berube-towardsamoreinclusivemuseumdevelopingmultisensory_R

Towards a more inclusive museum:
developing multi-sensory approaches to the visual arts for

visually impaired audiences
by
Patricia Bérubé
A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs in

partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
in
Cultural Mediations
Carleton University
Ottawa, Ontario
©2022
Patricia Bérubé
Abstract
This thesis investigates the contribution of multi-sensoriality to the understanding and

appreciation of two-dimensional artworks, such as drawings or paintings, by people with
visual impairments.
This exploratory study was conducted from a disability studies perspective, in
which the researcher's role was that of a facilitator and the participants were experts of
their own experience. This participatory action project draws on interdisciplinary
research practices in several interrelated fields, including accessibility and disability
studies, blindness studies, anthropology of the senses, tactile perception and haptics, and
translation studies. Previous research focused primarily on initiatives to translate visual
arts into tactile content to make them accessible to people with visual impairments. The
present study contributes to multi-sensory initiatives for the low-vision and blind
community, drawing on research findings of sensory museology and cognitive
psychology to deepen our knowledge about multi-sensory translation.
Data collected from three rounds of individual interviews and one co-design
session with visually impaired participants was examined using a qualitative
methodology. A thematic analysis was developed to inform design decisions and identify
barriers to inclusion in art museums. The study also included the co-creation of multi-
sensory translations of Franklin Carmichael's painting In the Nickel Belt (1928) and
Outport Icon #2 (2001-2002) by Duncan de Kergommeaux. The broader findings of this
study provide evidence to support the notion that touch and hearing can play a valuable
role in conveying the nature of art to visually impaired visitors, giving them greater
autonomy in their interpretation.
This study challenges the long-standing tradition of museums relying on vision as
the only acceptable sense through which visitors can access visual arts. While further
work may be needed to assess the degree of equivalence between experiencing a painting
through sight and accessing it through touch and hearing, this project establishes a
foundation for further research and initiatives pertaining to the implementation of anti-
ocularcentric approaches in museums.
Keywords: Accessibility, Anti-ocularcentrism, Blindness, Co-design, Mediation, Multi-

