This Delhi museum is designed for visitors with visual impairment
people with disabilities is a critical step towards democratising the arts and challenging power relations within museums.
When Akhileshwari*, a person with visual impairment, visited a museum in Bangalore with her visually impaired friends, the authorities told them, «this museum is not accessible for people like you».
Munir*, a wheelchair user in his 20s, had a similar experience: «I went to a museum in Bangalore with my friends. Many parts of it were accessible and I could reach it with (their) help. But parts of the museum were not accessible for me. My friends and I decided I would stay behind while they went ahead… I felt very upset.»
These vignettes capture the common experiences of exclusion of many people with disabilities in museums and art galleries.
Rather than serving the public, museums have earned a reputation for being static repositories of cultural artefacts and custodians of oppressive colonial histories.
The onus to immerse oneself in the museum was placed on the visitor rather than on the museum itself. But this notion has evolved.
Museums are increasingly being perceived as learning spaces with immense scope for social empowerment. Museums across the world are looking to learn from the experiences of historically excluded groups, such as people of colour, indigenous people, gender and sexual minorities, and people with disabilities, who have previously been denied access to museums.
It is hard to make a case for purple inclusion of leisure and recreation — purple being the colour of
