Use Your Senses: overcoming the

accessibility paradox

Nynke Feenstra, MA.

Researcher and freelance museums’ accessibility advisor

Leiden University, the Netherlands

Accessibility paradox

• Accessibility is not labelling people as ‘blind’, ‘Deaf’,

or ‘not disabled’.

• But to become accessible museums have to set apart

the blind/Deaf to look at the special needs of a

particular group.

Accessibility paradox

• Museums can embed intellectual accessibility in their

collection presentation through a multisensory

presentation of art and hereby overcome the

accessibility paradox.

Embodied cognition

• All (museum) experience is embodied and in essence

multisensory.

• Embodied cognition:

• Bottom-up variables: external sensory input.

• Top-down variables: previous knowledge, understanding, internal

predictions and expectations.

Gareth Moore | A Burning Bag as a

Smoke-Grey Lotus

Picture: Gerrit Schreurs, courtesy Stroom Den Haag

Gareth Moore | A Burning Bag as a

Smoke-Grey Lotus

Picture: A.M. Minnaard, courtesy Stroom Den Haag

Gareth Moore | A Burning Bag as a

Smoke-Grey Lotus

Picture: A.M. Minnaard, courtesy Stroom Den Haag

Touch

• Rehabilitation of touch in museums since the 1970s.

• Several bodily sensations:

• Proprioception

• Vestibular sense

• Visceral sensations

Smell

• Activate unconscious effects, trigger emotions, and recall

memories.

• Perception of scent is not universal.

• Individual ‘smelling history’

• There are scents that trigger the same effect in most perceivers

(e.g. lavender, vanilla).

Taste

• The most ‘close’ sense.

• Taste experiences depend on the context of your body

and the senses:

• Disposition to eat (e.g. hungry, thirsty, stuffed etc.)

• Cultural factors: religion (e.g. refusal pork meat), ethics (e.g.

human meat), education, experience, tradition.

A multisensory presentation of art

• Sequence of sensory stimulation (Carol Bowlby):

• Smell: most primitive, strongly attached to emotions.

• Movement: to improve alertness.

• Touch/Vision/Hearing: complex, require more time for

interpretation.

• Taste: perceived as rewarding.

A multisensory presentation of art

• Smell: to immerse, attract, recall memories, arouse a

mood, inform about a particular culture.

• Touch (movement): proprioceptive assignment,

examination artistic materials/tools.

• Vision/Hearing: traditional experience.

• Taste: represent a detail, culture, religion, tradition.

A multisensory presentation of art

• More intimate experience

• A deeper memory

• Choose (a) sensation(s)

• Reduces dominance of sight and hearing

• Open space that fits a visitor’s expectations

A multisensory presentation of art

• Opportunity for curators to build a multi-layered story

with different sorts of information (e.g. art historical,

emotional, and cultural).

• Establishes intellectual accessibility on every hour and

day that a museum is open to the public.

• Creates an inclusive museum where blind and Deaf

visitors are a group of impaired visitors.

Sources

• Aglioti, Salvatore Maria, Bufalari, Ilaria, and Candidi, Matteo. “Multisensory Mental Simulation and Aesthetic Perception.” In The Multisensory Museum: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives on Touch, Sound, Smell, Memory, and Space, edited by Nina Levent and Alvaro Pascual-Leone, 301-317. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014.

• Bacci, Francesca, and Pavani, Francesco. “First Hand,” Not “First Eye” Knowledge.” In The Multisensory Museum: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives on Touch, Sound, Smell, Memory, and Space, edited by Nina Levent and Alvaro Pascual-Leone, 17-28. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014.

• Cruz, Joana, Marques, Alda, Barbosa, Ana, Figueiredo, Daniela, and Sousa, Liliana X. “Making Sense(s) in Dementia: A Multisensory and Motor-Based Group Activity Program.” In American Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease & Other Dementias 28 (2013): 137-146. doi: 10.1177/1533317512473194.

• Levent, N. and Pascual-Leone, A. “Introduction.” In The Multisensory Museum: Cross Disciplinary Perspectives on Touch, Sound, Smell, Memory, and Space, edited by Nina Levent and Alvaro Pascual- Leone, xiii-xxvi. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014.

• Rosen, Rusell. “Sensory Orientations and Sensory Design in the American DeafWorld.” The Senses & Society 3 (2007): 366-373.

Sources

• Stevenson, Richard J. “The Forgotten Sense: Using Olfaction in a Museum Context: A Neuroscience Perspective.” In The Multisensory Museum: Cross Disciplinary Perspectives on Touch, Sound, Smell, Memory, and Space, edited by Nina Levent and Alvaro Pascual-Leone, 151-165. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014

• Stroom Den Haag. “Gareth Moore: A Burning Bag as a Smoke-Grey Lotus.” Stroom Den Haag (2014). (Exhibition brochure).

• Zisch, Fiona, Gage, Stephen, and Spiers, Hugo. “Navigating the Museum.” In The Multisensory Museum: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives on Touch, Sound, Smell, Memory, and Space, edited by Nina Levent and Alvaro Pascual-Leone, 215-237. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014.