sensory, Museums, Museology, Painting, Visual arts, Visual impairments, 3D
printing.
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Résumé
Cette thèse examine la contribution de la multi-sensorialité à la compréhension et
l'appréciation des œuvres d'art bidimensionnelles, telles que les dessins ou les peintures,
par les personnes malvoyantes et non-voyantes.
Cette recherche exploratoire a été menée dans une perspective d'études sur le
handicap, au sein de laquelle le rôle du chercheur consistait en un rôle de facilitateur et
celui des participants en tant qu'experts de leur propre expérience. Ce projet d'action
participative s'appuie sur des pratiques de recherche interdisciplinaires dans plusieurs
domaines connexes, notamment les études sur l'accessibilité et le handicap, la cécité,
l'anthropologie des sens, la perception tactile et l'haptique, et les études de traduction. Les
recherches précédentes se sont principalement concentrées sur les initiatives visant à
traduire les arts visuels en contenu tactile afin de les rendre accessibles aux personnes
malvoyantes. La présente étude contribue aux initiatives multisensorielles destinées à la
communauté malvoyante et non-voyante. Elle s'appuie sur les résultats de la recherche en
muséologie sensorielle et en psychologie cognitive comme moyen d’approfondir nos
connaissances sur la traduction multisensorielle
Les données recueillies lors de trois séries d'entretiens individuels et d'une session
de co-conception avec des participants malvoyants ont été examinées à l'aide d'une
méthodologie qualitative. Une analyse thématique a été développée pour éclairer les
décisions de conception et identifier les obstacles à l'inclusion dans les musées d'art.
L'étude comprenait également le co-design de traductions multisensorielles de la peinture
In the Nickel Belt (1928) de Franklin Carmichael et de Outport Icon #2 (2001-2002) de
Duncan de Kergommeaux. Les résultats plus généraux de cette étude fournissent des
preuves pour soutenir l’idée que le toucher et l'ouïe peuvent jouer un rôle précieux dans
la transmission de la nature de l'art aux visiteurs malvoyants, leur donnant une plus
grande autonomie dans leur interprétation.
Plus précisément, cette étude remet en question la tradition de longue date selon
laquelle les musées s'appuient sur la vision comme seul moyen acceptable à travers lequel
les visiteurs peuvent accéder aux arts visuels. Bien que d'autres travaux puissent être
nécessaires pour évaluer l'équivalence entre l'expérience d'une peinture par la vue et
l'accès par le toucher et l'ouïe, ce projet établit une base pour d'autres recherches et
initiatives relatives à la mise en œuvre d'approches non basées sur la vision dans les
musées.
Mots-clés : Accessibilité, Cécité, Co-conception, Co-design, Médiation, Multi-sensoriel,
Musées, Muséologie, Peinture, Arts visuels, Handicap visuel, Impression 3D.
iii
Dedication
To the participants involved in this study,
Whether wearing the hats of co-designers or co-translators,
Your insight and expertise have not only made this project possible,
But also changed my perspective and helped me become a better ally.
iv
Acknowledgments
As I have now completed the final stage of my graduate studies, I can't help but think that
claiming a Ph.D. title seems somewhat egotistical given how this dissertation, like so
many others, is first and foremost the culmination of an extensive number of wonderful
collaborations and partnerships.
I would first like to express all my gratitude to my co-supervisors, Jesse Stewart
and Lois Frankel, for their unfailing support and encouragement which began long before
I even joined the program. To Jesse, thank you for helping me stay focused, for
mentorship on tenure track positions and for granting me the necessary freedom to
develop my critical thinking skills. To Lois, thank you for challenging me and guiding
me on some of the aspects I was most afraid of in a thesis, as well as for reminding me of
the importance to keep an open mind when working on an experiential research project
such as this one.
Special thanks are also in order for my two committee members, Federica Goffi
and Michael Windower, whose involvement and proactivity led to many rich exchanges,
from the proposal to the defense. Thanks also to my external examiner, David Howes and
my internal examiner, Boris Vukovic, for their kind willingness to participate in my
dissertation defense.
I would also like to acknowledge and thank the Social Sciences and Humanities
Research Council, the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, the NSERC CREATE READi
training program, the Institute for Comparative Studies in Literature, Art and Culture as
well as the READ initiative for their generous financial support. Thank you for
recognizing the value of this project early on, and for providing the necessary support to
bring it to fruition.
I wish to thank everyone in the Institute for Comparative Studies in Literature, Art
and Culture as I could not have hoped for a better home for my project, and most
importantly, for me as a young scholar. Special thanks to Ming Tiampo, Sarah Casteel,
Pascal Gin, Paul Théberge and Dawn Schmidt for your invaluable help along the way,
and for contributing to making ICSLAC feel like family.
To all of the people who contributed to make my time as a READi trainee
memorable, I wish to express my gratitude. My special thoughts go to Adrian Chan, Lois
Frankel, Jesse Stewart, David Berman, Gabrielle Trépanier, Alexis Boyle, Nicola Oddy,
Adrian Schneider, Emily Harmsen, Carla Ayukawa, Aryan Golshan, Cathy Malcom
Edwards and Sophie Nakashima.
This project would have been impossible without the collaboration of my six
amazing participants, as well as the technical expertise of Robert Gagnon and Henry
v
Lowengard who respectively produced the tactile and audio components. I would also
like to acknowledge the support of the Ottawa Art Gallery, and more specifically the
Deputy Director, Chief Curator, Catherine Sinclair for allowing me to work with
Carmichael and de Kergommeaux’s paintings. For their help and enthusiasm in the
project, I wish to thank Alexis Boyle, Rebecca Basciano, Meghan Ho and Jennifer
Gilliland.
To the best cohort ever, thanks to Anna Howlett, Aaron Shenkman, Jessica
Marino, Gemey Kelly, Krista Ulujuk Zawadski and Kevin Pat Fong. I am grateful for the
conviviality and community spirit that has always been present, whether during our
online meetings to catch up or in earlier meetings at Mikes’ pub where we had so many
animated arguments over theories discussed in class.
Thanks to inspiring profs for rich discussions and helpful advice: Emmanuel
Château-Dutier, Adrian Chan, Mitchell Frank, Monica Patterson, Tom Everett, Steve Fai,
Victoria Fast, Jada Watson, Louis Pelletier, and Santiago Hidalgo.
For support and friendship throughout this journey, for discussions about the PhD
life and its challenges, thanks to Pansee Atta, Fara Abn, Marie-Catherine Allard, Chi-Chi
Ayalogu, Cara Tierney, Helen Roumeliotis, Kelsey Perreault, Charlotte Dronier, Maxime
Deslongchamps, Virginie Abat-Roy, Daphnée Yiannaki and Prescilla Merabet.
Most importantly, to my partner Nicolas, thank you for being so patient with me
and for putting up with my incessant academic ramblings. I would like to thank you for
encouraging me to pursue bachelor, master, and doctoral degrees, and for your continued
love and support prior to and after I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
To my family, who, even though they had no idea what pursuing a PhD entailed,
supported me every step of the way by lending a sympathetic ear and cheering me on
with every small victory.
Maman, merci de m’avoir appris la persévérance, d’avoir toujours cru en moi
ainsi que pour ton positivisme contagieux qui a toujours réussi à illuminer mes journées
plus sombres.
Papa, je ne reconnais que maintenant la valeur des sacrifices que tu as dû faire
pour nous offrir une éducation digne de ce nom à Maxime et à moi, et je ne peux que t’en
être extrêmement reconnaissante.
À Serge, en toi j’ai découvert un fan fini, mon plus grand cheerleader. Sache que
dans mes moments de doute, ton soutien et tes encouragements m’ont aidé à reprendre le
travail avec une énergie renouvelée.
Pascale et Jean-François, merci pour votre amour, votre confiance ainsi que pour
toutes ces discussions philosophiques qui ont sans l’ombre d’un doute contribué à mon
épanouissement intellectuel.
Lastly, to my loyal furry companions, Baloo and Otis, thank you for keeping me
grounded every time I was stuck in a rut.
vi
Table of Contents
ABSTRACT II
RÉSUMÉ III
DEDICATION IV
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS V
LIST OF TABLES X
LIST OF FIGURES XI
LIST OF APPENDICES II
CHAPTER 1 1
INTRODUCTION 1
INTRODUCTION 1
BACKGROUND INFORMATION 3
The challenges of access to the visual arts for visually impaired museum visitors 3
PREVIOUS RESEARCH 6
SITUATING THE STUDY 9
Towards a more inclusive museum: The historical path to accessibility 9
Accessibility policies, economic incentives, and legislation 15
THESIS STATEMENT AND HYPOTHESES 22
RESEARCH FOCUS 24
Aim and scope of the study 25
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY 26
Value 26
Originality 27
OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 28
CHAPTER 2 31
LITERATURE REVIEW PART ONE 31

