Johanna Schwanberg in conversation with Eva Böhm, Sigrid Kundela and Monika Wagner
"Open to the public, barrier-free and inclusive, museums promote diversity and sustainability" - this is a central premise of the new ICOM museum definition. But are museums really already as inclusive as the museum scene would like them to be? What is missing, what bothers and what excites people with disabilities when they visit museums? What stops people who come from less educated backgrounds from going to museums? What visible and invisible barriers still exist in museums?
In conversation with ICOM Austria President Johanna Schwanberg Three experts talk about their experiences in working with museums:
- Eva Böhm, sign language interpreter and managing director of WITAF,
- Sigrid Kundela, founder of the self-help group for traumatic brain injury patients, and
- Monika Wagner, founder of “Hunger for Art & Culture”.
From different perspectives, they describe positive experiences and talk about successful collaborations and projects. But they also point out gaps and desiderata. Above all, Böhm, Kundela and Wagner make creative suggestions on how inclusion can be practiced even more intensively in museums and what is urgently needed to achieve this.
Johanna Schwanberg: The new ICOM museum definition lists accessibility and inclusion as one of the most important goals to be achieved for a successful museum of the future in which everyone feels welcome. How far are we on this path?
Monika Wagner: I have been following the development of inclusion in museums for over 20 years and I think that a lot has happened in this regard. Museums are clearly on the right track, although there is of course still room for improvement. For us at "Hunger auf Kunst & Kultur", inclusion in the sense of access for people who cannot afford it was primarily a concern. What is encouraging is that in the last few decades many museums have joined our cooperation, but we have noticed that money is not the only barrier; much more is needed to make people feel welcome in museums. Museum architecture, which is reminiscent of giant temples, is often off-putting, so that people do not go in, even if they do not have to pay an entrance fee.
Eva Böhm: As the managing director of WITAF, I can only speak for people who are hearing impaired and use sign language. We had individual collaborations long before the term inclusion found its way into the museum world. I always found open ears, but financing is often a hurdle, both for the institutions and for the visitors. Deaf people are affected by severe educational discrimination, many are in low-income situations and it is very important that museum visits and tours do not incur any costs. It is particularly important - apart from the financial barrier that is eliminated - that the respective target group also learns about the respective offer. Museums often say that they have developed a special educational program aimed at a target group, but no one comes. That is a great shame. It works so well for us because, as an NGO, we often develop the programs together with the museums and sensitize the art educators to what is needed for a tour with deaf people. At the same time, we communicate widely via our newsletter and social media.
Sigrid Kundela: For People with traumatic brain injuries, for whom I speak, still face many obstacles. Firstly, there is the high entrance fee. If our association did not cover the costs or the museums did not offer the tours for free, as is sometimes the case, no one would be able to go. But often there is also a lack of advertising. Or people do not come back after the first attempt because the tours are designed in such a way that they are too strenuous for people with traumatic brain injuries.
Johanna Schwanberg: So the mediation programs are often not inclusive enough?
Sigrid Kundela: Some are good, but many museum educators have no idea what we would need to follow the tour well and make the visit to the exhibition more enriching. I wish that we were not confronted with so many dates and lecture-like information, but that people with traumatic brain injury were first asked what they wanted to know about a work of art. The programs should be conversation-like.
Johanna Schwanberg: Would it not be beneficial for everyone if mediation programs were designed as a dialogue?
Eva Böhm: Inclusion is often understood to mean that you have to adapt to a certain target group, but ultimately it is a benefit for any educational offer if you speak a little more slowly. It is also positive to alternate between showing and explaining, so that people can look at things in peace and only then get an explanation. When a few selected works are examined in detail, inclusive moments suddenly arise. In the best case, inclusion refers to a diverse group - to very different people who leave the museum with added value due to the group dynamics. The focus is then not just on having visited a museum and seen something, but on the feeling of having walked through the respective building with a group.
Monika Wagner: In my view, there should be both: a special program for individual, different target groups, and then offers that are aimed at everyone and are really inclusive. We must not overburden museums and must keep in mind that a single museum cannot do everything, especially if it is a smaller one and does not have such great financial resources. Sometimes less is more.
Johanna Schwanberg: Can you be more specific?
Monika Wagner: As a museum, I have to ask myself what my focus is in terms of inclusion, and then it is important to fully engage with the community to find out what it needs. This is what we do with our “Culture Transfair” projects, where we connect a museum or cultural institution with a social institution, which then work together over a longer period of time. People with mental illnesses are guided through a museum in a completely different way than deaf people who use sign language. It is great that many museums are now creating opportunities for inclusion, but without knowing the communities that this affects, it makes little sense. Just saying, please come, everyone, will not be enough. The idea of inclusion also applies to people who are not from here. Cultural institutions are often surprised why people with a migration background do not visit them, but these people usually have no idea why they should do so in the first place.
Johanna Schwanberg: How can museums learn about the needs of different people so that museums become attractive to them?
Eva Böhm: The most important thing is good communication with the social institutions. It is of course best if formats are developed together in advance. If museums want to focus on people with hearing impairments, we give them an awareness workshop in which we explain, for example, that deaf people can only look at me as an interpreter or at the work of art. The way you conduct a tour with hearing groups does not work with people who use sign language.
