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During The Blind School: Pioneering People and Places exhibition at the Museum of Liverpool we have run various public activities for visitors to take part in. We’ve run a tactile printmaking workshop, storytelling sessions, a symposia aimed at museum professionals and a Young Archaeologists’ Club session. Here our Liverpool Project Coordinator Kerry tells us more.
Fae Kilburn is a visually impaired artist and printmaker who is standing next to a table showing Matt Exley, Education Manager at Museum of Liverpool, how to make a print
A young person is sitting at a table concentrating on rolling green paint across an acrylic board ready to make a print
The first was a tactile printmaking workshop with specialist printmaker and fine artist Fae Kilburn. Fae showed visitors how to make a mini print whilst having conversations about her work and her experiences of doing art with a visual impairment. The day was popular and fun-even some museum staff popped in to learn how to make a mini print!
Storytelling
Sometimes they get it right, sometimes they get it wrong, and sometimes they need help to get along
Liz Porter tells stories
We joined Liz on a journey to find out about Fairy Ointment and her favourite story ‘The White Rat’, (a French wondertale). This transformative story allowed us to think about human nature, identity, and how we adapt to the many different situations life throws up at us. Rats are partially sighted too, and their eyes dart from left to right to centre as they try to see where they are going.
Holding a Symposium
We hosted a symposia aimed at museum professionals asking ‘Rethinking Disability: What needs to change in Museums and Galleries?’. We welcomed over 90 guests to the Museum of Liverpool to hear Sharon Heal (Museums Association), Jocelyn Dodd (University of Leicester), Anna Fineman (Vocaleyes), Ruth Gould MBE (DaDaFest) and a panel representing our partner organisations.
Visual minutes from Rethinking disability: What needs to change in museums and galleries?
The visual minutes recorded key themes being discussed by the panel and audience questions
Young Archaeologists
One Young Archaeologists designed an accessible exhibition on dinosaurs with a model of a meteor that heat up so you can feel, wheelchair accessible cases, Braille, tactile footprints of different dinosaurs and, the most awesome idea, floor vibrations and speakers so you can hear and feel a T-rex coming!
We worked with the Mersey and Dee Young Archaeologists’ Club at the Museum of Liverpool where we worked to identify all the accessible methods used in The Blind School exhibition. We then designed our own accessible exhibitions on themes of our choosing-dinosaurs, Ancient Greeks, Ancient Egyptians, the archaeology of Orkney and my idea for the world’s first Backstreet Boys museum! We had so much fun considering the ways we could make our cool ideas accessible so everyone can enjoy and experience them.
Two young archaeologists stand in The Blind School exhibition holding seakers to their ears to hear the audio description tour
With the Liverpool exhibition approaching its closing date we will turn our attention to collecting additional oral histories to go into the permanent collection at the Museum of Liverpool-do get in touch if you have memories of the Royal School for the Blind, Liverpool by e-mailing me Kerry.Massheder-Rigby@accentuateuk.org