UNDERSTANDING CURRENT THEORIES, DISCOURSES, AND DEBATES 31
Accessibility and inclusion 31
Blindness and the visual arts 36
Ocularcentrism 38
Museum studies and the senses 45
Cognitive psychology 52
Sensory studies and anthropology of the senses 54
Tactile perception and haptics 57
Translation studies 59
CONCLUSION 65
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CHAPTER 3 67
LITERATURE REVIEW PART TWO 67

UNDERSTANDING CURRENT PRACTICES, APPLICATIONS, AND TECHNOLOGIES 67
The museum setting: how are works presented? 68
Assistive technologies in cultural settings 70
Touch, representation, and blindness 75
Sensory design 79
The psychology of colours and phenomenology 83
Similar projects and innovative uses of 3D printing in art museums 87
Sound and sonification in art 93
Curatorial activism 98
CHAPTER 4 101
METHODS 101
A PHENOMENOLOGICAL APPROACH TO QUALITATIVE RESEARCH 101
Research context 102
Research design 103
Researcher positionality 105
DATA COLLECTION AND CO-CREATION OF THE MULTI-SENSORY PROTOTYPES 105
Participant recruitment 106
Selecting the paintings 108
The Methods: Semi-structured interviews and co-design session 112
Coding in NVivo and data analysis 117
Tactile prototypes 118
Augmented digital representations of the prototypes 124
CONCLUSION 127
CHAPTER 5 128
RESULTS 128
QUALITATIVE FINDINGS 128
Semi-structured interviews and co-design session 128
Coding in NVivo and data analysis 137
MULTI-SENSORY PROTOTYPES 177
Textures, materials, and scale 177
Audio components: verbal descriptions, music, instructions, and sounds 183
CONCLUSION 188
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CHAPTER 6 191
DISCUSSION 191
SUMMARY OF DATA FINDINGS 191
First individual interviews: Accessible doesn’t mean inclusive 192
Second individual interviews: Importance of getting a comparable feel 192
Co-design session: Audio must be paired with tactile cues 193
Third individual interviews: Multimodality, equality and inclusiveness 194
FROM TRANSLATING TO INTERPRETING: GENERATING NEW KNOWLEDGE 195
The importance of translating 195
The process of interpreting 201
MAKING SENSE OF ABSTRACTION: PAVING THE WAY FOR NEW POSSIBILITIES FOR COLOUR PERCEPTION 203
AUDIO COMPONENTS: PRIORITIZING RECOGNIZABLE SOUNDS OVER SONIFICATION 204
MEASURING SUCCESS: WHAT MAKES A ‘GOOD’ TRANSLATION OF A PAINTING? 207
LIMITATIONS 208
The challenges of co-designing in the absence of a consensus 209
CONCLUSION 210
Summary of findings 210
CHAPTER 7 212
CONCLUSION 212
THE NEED FOR NEW STANDARDS / A NEW LANGUAGE 212
Contribution 213
Future challenges: viability of multi-sensory tools in the post-COVID-19 world 214
Further research opportunities 214
APPENDICES 216
APPENDIX A 216
Master’s thesis project in images 216
APPENDIX B 225
Ethics certificate 225
APPENDIX C 227
Certification of institutional ethics clearance 227
APPENDIX D 229
Interview questions (guide) 229
APPENDIX E 235
Verbal descriptions of paintings 235
REFERENCES 237
ix
List of Tables
Table 1 Visual Model of Research Design………………………………………. p. 104
Table 2 Demographic data of participants………………………………….......... p. 107
x
List of Figures
Figure 1 Franklin Carmichael, In the Nickel Belt, 1928, Oil on canvas, p. 109
122.2 x 102.2 x 2.5 cm, Firestone Collection of Canadian Art, The
Ottawa Art Gallery, Ottawa. Copyrights: public domain.
Figure 2 Franz Johnston, Algoma Landscape, 1923, Tempera on cardboard, p. 109
73.4 x 98.3 cm, Firestone Collection of Canadian Art, The Ottawa
Art Gallery, Ottawa. Copyrights: public domain.
Figure 3 Albert H. Robinson, Study of Mrs. W. L. Davis, Oil on wood, 33 x p. 110
28.6 cm, Firestone Collection of Canadian Art, The Ottawa Art
Gallery, Ottawa. Copyrights: public domain.
Figure 4 Duncan De Kergommeaux, Outport Icon #2, 2001-2002, Oil on p. 111
canvas, 106.7 x 106.7 x 3.2 cm, Collection of The Ottawa Art
Gallery, Ottawa. Copyrights: Duncan De Kergommeaux (rights
granted to the Ottawa Art Gallery by the artist for educational
image use).
Figure 5 Takao Tanabe, Cut Corner, Landscape II, 1968, Silkscreen on p. 111
paper, 45.4 x 45.4 cm, Collection of The Ottawa Art Gallery,
Ottawa. Copyrights: Takao Tanabe (rights granted to the Ottawa
Art Gallery by the artist for educational image use).
Figure 6 Visual guidelines and instructions for 3D printing made with p. 119
Microsoft Paint. Source: Original works from Franklin
Carmichael (public domain) and Duncan De Kergommeaux
(rights granted to the Ottawa Art Gallery by the artist for
educational image use).
Figure 7 Initial tests for 3D printed molds with demolded silicone texture p. 120
samples. Source: Robert Gagnon, owner of Lezar3D.
Figure 8 Wooden outlines of the two paintings before and after assembling. p. 121
Source: Robert Gagnon, owner of Lezar3D.
Figure 9 Adjusting the 3D molds within the wooden frames. Source: p. 121
Robert Gagnon, owner of Lezar3D.
Figure 10 Colour testing to find the closest tints for each texture. p. 122
Source: Robert Gagnon, owner of Lezar3D
Figure 11 Unmolding the water texture for the second prototype. p. 122
Source: Robert Gagnon, owner of Lezar3D.
Figure 12 Assembling the tactile prototypes and mounting of demolded p. 123
silicone textures. Source: Robert Gagnon, owner of Lezar3D.
xi
Figure 13 Visual diagram to help visualize the proposed methodology. The p. 125
image on the left represents the participant exploring a prototype
with his fingers, while the image on the right represents the
researcher holding the iPad with the digital replica of the tactile
prototype. Source: Patricia Bérubé.
Figure 14 NVivo data visualization based on the first individual interviews p. 139
summarizing the impact of visual impairment on the participants’
lives
summarizing opinions and criticisms of museums’ accessibility
levels
summarizing positive experiences that participants had when
visiting museums
Figure 17 NVivo data visualization based on the first individual interview p. 145
summarizing the discussions on tactile representation
Figure 18 NVivo data visualization based on the second individual p. 146
interviews summarizing the different approached to tactile
exploration
interviews summarizing the discussions on the audio component
interviews summarizing the tactile exploration of the first
prototype by participants, with little audio guidance
interviews summarizing the tactile exploration of the second
prototype, with little audio guidance
interviews summarizing the discussions on the tactile texture
Figure 23 NVivo data visualization based on the co-design session p. 158
summarizing the discussions on the topic of access to paintings
Figure 24 NVivo data visualization based on the co-design session p. 163
summarizing the discussions under the theme of the audio
component
Figure 25 NVivo data visualization based on the third individual interview p. 166
illustrating discussions on the audio guide
illustrating discussions on the sounds used for Carmichael
illustrating discussions on the sounds used for de Kergommeaux
illustrating discussions on the multi-sensory experience
Figure 29 Texture samples. Source: Patricia Bérubé. p. 178
xii
Figure 30 Assembled prototype translating Carmichael’s painting. p. 179
Figure 31 Assembled prototype translating de Kergommeaux’s painting p. 180

