Siddhant Shah, founder, ‘Access for All’ spoke on how the current situation of Covid will push public spaces including museums to be more inclusive and accessible. He was speaking at the IGRMS lecture series programme.
At the beginning of the programme introducing the speaker, the director of the museum, Praveen Kumar Mishra said that Siddhant Shah is a Speaker, Inclusive Arts based Therapist, UNESCO consultant on accessibility and specializes in bridging the gap between Cultural Heritage, Arts and with Wellness and Disability.
He consults hotels, palaces, museums, art-events, art galleries and cultural sites to make them more accessible through accessible designs, educational and tactile art experiences for visually impaired & blind audiences, while focusing on children as well as groups with disabilities and providing the infrastructure (braille books, tactile art works objects).
Siddhant Shah from Mumbai gave a lecture on how Covid is actually an opportunity to make the museums accessible and inclusive for all including for persons with disabilities.
The pandemic simultaneously presents an unprecedented challenge and an alarming opportunity to change the course of accessibility as there are times when the museum can’t be kept shut to construct ramps and install other braille signage facilities, now is the time to do so. 5 tips for making museum accessible post Covid were discussed in the lecture. (1) How making things uni-directional will work in making the path way more easier for the blind (2) Maintaining social distancing can be quite comfortable for wheelchair users to move around freely as they need around 900mm of buffer space. (3) Use of technology - and how one can let the museum reach to the masses via social media and website (4) Digital accessibility is of utmost importance as the world is moving towards a touch free medium and ones phone and laptops will be the gateway to the world, hence the importance of making it accessible to all with visual impairment,autism and other disabilities. (5)Connect to man-kind in this time of disparity.