Discovering ‘Experience-ables’: Socially including visually impaired people in art museums

Abstract This paper investigates how visually impaired people (VIP) examine works of art together with sighted companions in museums and galleries. It is principally concerned with how shared experiences of works of art are produced in interaction between sighted and visually impaired visitors. It explores how the participants orient to the different ways in which each has access to the pieces through sight, touch, and other means. The analysis suggests that the experience of exhibits is a collaborative achievement to which visually impaired and sighted participants contribute by aligning with each other's particular mode of orientation to the artworks. As the participants examine the exhibits, they establish what exhibit features they inspect and how they experience them in and through talk, bodily and tactile actions. The analysis is based on video recordings produced in a large museum in London. Keywords: art museumsvisually impaired peoplesocial interactiontangibilityvideosocial arts marketing Acknowledgements I would like to thank the management of the museum who kindly granted me access to their exhibition, in particular Ms Phillippa Heath. My particular thanks go to the visitors of the exhibition who allowed me to observe and video record their explorations of the gallery. I also want to thank my colleagues at the Work, Interaction & Technology Research Centre at KCL and Dr Andrea Coleman for helping with the editing of the paper. Furthermore, I would like to thank the reviewers and editors of this Special Issue for their valuable comments on previous versions of this paper. The research for this paper was funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC, Ref: 17441). Notes 1This observation stands in some contrast to the stance that the emergence of social interaction relies on a 'reciprocity of perspectives' (Schutz, Citation1967), and points to the momentary and fleeting character of shared experiences and 'intersubjectivity' that need to be ongoingly produced (Heritage, Citation1984). 2Sarberg (Citation2006) develops the concept of 'Wahrnehmungsstil' ('experiential style') to describe the different ways in which sighted, blind, and partially sighted participants orient to and act in the world. 3The transcription broadly follows Jefferson's (Citation1984) notation system. The transcription captures what participants say, when, and, as far as possible, how it was said. It includes minute pauses in tenth of a second, (.3), emphasis, elongation of sounds, ':', overlaps, '[', in talk, changes in intonation, '↓', and '=' talk that latches onto prior talk. 4It may be worthwhile adding here that sighted guides and other sighted visitors often hesitate to touch exhibits.