Rethinking disability, rethinking museums

Museums still have a long way to go in representing and making provision for disabled people – but there are some good news stories and there are simple, as well as ‘ambitious’ changes that all museums can make.

woman in green jumper draws a picture symbolising the symposium

On 9th March we held a symposium at the Museum of Liverpool about disability and museums: topics ranged from representing disabled people in the museum workforce, to the exhibitions that get shown, to the power of disabled people to represent themselves in those exhibitions (rather than being ‘talked about’ by third parties). Then there’s the issue of access: whether that’s being able to find out about provision on a museum’s website, or thinking properly about access when creating a shiny new museum extension.

a packed room looks at a screen and speaker

The Rethinking Disability Symposium

There was a packed audience, and speakers who had done much of the groundwork for better representation of disabled people. Steph Niciu has written up the day for Disabled Arts Online. Here are some of the tweeted comments summarising the day:

This one got a lot of cheering and clapping from the audience, from the V&A’s Disability and Access Officer:

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