Figure 32 Image used as an indication for sound placement in Carmichael’s p. 186
work.
Figure 33 Image used as an indication for sound placement in de p. 187
Kergommeaux’s work
Figure 34 Findings from this study in relation to previous work p. 189
Source: Patricia Bérubé
Figure 35 Thematic analysis, overview of the four rounds of interview made p. 190
in Visme. Source: Patricia Bérubé.
Figure 36 Research design: Overview of co-design process p. 201
Figure 37 Different levels of interpretation at play in this doctoral project p. 202
xiii
List of Appendices
Appendix A. Master’s thesis project in images …………………………………... p. 219
Appendix B. Ethics certificate …………………………………………………… p. 228
Appendix C. Certification of institutional ethics clearance ……………………… p. 230
Appendix D. Interview questions (guide)………….……………………………… p. 232
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CHAPTER 1
Introduction
L’aveugle n’est pas un public particulier à traiter […]. Le développement de

stages, conférences, et même de logiciel qui cherchent à « apprendre à voir » ne
manifeste-t-il pas que nous avons tous à apprendre à voir et que le cheminement
de l’aveugle est au coeur de la démarche qui nous entraîne au musée ?
(Caillet 1995, 93–95)
Blind individuals are not a particular public to be considered […]. Doesn't the
development of courses, conferences, and even software that seek to ‘learn to
see’ show that we all must learn to see and isn’t the blind’s experience at the
heart of the process that leads us all to the museum?
[Caillet 1995, my translation]
Introduction
In 1986, Martin Jay, a renowned intellectual historian, coined the term
‘ocularcentrism’ to describe how modern and postmodern societies prioritized the visual
sense in exploring, categorizing, and comprehending external stimuli (Lauwrens 2012b,
28). In other words, vision-based observations and representations became central to a
governing logic that underpinned scientific inquiry and power dynamics. As such, not
being able to rely on sight to navigate the surrounding world inevitably translates into
barriers to accessibility and, therefore, to a certain form of social inequality. Art galleries
are a good example of the institutionalization of ocularcentrism, which bears the
following question: can ocularcentrism explain why blind and visually impaired
individuals are less likely to be accounted for when designing visual art exhibitions
1
THE INTRODUCTION
compared to sighted people? What is lost when art museums assume vision to be the sole
(or even primary) manner through which patrons access works of art?
This study is anchored in an experiential co-design approach with a qualitative
research perspective, which privileges individuals’ lived experiences with vision loss. As
such, this research recognizes that participants are ‘expert[s] of [their] experience,’ and
that they should play a large role in creating relatable solutions that respond to their needs
(E. B.-N. Sanders and Stappers 2008, 12). We know surprisingly little about the complex
relation between translating visual stimuli into multi-sensory information, and the
appreciation of an artwork by individuals with visual impairments. This study proposes
new ways to access two-dimensional artworks and encourages art museums to rethink the
ways they present and interpret collections. More specifically, with paintings being a
primary artform, and through their translation in collaboration with people with visual
impairments, the project seeks to challenge this social inequity while increasing access to
culture for this community. Consequently, the purpose of this study will be to translate
both the meaning of each work of art and provide an aesthetic experience informed by the
original.
This introductory chapter contextualizes my work by summarizing the research
conducted during my Master’s degree in art history and by providing historical
background regarding museums and accessibility. It also discusses legislative changes
that have led to a more accessible museum. For instance, France’s 2005 disability law
had an important impact on museums’ accessibility policies. In Canada, the 2005
Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) and the more recent Accessible
Canada Act (2019) had a similar effect. The introduction also presents the thesis
2
TOWARDS A MORE INCLUSIVE MUSEUM
statement and hypotheses, the aim, questions and scope of the study, its value and
originality, as well as its limitations, and an overview of the following chapters.
Background information
The challenges of access to the visual arts for visually impaired museum
visitors
For financial and practical reasons, art galleries and museums have traditionally
catered to sighted audiences. As a result, museum visits are sight dominant, followed by
hearing, touch, smell, and taste. In other words, museum exhibits favour the distal senses
which include vision and audition over the proximal senses of touch, taste and smell
(Howes 2014a; Cluett 2014; N. Levent and Mihalache 2016; Sorgini et al. 2018; Kleege
2018).
This ocularcentric approach extends not only to the experience of visual artworks
themselves, but also to the architectural/spatial design of most art galleries and museums,
as well as the discourses surrounding the experience of art (including signage within the
gallery, artist labels, etc.). Historically, museums have had a somewhat utopian
conception of the museum ‘public,’ imagining and engaging different groups through the
same services (McClellan 2003). Following the marketing turn (Tobelem 1992),
museums started changing their approach and categorizing their audiences into distinct
groups: the general public, experts and researchers, the school public, the senior public,
and the disabled public (Bennett 1995a, 163–73; Abt 2006; Candlin 2006; Levine 1990).
Such categorizations may be in line with a broader social trend, one recognizing that the
“public for art is diverse and divided by interests and levels of knowledge, confidence
and class, not to mention race, ethnicity, and gender” (McClellan 2003, 2). For museums,
3
THE INTRODUCTION
this mindset change led to tangible developments in how they interpret art, as well as on
