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IN TOUCH – Museums and Exhibitions

TX:Ìý 21.06.2022Ìý 2040-2100

PRESENTER:Ìý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý PETER WHITE

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PRODUCER:Ìý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý BETH HEMMINGS

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White

Good evening and welcome to In Touch.Ìý And very rarely has this programme’s name seemed so appropriate.

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Clip

Perhaps the best thing of all about being Director of the British Museum and one that still gives me the most enormous thrill is that now and then I’m allowed to take some of the objects out of the cases and hold them.

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Music

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And today I’m being allowed to hold something absolutely astonishing.Ìý I’ve got to admit that if any of us saw this just lying on the ground, we’d probably walk past it.Ìý It looks like a large chipped grey cobble.Ìý This is one of the first things that humans ever consciously made and holding it puts me directly in touch with them.

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White

Neil MacGregor, as he said, formerly director of the British Museum, starting his iconic series:Ìý A history of the world in 100 objects, by waxing lyrical about the joy of touch.Ìý Mike Lambert would agree.Ìý Mike is a totally blind enthusiast for archaeology and geology and he got in touch with us because he feels let down by the British Museum in its approach to access for visually impaired people for a current exhibition – The world of Stonehenge.Ìý Mike joins me.

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First of all, just explain what it is that so upset you.

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Lambert

Well, basically, the lack of any access arrangements during a visit that I made to this show.Ìý I’d been to other British Museum special shows in the past and they’d always had audio guides, braille guides or there were some objects that were available for handling.Ìý And when I went to the show there was nothing.Ìý The only access that I had to things was via the labels that my companions were willing to read me and I felt there was a complete absence of imagination or thought for visually impaired people.

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White

And when you approached the museum about this what were you told, what was the reaction?

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Lambert

Well, first of all, I contacted them two weeks before I went asking what was available and I didn’t hear from William Westwood, the manager for Equality, Diversity and Access until six weeks later but offered all sorts of illogical excuses about why this hadn’t been possible.Ìý Covid, of course, was mentioned, even though covid restrictions had ended.Ìý It was said that in order to handle things there had to be these special hands-on desks, which I’d never heard of before, but the museum believes are essential for blind people to touch things.Ìý I was told that the arranging of these desks would take over a year to do.Ìý I was told that the items were on loan.Ìý Eventually, I was told that the British Museum had decided not to continue offering audio and braille guides because of the expense and that none of the registered items in the collection were available for handling by the public and that was a blanket ban.

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White

But, Mike, covid was a reality, it did cause a good deal of confusion and perturbation.Ìý There have been both an audio described session and there was a Zoom exhibition, as well, aimed at visually impaired people, that’s not exactly ignoring your needs, is it?

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Lambert

Well, let’s talk about the Zoom sessions.Ìý When I was informed about these first of all I was given incorrect dates, they weren’t advertised when I booked my tickets first of all, they seemed like an afterthought.Ìý And, as a result, only five people showed up on the evening.Ìý I went back to the museum for that audio described event and apart from myself, the other four had all heard about through VocalEyes, who were the organisation providing the audio description.Ìý So, there’s a complete failure of advertising, forethought.

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White

Nonetheless, as someone who deeply values old objects, you would understand their sense of responsibility for ensuring that these objects aren’t damaged in any way.

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Lambert

Yes, I do and I understand there’s many precious items that need protection and are not suitable for handling.Ìý But I wasn’t asking to touch the Dead Sea Scrolls, I was asking to touch items that are made of stone, which would suffer not at all from being handled.Ìý There were some items that were, what they call, ring and cut markings that were on boulders that had been outside, exposed to the elements for thousands of years before they were brought into museums and we weren’t allowed to touch these.Ìý So, I just think they’re completely wrapped up in their rules and regulations.

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White

You have actually been to Stonehenge, what happened when you went there?

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Lambert

The site now is restricted. most people can only go on a viewing platform around but I was allowed in with my companions and quite rightly to, to get an experience because otherwise it’s totally inaccessible.