Sigrid Kundela: It's completely different with the group I represent. People with a traumatic brain injury can usually listen and watch at the same time, but I have to give them plenty of time to think about what is being said. With this group, you can't talk for an hour straight. You need to take breaks and have the opportunity to sit down.
Johanna Schwanberg: So it seems that it is not just about guided tours, but also about architectural and curatorial aspects that have to keep inclusion in mind right from the start?
Sigrid Kundela: There are many things at stake. For me, there needs to be more seating in museums. Above all, there needs to be wall texts that are written and structured in such a way that I don't give up after the first few lines. Many wall texts in Austrian museums make no sense to us because they are far too long and complicated. I would also like to see educational programs for people with traumatic brain injuries that focus on a few works of art and treat them carefully and calmly.
Monika Wagner: Sometimes it's the little things that need to be changed. For example, tours are often only offered in the evening or at weekends, but it would be a relief for certain groups of people if there were also tours at lunchtime.
Eva Böhm: As a curator, you should think in advance about how to design an exhibition so that people with disabilities can walk through it without a guide and feel comfortable. It is also important to create rooms with seating. But above all, the spatial situation should be such that several people can stand together and the light is reasonably suitable. I understand that there are light-sensitive works of art, but you still need a room here and there where the visibility is good, because I can't interpret in sign language anywhere when it is completely dark.
Johanna Schwanberg: How do museums get all this different information that needs to be considered in order to become truly inclusive?
Eva Böhm: There would need to be another "Museums Guide Inclusive", which in this case is not aimed at potential visitors but at the museum community. This guide should contain everything that needs to be considered when working in a museum and keeping inclusion in mind.
Sigrid Kundela: The most important thing is that we get the feeling that we are welcome and that our needs are taken seriously. It is best when we can be actively and creatively involved in museums. I was recently at the Belvedere with my group of people with traumatic brain injuries to the Hannah Höch exhibition, which famously made collages. As is often the case, the tour gave us far too much information, but afterwards we were able to make our own collages out of postcards and newspaper clippings in a separate room. That was great because we suddenly understood what Hannah Höch's art was about while doing it.
Johanna Schwanberg: So the biggest wish for museums is the opportunity for participation and a say?
Monika Wagner: It's about long-term processes and really getting involved with each other, as has been the case with our "Culture Transfair" projects for years. This was particularly successful in a project lasting several months involving young women with a migrant background who were looking for work at the Dom Museum in Vienna. The aim here was not to find out as much as possible about an exhibition. Rather, the art mediator invited the women to choose a work of art that they could relate to most emotionally. They then wrote their own texts about the respective exhibit and made a podcast out of it.
Johanna Schwanberg: And these texts could then be heard in front of each work of art in the exhibition itself via QR codes.
Monika Wagner: Exactly – it was an incredible appreciation of these people, because suddenly something of theirs – something they had created themselves – could be heard in a museum in the centre of Vienna. This also gave the young women a close connection to the museum. But to be honest, such projects are very complex.
Eva Böhm: When you start to incorporate the history of the people affected into the museum processes, then suddenly much more works than you might have expected. We have now planned a photo journey with the Fotoarsenal, two of which will be specifically for the deaf - at places that have historical significance for the deaf community. I also think it's great that the Vienna Museum has now approached the WITAF about an exhibition because they want to have a station that deals with the Viennese dialect. The Viennese sign language dialect will also play a role - it will now be represented in the show with its own video contribution.
Johanna Schwanberg: So the key thing in terms of inclusion is that different communities can get involved in the same exhibition in advance and that the exhibitions are mixed?
Eva Böhm: It can of course be valuable to hold an exhibition on the discrimination of the deaf. But such a presentation will primarily only be viewed by the target group, who already know that they are affected by this discrimination. Exhibitions that are aimed at everyone and only focus on certain areas, for example, specifically on the deaf, are much more exciting.
Johanna Schwanberg: Ms. Kundela, as someone who has suffered a traumatic brain injury yourself, you founded a self-help group for traumatic brain injury patients, with whom you often go to museums. What does a visit to a museum mean for the people you represent?
Sigrid Kundela: People with traumatic brain injury are just as diverse in terms of their interests as everyone else. Some like to go to museums, others love films or play mini golf. But a visit to a museum can be something very special if the educational program is good and tailored to our needs, because many of the senses are addressed.
Johanna Schwanberg: Do museums have special potential when it comes to making our society more inclusive?
Monika Wagner: Museums have an enormously important role, but the responsibility cannot lie with museums alone. Preschools and schools also have a mandate to contribute to an inclusive society. Above all, museums need support from politicians in the form of better financial support. They cannot be left alone with the costly programs and infrastructural measures needed for an inclusive museum.
Eva Böhm: We saw during the Corona period what it does to people when art and culture are no longer available. In museums you can learn so much about yourself, society and the world as a whole. It is also an ideal place to live out inclusion as an example. If I interpret an opening as a sign language interpreter in a museum, this can have a lasting effect, even if no deaf person is present. Because I may have sensitized 350 people in the room to the issue, who then go home and perhaps ask themselves why this target group is so invisible and what they can do to change this.