their mediation practices and an increased awareness of democratic access (Shelton
2015).
The notion of ‘mediation’ originates from French museum practice in which it is
understood as a broader concept of ‘médiation culturelle’ or cultural mediation (Caillet
1995, 1–24; Lafortune 2013; Kunz-Ott 2008). Mediation is an approach that includes a
set of methods to allow the “traditional viewer to be transformed into a certain form of
involved audience” through an interpretative process offered by the museum’s staff
during guided tours (Kochukhova 2019, 258). Nonetheless, sorting visitors by categories
has led historically to social inequity, as people who did not fit into one of these specific
groups were effectively considered a ‘non-public’ by cultural institutions. Based on the
categorization of their audiences, museums adjust their services to target the largest
number of visitors, thus prioritizing the general public. According to Exeko, an
organization that enables social innovation, individuals with diverse bodies and minds
have long been excluded from galleries and museums due to physical or mental
disabilities (Exeko 2015, 48–51). In other words, institutional mediation offers prove to
be less valuable for visitors with disabilities, who remain a minority among the museums’
audiences. Visually impaired or blind visitors provide a case-in-point: most of the visual
information in artworks have long been hidden to them.
Corinne Welger-Barboza, a specialist in new information technologies and
communication in art museums, notes that in the past three decades, these cultural
institutions have started developing new marketing strategies to reach broader audiences
(Welger-Barboza 2001, 284–90). Conversely, Jean-Marie Tobelem, a management
4
consultant in the cultural sector, refers to a 1987 study by Allen and Schewe, which
found that museum professionals consider their ‘product’ to be intended for a general
audience rather than addressing individual consumers (Tobelem 1992, 61). Thus,
mediation is adapted to an idealized homogenous group. As a result, access for
underserved audiences is often symbolic. For Fiona Candlin, Professor of Museology in
the Department of History of Art at Birkbeck College University of London, visually
impaired and blind people are marginalized because the ocularcentric approach of most
museums prevents them from engaging with artworks (Candlin 2006, 138). However, a
few innovative institutions have now embraced non-traditional mediation approaches
such as the Smithsonian, Ingenium, and Sweden’s National Museum of Science and
Technology.
Following the increasing emphasis on accessibility in Canadian public institutions
(Government of Canada 2018), many museums have expanded their programming to
become more inclusive of diverse abilities and disabilities. Thus, a growing number of
museums and art galleries in Canada, and internationally, are trying to develop
specialized guided tours as well as various digital devices ranging from audio guides to
3D printed models (Candlin 2006, 138). These new approaches identify—and propose
solutions to—accessibility barriers that limit access to marginalized audiences. Such
barriers include cultural, financial, emotional, educational, physical, and intellectual
factors (Müller 2017, 259; Candlin 2006, 138; Allan 2005, 31; Berghs et al. 2019, 3–20).
By gradually including visually impaired audiences among their clientele, museums must
find ways to give them access to the visual arts. Among the pioneering institutions, the
Louvre opened its Touch Gallery in 1995 (Benhaiem 2015), which features reproductions
5
THE INTRODUCTION
of ancient and fragile sculptures. This desire to democratize access to culture reflects a
profound societal shift, which is also reflected in the surge of publications highlighting
this specific issue, such as The Senses: Design beyond Vision, which accompanied a
major exhibition at the Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum (2018).
Despite an increasing number of innovative mediation practices aimed at
previously underrepresented audiences in art museums, access to colour remains elusive
to the blind and visually impaired. The notion and meaning of colours are highly
subjective (Goethe 1840, 163–77), which makes them difficult to translate across senses
since they involve perceptual rather than symbolic recognition (Djonov and Van
Leeuwen 2011, 548; Hamilton-Fletcher and Ward 2013, 517). Considering the
importance of colours in understanding an artwork’s aesthetic dimensions and narrative,
it is essential to make sure that both the narrative and colours are accessible to all.
Besides, the subjective nature of colours also poses an interesting challenge because they
can be perceived differently by people, as evidenced by the use of different terms to name
or describe specific colours (Katz 1999, 167–69; Stekeler-Weithofer 2017). Furthermore,
a person who has been blind since birth will not have the same reference points as
someone who lost their sight later in life.
Previous research
This doctoral project builds on the research that constituted my Master’s thesis
titled “Vers une muséographie numérique : l’impression 3D en tant que dispositif de
traduction tactile auprès de publics malvoyants et aveugles” [Towards a digital
museography: 3D printing as a tactile translation device for visually impaired and blind
audiences].
6
The MA project stemmed from the idea that painting is an art form that engages
visitors in a distant relationship,1 forcing them to rely on their sight to appreciate its
content, including its colours. After conducting a review of the existing literature, the
initial conclusions were that, to date, no tactile solutions had been proposed in response
to the problem of access to colour in painted works.2
Since some people do not have visual access to paintings, or to other types of
artworks due to vision loss, my MA thesis asked if it would be possible to translate a
painting’s colours tactilely. The objective was to test two research hypotheses:
1. Exploring two prototypes through touch could help visually impaired