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White

So, in a nutshell, what do you want to know from the museum and what do you want them to do about it?

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Lambert

Well, I’d like to have a good think about what they’re doing from the top.Ìý I’d like them to think about what they’ve said about saving money by not doing braille and audio guides.Ìý And I’d like them to take a sensible approach to handling the things.Ìý You know, it’s not on that people whose only access would be through touch, shouldn’t be allowed to handle things.Ìý I think they’re just – they’ve completely got the cart before the horse.

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White

Well, that was Mike Lambert.

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Well, listening to that is Will Westwood, he is the Equality and Diversity Manager for the department which ran that exhibition.

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Will, you can hear how disappointed Mike is, what do you say to him and the points that he’s made?

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Westwood

Listening to that I can hear his disappointment and we, as an institution, agree with a lot of what Mike says about wanting to do better and we’ve found a lot of his feedback very beneficial.Ìý There are some things which I feel like maybe there was a bit of misunderstanding at some point about explanations…

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White

I’ll give you – just before you deal with that – if you agree with a lot of what he says why haven’t those things been done?

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Westwood

Well they are, they’re being in the process of being done, I think, that his feedback around the promotion of the events we’ve really taken that on board and really thank him for pointing that out and we’re looking at the future about how we can integrate those events more into our sort of more general advertising campaigns and how we can spread the word out a lot better.Ìý So, we are taking…

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White

Because that’s the sense that he gets, I think, that this is being kind of shoved to one side, it’s not really being taken seriously.

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Westwood

I can really hear that and I’m sure you understand there’s lots of stakeholders that might make changes a little bit slower than people would like but I absolutely agree with the sentiment that we need to keep striving to do that.

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White

Can I ask you specifically about the issue of touch which is at the heart of this?Ìý And Mike makes the point that a lot of these things they’re very durable materials, they’ve been out in the air for millions of years.Ìý I can’t quite understand why these rules are so rigid about touch.

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Westwood

For the audio described tour that Mr Lambert attended, there was an opportunity to touch objects that – they weren’t on display in the exhibition but were related and from the department.

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White

But why couldn’t they touch the ones that were actually in the exhibition, the real thing?

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Westwood

So, three major points I would say.Ìý The first is that many of the objects in the exhibition, particularly some of the showstopping objects, were on loan and we unfortunately don’t dictate the terms of those loans.Ìý The specifics on how those loans are decided would be individual to each contract signed so I’m not aware of the sort of discussion that happens for the loan of each object…

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White

But it would seem – it would seem illogical that Mike could touch them at Stonehenge but not when they’re on loan.

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Westwood

Yes and again that would depend on the institution that was providing the loan.Ìý There are object handling collections, as well, which are quite large.Ìý So, I don’t think it would necessarily be fair to say that within the museum there isn’t a lot of objects to handle, there are, it’s just we have different categorisations for that.Ìý So…

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White

I don’t quite understand – what’s the significance of a registered item as opposed to an unregistered item?

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Westwood

It’s about the collection care and it’s about sort of tracking how these objects are looked after.Ìý So, objects that get agreed that can be handling objects are then sort of stored separately and looked after in a separate way.

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White

I mean Mike said you seem to be very much caught up in rules and reg… not you personally but maybe the institution.Ìý One wonders whether some of these rules and regulation aren’t completely out of date?

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Westwood

That may be a very fair point but it depends on if we’re talking about we want more handling opportunities for people, that is something that we are moving forward with currently.Ìý The volunteers’ team are in the process of reopening the handling desks that exist throughout the gallery and in the up and coming exhibitions that we’re kind of designing each will go back to the standard which was having a handling desk but unfortunately, Stonehenge, we weren’t able to provide for one.

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White

What’s a handling desk?Ìý I mean in order to look at stuff don’t you just need a flat table?

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Westwood

So, the teams would need to decide which objects are going to be used, we’ve got to think about where they’re going to be stored, how they’re going to be looked after, as well as training people on how to deliver those sessions and instruct other people on how to handle the objects.Ìý It’s the storage, it’s the staffing, it’s the capacity along with all those things.

