Audrey Bennett and Nicholas Lamarca: Inclusive Museum Experience Design

Since March of 2022, University Diversity and Social Transformation Professor Audrey Bennett and MFA graduate student Nicholas Lamarca have been conducting creative research as part of a transatlantic research project titled ​“I don’t see what you mean: Broadening participation through co-created inclusive digital museum audio,” funded jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities in the U.S.A. and the Arts and Humanities Research Council in the U.K. through their New Directions for Digital Scholarship in Cultural Institutions program. Professor Bennett leads the N.E.H. project, and a psychology scholar from the University of Westminster leads the U.K. project. 

In June and July, Bennett and Lamarca conducted inclusive and co-created audio descriptions workshops at the Smithsonian Institute’s National Portrait Gallery with blind, partially blind, and sighted participants. On October 20, 2022, they will discuss their findings and how to design a cross-cultural museum experience for all visitors at Surface, an AIGA Design Educators Mini-Conference in Seattle, Washington. SURFACE takes place during Re-Connect, the AIGA’s National Conference, co-occurring October 20 – 22, 2022