visitors generate a mental reconstruction of the work;
2. Having access to tactile tablets as mediation tools for a painted work could
make it possible for the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts to reach broader
audiences, including people with visual impairments and children who
have a natural tendency to want to touch things.
To test my hypotheses, I built two initial prototypes that translated Alfred Pellan's Prisme
d'Yeux painting into two 3D-printed tactile tablets. Each of the painting’s colours were
represented by different textures,3 and accompanied by a braille legend. Considering the
fact that this Master’s project was a first exploration of this research topic, I chose a
painting with a limited colour palette (four colours). Additionally, I decided to adopt a
qualitative methodology that included individual semi-structured interviews and small
focus-group interviews in the form of a workshop. The focus groups were composed of
1
See Appendix A - Master’s thesis project in images.
2
This literature review was done in 2016-2017.
3
These textures were produced with 3d printed molds, which were then cast in silicone, before being
demolded and assembled.
7
THE INTRODUCTION
people with a visual impairment, whether reduced vision or complete blindness. By
taking this participatory (co-design) and inclusive approach, participants could be
considered as both subjects and agents since they contributed to the study as well as to
the creation of the prototypes.
The first individual interviews took place in early June 2017 and laid the
foundations for some of the key elements of the project. I met the thirteen participants
individually; each participant was invited to describe the impact of their disability on
their social life. They were also invited to explore ten textures, produced with 3D printing
and silicone, and to rate their appreciation for each one. Then, they were asked to
associate four textures with the colours found in Pellan's painted work. When asked to
perform this task, most participants referred to the emotional charge of colours as
established in our North American culture. Therefore, white was often associated with an
almost flat texture, while participants explained how red evoked passion and would need
to be associated with a texture with greater relief. Following these observations, it
seemed that the emotional charge of colours could be used as a reference to construct a
tactile palette of colours. This seemed like a promising lead; however, it was important to
keep in mind that colours have different meanings depending on cultural background.4
Six months later, the same participants were invited to small group meetings,
which were scheduled so that enough time had passed for them to have forgotten the
details of the textures that had been tested in the first phase of data collection. A total of
nine participants took part in the semi-structured focus groups testing the first two
prototypes – two people with visual impairments and seven individuals who were legally
4
For more information on colour psychology, see Adams and Osgood (1973), Gage (1999), Gao et al.
(2007), and Yu (2014).
8
blind. Participants provided feedback on the textures and layout choices that led to
improvements that were applied to the next prototype.
The findings of the master’s thesis were positive for the first objective, as several
participants were able to provide an accurate description of the painting while exploring
the prototypes with their hands. Following my move to Ottawa, gallery staff at the
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts have informed me that the tactile tablets have been well
received by blind visitors and by children, but I have been unable to observe this
firsthand.
Situating the study
Towards a more inclusive museum: The historical path to accessibility
Based on the assumption that it is crucial to understand the social circumstances that
contribute to the exclusion of certain visitors, one must first examine the history behind
patterns of audience inclusion in arts institutions. To examine this past, it is useful to look
at the emergence of fine arts institutions in relation to the hierarchization of social classes
in the late 19th century America. This historical overview includes the changing role of
touch in museums, the sensory hierarchy of the five senses, and the more recent shift of
attributing a social or moral obligation to museums.
Emergence of cultural hierarchy in America in the late 19th century

