How can the museum open up to deaf and hard-of-hearing visitors?
Since 2014, the Van Abbemuseum has been organising all kinds of guided tours for visitors with a hearing impairment. In addition, the museum has been developing other ways of improving accessibility for this group.
Special guided tours
Every first Sunday in the month since 2014, the Van Abbemuseum has been running museum tours led by deaf guides using sign language. It was also in 2014 that the museum developed an iPad-based listening route in sign language for individual deaf visitors. Moreover, since 2015 the museum has been organising theatre tours with a sign language interpreter for families with hearing and deaf members.
For more information about the Van Abbemuseum’s programmes, please visit our website.
Integral part of the organisation
The employees of the Van Abbemuseum have also played their part. Ticket office staff, information desk staff and security guards have been given a basic course so they can use sign language to welcome deaf visitors and show them the way. They attend a refresher course twice a year.
There is also a hearing induction loop in the museum’s auditorium, and we are experimenting with a portable system for guided tours. The Van Abbemuseum is currently looking into how a hearing induction loop can be used in exhibitions so that videos in the galleries are also accessible to visitors who are hard of hearing.
Sponsored by
The Unlimited from Abbe programme is sponsored by participants in the BankGiro Lottery. In April 2014, the programme coordinator Marleen Hartjes used this contribution to start preparations for the Special Guests programme, which was opened to the public in October of the same year.