven’t as a child or even as an adult, been a museum visitor, by having those unspoken etiquette rules, it can make it feel very hostile, like it’s not for you, like it shouldn’t be for you, because you haven’t learned the rules of engagement. And so actually, opening up different avenues to get into the collections, everything the museum has to offer, having those different sensory channels, those different gateways in, allows people to find things and learn things on their own terms. And, I think that’s probably one of the most powerful parts of this, is that it’s not just about access whether you need it or not. It’s giving you the opportunity to figure out what you need and when you need it.
Charlotte 03.57
That’s a really great point Sophie. I think, so often people don’t question this default way of experiencing a museum. And that there can be an alternative way to engage. Museums will often put in separate programming for specific groups, [Sophie hums in agreement] for example, BSL tours, or description tours or touch tours for people who are blind or partially blind, however, this sets up this idea of a binary, that you are either abled or not, that you are either somebody who can access in a traditional way or you are not. And this doesn’t question the fact that this ‘traditional’ way of accessing museums, [her voice going higher here] actually doesn’t really benefit a lot of people, or isn’t ideal for a lot of people. [back to her normal pitch now] We’ve talked a lot about this within The Sensational Museum team, that actually there’s quite a large amount of us that hate reading large bodies of text and wall panels?
Sophie 04.53
[Laughing] That’s me.
Charlotte 04.54
And me! And it’s really interesting. I’m somebody with a learning difficulty. And I personally, really hate reading large panels of information. But also I hate the feeling of obligation that I have, that as somebody who, goes to a lot of museums, I should read every one of those panels to get the core bit of information. What are your thoughts on this Sophie?
Sophie 05.19
Yeah, I’ve often felt that, particularly when you’re coming to that point on reading, I’ve always felt from my personal way of looking at it as a chore. A chore during an experience that I want to enjoy, which feels completely counterintuitive, and that’s only for me! There are people who English may not be their first language, or it may not be their strength, they may not be able to read. And so, from mine, which is just “ugh, I don’t really like it”, to some people who quite literally cannot access it, again, not from a traditional, as you said, “us and them disability version, part two” form, we’ve already cut off so many people from just experiencing the stuff because of an expectation of speaking a language or a series of languages that we see as a broader default. And, just to say, on top of that, who doesn’t want to touch stuff in museums? I always want to touch stuff. It’s a very personal way of getting in with things and I think the more that we can trust people to take care of the things, as much as anything else, and once I think we’re confident enough to think about breaking down some of these assumed rules of engagement, which I’m pretty sure we all question, we all sit there and go “but I don’t actually know why we do this”, I think we can then start opening up some really exciting avenues for, interaction, all that have stemmed from this concept of disability gain and sensory gain.
Charlotte 06:55
I think you make a really good point there about people who English isn’t their first language, or people who struggle with reading, it’s really interesting, where any exhibition I’ve been to that has had really good audio description that is available as part of the main provision, it’s often not just used by people who are blind or partially blind. I personally really like really good descriptive audio description. It allows you to access in a different way. And we’re not saying that there shouldn’t be labels or wall panels, but we’re saying that actually, giving people an alternative way to engage, in the main provision, that is not just for somebody who is seen to have a very specific disability, benefits people who may not know that that’s what they want.
You made a really good point about people not necessarily knowing that there are other ways to engage or that they might prefer other ways to engage. People don’t question this default way of engaging in a museum, and, actually, once you give them options, they get really excited by that. People are able to learn in a different way, when you give them a scent, or when you allow them to, touch an object, or you give them a touch object that helps explain the way something was made, or helps explain, why something is important, that brings the experience alive for people in a way that allows them to get more from the experience than just reading a label [Sophie hums in agreement].
Sophie 08.27
I think one of the most, interesting and perhaps overlooked, examples of disability gain in museums is the seating. The seating that is assumed to be used by people who have mobility differences and therefore require to sit down as they, go through their visit. But who doesn’t love having that moment of just sitting and resting their body while they’re, they’re engaging, or they’re learning? You don’t have to be, a certain age, have a certain difference, have a certain, in this case, ‘disability’, in order to require that seating.
Charlotte 09.05
Sometimes people are just tired, sometimes you just need to sit down, and sometimes you’re wearing uncomfortable shoes [she laughs and is quickly joined by Sophie]. But I think you make a really crucial point there, is that by having that seating there, you are giving everybody that opportunity to have some time to rest, but also that time to process. You’re making that experience better for everyone.
Sophie 09.29
I’ve been Sophie Vohra.
Charlotte 09.31
And I’ve been Charlotte Slark.
Sophie 09.33
And thank you for listening to the Sensational Short on Disability Gain.
[The podcast ends with The Sensational Museum audio logo. A conspiratorial female voice says ‘The Sensational Museum’. Lower in volume, almost distant, people are chattering excitedly in a large, echoey space. A warm, major chord chimes and fades out]