By the end of the nineteenth century, opera, symphonic music, and European fine arts
were considered to be components of a ‘high culture’ that was attended to by social elite
groups who used it as a means to confirm their social status (Levine 1990, 86). In the
United-States, institutions such as theatres, music halls, opera houses, art galleries, and
museums were part of a larger process of legitimating Western culture and the upper-
9
THE INTRODUCTION
classes economically and socially (DiMaggio 1991, 135). Consequently, after 1870, the
arts were separated into two distinct categories: those being categorized as high culture
catering to a predominantly white upper class and a popular culture aimed primarily at
lower social classes (DiMaggio 1991, 136). As cultural segregation solidified social
distinctions, cultural institutions started adapting their architecture to cater to the needs of
these different audiences. According to American historian Lawrence W. Levine (1933-
2006), this urge to rationalize space was most visible in the traditional theatre, which was
thought to mirror a small-scale version of the entire society:
Until mid-century, at least, American theaters generally had a tripartite seating

arrangement: the pit (orchestra), the boxes, and the gallery (balcony). […] In
the boxes sat, as one spectator put it, ‘the dandies, and people of the first
respectability and fashion.’ The gallery was inhabited largely by those
(apprentices, servants, poor, workingmen) who could not afford better seats or
by those (Negroes and often prostitutes) who were not allowed to sit elsewhere.
The pit was dominated by what were rather vaguely called the ‘middling
classes’—a ‘mixed multitude’ that some contemporaries praised as the ‘honest
folks’ or ‘the sterling part of the audience.’ (Levine 1990, 24)
According to French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1984), the ability to understand
beauty, or to appreciate ‘high art’ was often associated with the dominant social class. As
such, the distinction between high and low art appears to be rooted in ‘taste cultures,’
where different types of publics preferred a given art form over another (Fisher 2013,
408). In other words, Bourdieu suggests that high culture—including museums and art
galleries—played a part in creating and legitimating social differences (McClellan 2003,
59). Produced for, and on behalf of, a social elite, so-called high culture is paramount to
class distinction (Bishop 2008, 254). Furthermore, the importance of ‘high art’ as a
marker of social status also has to do with the fact that authoritative figures such as art
historians and entities like museums were responsible for determining which artworks
could be classified as ‘high art’ (Singh 2015, 109). A canon is an established list of
10
important works (whether in literature, art, music, etc.) and taste-makers, such as
collectors as well as institutions like universities, establish and police the boundaries of
these canons (Langfeld 2018).
Another consequence of this high-culture system was that it played an important
role in structuring social inequality, in the sense that museums expected that visitors from
all social classes would behave like the upper classes during a museum visit. In order to
access a museum, visitors needed to observe polite conduct of passivity and silence
(Levine 1990). By dictating what the acceptable social etiquette should look like in such
circumstances, constructions of high culture also generated a sensory hierarchy in which
sight was essential to understanding various artforms.
Museums, the inheritance of touch and the hierarchy of the senses

