Museum for All

One of the characteristics noticeably burdens a person’s condition of disability is the reduced possibility of interacting with the environment, of moving freely in it, of getting to know it. We know how important it is for a child, any child, to be able to move around to get to know and learn. The Ability association Onlus of Milan reminds us of this with many of its initiatives for children with serious disabilities. The main objective of this association – born in 1988 by some parents and administrators in response to the lack of references that left families alone – was precisely to promote the growth of children in this condition, defend their rights and support their families. In our country the dominant perspective with which we look at disability is often still linked to the medical condition alone, neglecting the importance of the environment and sociality which we live in. At The Ability we work to facilitate these interactions and relationships in every possible context of life, dealing not only with the places of therapy or school and architectural barriers in cities but opening our gaze to public spaces.

This is how it was born Museum for All, launched with the De Agostini Foundation, so that places of culture were accessible not only physically but also cognitively to a public that, until then, has been excluded from them. The possibility of facilitating access to those with intellectual disabilities took shape in 2014 with the pilot project of the Leonardo da Vinci National Museum of Science and Technology in Milan. “Scienzabile – inclusion and game between science and disability” represented a new way to live the experience of the museum: materials made for this purpose, specific visits to the collections and inclusive laboratory activities, with the idea that everyone has different skills that need to be enhanced in a context of cooperation. Since then the idea has spread to other realities, allowing the public to live the new experience of visiting the museum, to perceive the beauty of cultural heritage, to understand it because it is thoroughly explained, to internalize it because it is lived on a cognitive and emotional level.

The Museum for All project is represented through a three-phase path: context analysis, training, and structuring of the visit. In the first phase, a working group composed of experts in cultural heritage and accessibility, and professionals in the psychopedagogical field, analyze the peculiarities of each of the participating museums. In the second, together with the staff of the museums, an innovative path of training and participatory design is created: the quality of human contact with the operators will be indispensable for a serene and fruitful visit. Finally, the phase that sees the representation of the indispensable tools to make the visit enjoyable and accessible, and that is founded in specific paths and easy reading guides. These routes are already active in some museums such as Beni Fai, the Palazzo Altemps, the Villa Gregoriana in Rome, the Museum of the Innocent in Florence, the Venaria Reale in Turin, and others that can be found on the labilità.org website.

In short, all that remains is to cross the threshold of these places that, as cultural and artistic heritage, really contribute to us being a community. No one excluded.