Accessibility of cultural institutions: the experience of Moscow museums

Nikita Bolshakov took part in the business program of the Fifth anniversary Youth Forum "Heritage".

Photo by Zalfa Imani on Unsplash

The Heritage Forum is a business platform for discussing topical issues of preserving cultural heritage from the point of view of various aspects and participants in this process, which is being held in Moscow for the fifth time with the support of the Department of Cultural Heritage. This year, the business program was held on 1st of December 2022 at the Cultural Center of the HSE University. As part of the business program, the speakers discussed issues of restoration in new conditions, youth employment, volunteer actions, creating an inclusive environment and much more. One of the Forum sessions was called "Accessible Heritage" and was devoted to discussing issues of accessibility of cultural heritage sites, cases of working with people with disabilities, as well as prospects for the development of this area. 

According to the organizers, the creation of an inclusive environment of the cultural space of the city for people with disabilities is especially important in the context of the implementation of sustainable urban development goals. The emphasis on inclusive upbringing and education allows you to create interesting exhibition and excursion projects, inclusive programs, theatrical productions. In the framework of the round table, in which, in addition to the senior researcher of the International Laboratory for Social Integration Research Nikita Bolshakov,  the Deputy Director for Development of the State Museum of the History of Russian Literature named after V.I. Dal Ksenia Belkevich, Ambassador of the Foundation for the Development of Inclusion in Sports #MoreThanYouCan Dmitry Cheshev and others, the speakers tried to answer questions about how inclusive programs in the field of culture and cultural heritage are organized, what interesting practices of socialization and creative rehabilitation of people with disabilities through cultural heritage, what is necessary to ensure equal access to cultural heritage. 

Nikita devoted his speech to the topic "Accessibility of cultural institutions: the experience of Moscow museums" and, using the example of the Museum of Cryptography and other institutions, tried to answer the question of what it means for a cultural institution to "be accessible". According to him, it is fundamentally important to remember that although in a narrow sense accessibility is understood as creating conditions for equal access to services provided by a cultural institution, first of all it concerns the creation of architectural, infrastructural and technical solutions, in a broad sense, accessibility is not limited only to the creation of architectural or physical conditions, but also includesthere are also programmatic, communication, informational, relational and other aspects. 

The recording of the round table is available at the link.