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White

One more thing, because I think we’ve dealt with those, even if Mike is not entirely satisfied with that answer, is it true that the museum decided not to continue offering audio and braille guides and if so, why?

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Westwood

So, it’s a little bit before my time at the museum.Ìý I believe the museum stopped offering the braille and the audio described guides specifically for special exhibitions back in 2017, I believe, was the last one.Ìý

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White

And do you know why they decided that?Ìý Are we talking about money here?

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Westwood

We decided to put the resources we do have into these audio described tours.Ìý Although, having said that, speaking with Mike and speaking with other people has sort of hit home how restrictive that can be and so, I am currently investigating ways in which we might be able, again, instigate an audio guide for the special exhibitions and different ways in which we might be able to manage that.Ìý Another change is that for our new exhibition, which will be coming up, the one that will go after Stonehenge, we’ve integrated a lot more objects that would be available to touch.Ìý We’ve sort of implemented that and that’s being much more built into the exhibition itself.

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White

And as you seemed to have a bit trouble with knowing how to advertise that, can I give the opportunity on In Touch, which a lot of visually impaired people listen to, to tell us what that exhibition is?

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Westwood

I think it’s got a working title at the moment but it’ll all be about how the hieroglyphs were deciphered and showcasing the Rosetta Stone.

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White

Right, well I’m sure Mike and many other visually impaired will be interested in that.Ìý Will Westwood, thank you very much for talking to us.

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Well, Mike Lambert has listened to that interview.Ìý Mike, can I ask for your reactions?

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Lambert

I’m disappointed that, as I understand it, Will opted, before this programme, that he didn’t want to speak to me directly.Ìý I think that’s very disappointing and that we have to do it in this to and fro way.Ìý In terms of what he said about improvements, I’m keen that they improve and I will feel very good about that when I visit their show next.Ìý But it’s all in terms of what will happen and what will improve and the basic thing that I come back to is that these things were better before 2017, as he says, things have got worse.Ìý And I look forward to going to the show about hieroglyphs and I wonder how they’ll deal with access to the Rosetta Stone, we’ll see.

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White

We shall see.Ìý Mike Lambert, thank you very much indeed.

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And the good news is that by no means all of you have had disappointing museum experiences as you’ve been telling us.Ìý Harriet Smith from Northampton emailed:

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Smith (email read)

Every month the Oxford University’s museum hold touch tours for visually impaired people, which I attend quite regularly.Ìý Each tour covers a different topic from storytelling to examining fossils, exploring ancient calculators and looking at how medicines have changed over the years.Ìý They are always so interesting.Ìý And Susan Griffiths, the lady who organises them, puts in a huge amount of effort into each one.Ìý

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White

And blind couple Sue and Geraint have also had happy examples of museum access.

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Sue and Geraint (email read)

A few years ago, while on a group holiday, we went to the Lakeland Motor Museum with 10 visually impaired and blind people in our group.Ìý We were allowed to touch all the vehicles.Ìý We appreciated being able to feel the lovely shapes of the cars, the motorcycles and bicycles.Ìý At the end of our visit my sister was having a good laugh because a man was following us around with a duster, polishing the vehicles after we had touched them.

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White

And Mike Lambert also wanted to direct us to what he felt was an example of how it should be done.Ìý At St Ives, in Cornwall, as a memorial to the internationally renowned sculpture, you’ll find the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden which has gone to great lengths to welcome visually impaired visitors.Ìý Its public programme curator, Georgina Kennedy, set the scene for me.

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Kennedy

So, I’m in the sculpture garden at the Barbara Hepworth Museum, quite private and intimate, it’s very much a space of its own and I’m standing in the far corner next to a work called Conversation with Magic Stones.Ìý So, behind me there’s some bamboo planted, which you might hear creaking and the leaves kind of rustling about in the breezes…

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White

Well, I wasn’t sure what was the bamboo and what was the seagull.

