Doing Dis/ordered Mappings: Shapes of Inclusive Spaces in Museums

Abstract

Since knowledge is the commodity museums produce, then understanding how this knowledge is produced, shaped, borrowed, and translated, and through what forces, is critical to creating inclusive museums. Through studies of three national Canadian museums, we came to an understanding of how the shaping of space, physical access, and access to knowledge is used and produced to create inclusive museums, not as a product but as an ongoing process. Doing dis/ordered mappings, as an alternate approach to understanding inclusion, allowed for an exploration of the material relations among people, spaces, and things, creating new trajectories and cartographic methods to explore inclusion within museums. This article introduces the benefits of the doing of mappings to explore differing embodiments of people, with and without disabilities, to create an alternative way to approach/encounter/create inclusion for all people and things in our public spaces.

Collaboration between schools and museums for inclusive cultural education: Findings from the INARTdis-project

“…As opposed to the idea of a closed product (i.e., something regulated by law), inclusion refers to a process that each cultural institution carries out with the ultimate goal of reaching all citizens (Rieger et al, 2022). As Asensio et al (2016) describe, an inclusive museum would be one that is proactively sensitive to diversity in all its areas of action -heritage, collections and their messages; public and educational functions, participants and programs; management of human resources, movable and immovable property and economic resources.…”

Tactile cartography in the digital age: A review and research agenda

“…Stangl et al (2019) note that the act of touching in certain contexts is frequently considered to be unhygienic and/or infantile, and as a result, people for whom touch is a primary means of engaging with the world are isolated both socially and intellectually when they are deprived of that option. The authors also explain that tactile media can often only be operated in a relatively conspicuous manner, thereby alienating its users, especially in environments conventionally associated with visual experiences (Stangl et al, 2019) -placards that read 'Do not touch' are ubiquitous in museums, but none that say 'Do not look/hear/taste/smell' (obviously touching art poses more of a risk of damage than looking at art does, but nevertheless, certain people are excluded from experiencing the art as a result; see Shaligram, 2019 andRieger et al, 2019, for further discussion about museums and visual disability). Golledge (2005) and Giudice et al (2020) both explain that tactile maps or map devices are often cumbersome and not designed to be portable and ostensibly therefore requiring conspicuous operation in public (it is worth noting the 15year difference between these papers).…”

“…While the idea of participatory research may be an attractive one, the path to implementation is not always straightforward, nor should it be. Rieger et al (2019), invoking Moser (2000), discuss inclusive spaces in the context of museums and offer some cautionary words about formalizing participation: Inclusion in the museum is not easily produced, analyzed, or mapped . .…”

“…The authors describe B/VI visitors at a particular museum using tactile maps that the museum professionals had designed. In the words of the maps' designer, they are 'more functional than experiential' (Rieger et al, 2019), but a B/VI visitor commented that the maps are simply illegible due to being transcribed directly from a visual map rather than being designed specifically as a tactile map (a potential issue that needs consideration when transcribing).…”

“Can I go into the artwork?” Material–relational situations with abstract art

“…Several studies in museum education and closely related fields that use post approaches, such as post-humanisms and new materialisms (Booth, 2017;Feinberg & Lemaire, 2021;Grothen, 2021;Hackett et al, 2018;Medby & Dittmer, 2020;Sayers, 2015) and decolonial theories (Mulcahy, 2021;Rieger et al, 2019) have been published in recent years. For example, Feinberg and Lemaire (2021) write about pedagogical approaches to guided visits in museums that emphasise embodied knowledge and affective responses.…”