Open Museum and Disability

Nexa faculty fellow Alessandro Mantelero drafted a multi-disciplinary research and pilot project titled “Open Museum and Disability”, focusing on the effects of (virtually) opening up museums for disabled people (but possibly to the benefit of the public at large).

Italy’s cultural heritage represents one of the main assets of the country. However, and despite some specific provisions of the Italian Constitution that should guarantee to every citizen the possibility of taking part in the cultural and social life of the Nation, the accessibility of this heritage for disabled people is still very limited.
The fact that several Italian museums are hosted in historical buildings makes it even more difficult to achieve a full physical accessibility of their holdings.

The project phases and objectives are the following:

I. preliminary analysis of the relevant legal issues (intellectual property, sector specific regulations, etc.);

II. involvement of museums, in order to find candidates for a pilot project;

III. involvement of institutions and research centers with specific skills and competences concerning disabilities and accessibility;

IV. development of a demonstrator that, leveraging on the potential of digital technologies, will increase the accessibility of the holdings of the museums (both making assets accessible to physically disabled people and offering representations which are more accessible to people with other disabilities);

V. presentation and dissemination of the results, which will include a report, some scientific publications, and at least one pilot case.

To date, the main results achieved concern the expression of interest of partner institutions. CSP – Innovation in ICT is available as the technological wikiloves partner with the task of developing a demonstrator, while the Area Onlus association is willing to play the role of domain expert concerning disabilities. Moreover, the Associazione Museo Diffuso della Resistenza, della Deportazione, della Guerra, dei Diritti, della Libertà is available to host a pilot project.

The Open Museum and Disability project was also included in an Italian national research project (PRIN) proposal, in collaboration with the Institute of Informatics and Telematics of the Italian National Research Council and coordinated by the University of Pisa. Such proposal may represent a concrete funding and networking opportunity, as confirmed by the fact that the project passed the first evaluation step (and is waiting for the second and final round).