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Kennedy

There’s some seagulls too.

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White

Right, for a visually impaired person coming along to the garden, what are the highlights and what would they be able to do?

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Kennedy

The building itself was formerly Hepworth’s home and her workspace, her studio.Ìý So, when you’re coming into it, it doesn’t feel like you’re walking into a sort of static museum or gallery, it’s very much an historic building that you’re coming into, in terms of smells and sounds, the creaky floorboards, you feel that, you feel the space.Ìý And then you come into the garden, so you’ve got the smells of the garden as well and the planting.Ìý So, there’s lots of sensory kind of exposure that’s not just visual.Ìý

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White

And what about the sculptures themselves, how much access do you get to those?

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Kennedy

So, the sculptures are both inside the building and outside in the garden.Ìý In the garden we have a little bit more of a relaxed touch policy.Ìý Obviously, we do have a responsibility for conservation and we do manage that and within a touch tour situation we can get a little bit more in depth with touch but people can touch most of the sculptures in the garden.Ìý There is different levels and steps, it’s not a fully accessible space, as you would expect from this kind of environment.

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White

Now you’ve also done 3D representations, I think, of the sculptures.Ìý Can you just explain how that works?

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Kennedy

So, I suppose we’re interested in exploring ways we can create experiences which not only allow for an understanding of the artworks but also takes someone on a journey in their own interpretation and learning about the artworks. ÌýAnd so, within our touch tour programme we have made a resource for the work that I’m standing next to now, actually, Conversation with Magic Stones.Ìý And this work it has three tall figure like large columns and then it has three of these, what Hepworth referred to, as magic stones.Ìý And the stones are large, they’re up to my waist in height, there’s the illusion that they’re actually completely different but they’re not.Ìý If you turn them on to the same side you would see that.Ìý So, we work with an artist called Vicky Wiltshire and she was interested to make a resource around these works in particular.Ìý Part of that resource includes these 3D printed versions of them, so they’re handheld versions of these three stones.Ìý What Vicky was really interested in was this idea of haptic perception, which is a kind of touch perception, it literally means the ability to grasp something.Ìý So, if you hold it in your hands you can turn it around and feel its texture, which you can’t do with such a large work.Ìý You can obviously press it, see how hard it is, you can hold it and feel its weight, you can trace its contours to get the sense of the shape.Ìý And I think, importantly, with a small object you can enclose it in your hand, so you can feel the whole thing.Ìý If you’re blind or partially sighted, you can’t necessarily feel the whole form because of the scale of the work, so what these small scale, they’re effectively replicas, they’re 3D prints, exactly the same shape with the same surface decoration is all recreated on them.

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White

And there is also there what was known as Tate St Ives, which is a museum, well it’s an art gallery really isn’t it, do you use these techniques there as well?

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Kennedy

Sure, well we have a broader programme at Tate called Talking Art.Ìý The Talking Art series really allows us to look at works we can’t necessarily touch.Ìý So, particularly works that have been loaned in, that aren’t in our collection.Ìý And we use audio description, as people would expect but we also try to use all sorts of other resources – handling materials and magnifiers and minimisers and images – that you can look up places.Ìý We have side [indistinct words], line drawings.Ìý And those sessions are very much about broadening what you get through an audio description but also coupling that up with a really practical hands-on session, so that you get to experience some of the processes that the artist you’re looking at is using or is related to the themes that we’re talking about in those works that you can’t touch.Ìý All of those things I’ve talked about are specifically for people who are blind or partially sighted, although, actually, we’ve realised that it’s beneficial to anybody, it was specifically made for our touch talk programme for that audience.

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White

Georgina Kennedy.

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And that’s it for today.Ìý Your comments and experiences always welcome.Ìý You can email intouch@bbc.co.uk, leave voice messages on 0161 8361338 and go to the website for more information, that’s bbc.co.uk/intouch.

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From me, Peter White, producer Beth Hemmings and studio managers Colin Sutton and Jonathan Esp, goodbye.

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