According to Candlin, long before an ocularcentric theory of vision emerged, the sense of
touch was used to validate the information perceived by the eyes (Candlin 2006).
However, our modern Western conception of “visual art” implies that the artistic message
portrayed can primarily be accessed through sight, which assumes an idealized observer
who is sighted. To understand the image’s content or subject, art historian Hans Belting
argues that one must first and foremost ‘know what is communicated in an image in order
to show how it is communicated’ (Belting 1987, 22–23). Since many forms of visual art
are created by translating visually-apprehended objects or ideas into a given
representation (whether it be painting or sculpture), it follows that art production also
relies largely upon the artist’s ability to see. Thus, the post-enlightenment Western
understanding of art not only assumes that the observer must be sighted, but also implies
that the artist relies on visual perception to create art. Together, these two aspects define
11
THE INTRODUCTION
and shape the way we understand art through a modern Western lens, fostering the
perpetuation of conventional modes of spectatorship.
In his chapter titled ‘The Multisensory Perception of Touch,’ Charles Spence,
Professor of experimental psychology at Oxford University, argues that it is the variety of
sensory inputs that contribute to people’s appreciation of artworks (Bacci and Melcher
2011). While any of the senses can dominate depending on the task or action required, it
is the sum of all our sense perceptions that helps generate a more complete appreciation
of art. In this view, sight and touch are complementary to one another. David Howes,
Professor of anthropology and co-director of the Concordia University Centre for
Sensory Studies, even indicates that in the 17th and 18th centuries, museums were
‘hands-on sites in which visitors expected and were permitted to handle artifacts’ (Howes
2014a, 260). Research has shown that touch was historically allowed in museums for four
reasons: to learn more about the object than by simply looking at it, for aesthetic
appreciation, to create a sense of closeness with the original creators, and for healing
purposes with objects that were treated as charms (Howes 2014b). In fact, European
museums of these eras valued tactile experiences, which they recognized as a
complementary approach that contributed to the visual appreciation of artworks (Kastrup
and Sampaio 2012, 96). Nevertheless, the use of such tactile feedback gradually
disappeared within museums from the 19th century onwards, a direct consequence of the
development of industrial capitalism which resulted in an increase in the number of
visitors to these institutions (Classen and Howes 2006).
From the 19th century, the ‘ban of touch’ has been institutionalized within
museums as way to protect the collections from damage, wear and reduce the risk of theft
12
(Pye 2007, 16). The political nature of this measure is deeply rooted in class distinction,
more specifically in the (mis)perception that the upper class has a ‘refined touch,’ while
the working classes are characterized by a dirty or indelicate touch (Classen 2017, 117).
Additionally, the untouchability of the modern museum is believed to instill in the visitor
an attitude of respect toward not only exhibited collections, but also their collectors
(Classen and Howes 2006, 208). In banning tactile access to collections, museums also
strengthen the thought that sighted visitors do not need their sense of touch to appreciate
art (Classen and Howes 2006, 216). It was not until the late 20th century, however, that
museums started to regard this lack of access as a serious concern, especially in light of
new disability policies, as well as the fact that funding was increasingly linked to the
improvement of access (Classen 2017, 126). In ‘Introduction to Sensory Museology,’
Howes states that the most noticeable trend in the new museology is the rehabilitation of
touch. In fact, he argues that twenty-first century museums reintroduced more than the
sense of touch:
The rehabilitation of touch has in turn created a more receptive environment for
the (re)introduction of other senses traditionally classified as ‘base’ – in contrast
to the ‘higher,’ ‘aesthetic,’ ‘distal,’ ‘intellectual’ senses of sight and hearing –
such that smell and taste are now being actively solicited instead of censored.
Until comparatively recently, however, scholars typically thought of the museum
as a site of pure spectatorship, with objects in glass cases and visitors warned to
keep their hands off. (Howes 2014c, 260)
In this context, some museums decided to develop more accessible programming, which
even includes touch tours for visitors with visual impairments. During these tours,
specially trained art historians or volunteers verbally describe artworks, putting visually
impaired visitors in the role of listeners (Bérubé 2018b; McGee and Rosenberg 2014, 30).
More rarely, museums invite visitors to manipulate sculptures or objects, provided they
13
THE INTRODUCTION
wear protective gloves. Generally, the issue of tactile access to collections is believed to
concern only visitors with visual impairments.
Regardless of all the progress in accessibility made in recent decades, works of art
are still widely fetishized as precious objects that need to be protected and preserved by
galleries and museums that continue to normalize a hierarchy of the senses in which
vision dominates.
The museum as a social laboratory

In recent years, the growing emphasis on accessibility in Canadian public institutions
helped to challenge the ban on touch (Dodd 2001). A greater number of museums and
galleries are now beginning to acknowledge the positive impact of touch in facilitating
access to artworks. Acknowledging the important contribution of the senses in the
reception and appreciation of artworks could be considered a first step in rethinking
interpretation and mediation approaches in a museological context. Whereas some
scholars in Museum Studies highlight the museum’s moral responsibility as an agent of
social inclusion (Sandell 1998; 2007) or its formative role in defining and reproducing
social relationships (Coffee 2008), others like Tony Bennett suggest that museums be
thought of as ‘civic laboratories’:
[…]the nineteenth-century art museum [can be characterized] as ‘a laboratory

for the education and refinement of bourgeois sentiment’ in view of its role in
providing both a setting and an occasion for a new set of practices of inwardness
which, in turn, were connected to the fashioning of new forms of civic virtue.
(Bennett 2005, 522)
Thus, this idea of ‘civic laboratory’ implies that museums could be seen as ‘social
laboratories.’ Such a trend seems to be taking shape as the social role of museums is
increasingly recognized, expecting them to become more accessible to disabled visitors,
14
whether by modifying their buildings or through the implementation of more inclusive
design practices (Sandell, Dodd, and Garland-Thomson 2013). As a result, the fulfillment
of these social responsibilities could lead museums to become active stakeholders in the
inclusion of marginalized publics through their leadership role in providing full access.
Accessibility policies, economic incentives, and legislation
In Canada, to be recognized as visually impaired, a person must be unable to read, write,
move about in an unfamiliar environment, or perform activities related to their daily
activity or social role in a permanent manner (AQPEHV 2017). In other words, the
individual must be recognized as ‘legally blind’ to qualify for governmental services
offered to people with visual impairments. According to article 27 of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, “[e]veryone has the right freely to participate in the
cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement
and its benefits” (Claiming Human Rights 2010). Yet, to fully participate in the cultural
life of their communities, individuals with visual impairments need to be able to
physically access cultural institutions. For instance, in Québec, article 69 of the “Act to
secure handicapped persons in the exercise of their rights with a view to achieving social,
school and workplace integration” mandates organizations responsible for public
buildings to promote physical accessibility to people with disabilities (Québec
Government 2004). Such regulations do not spare public institutions such as museums. In
the current context, accessibility is a political issue encouraging museums to be within
the reach of all audiences, whether through the development of an education department,
or through adapted tours and forms of mediation.
15
THE INTRODUCTION
France's 2005 disability law

In France, accessibility to culture (including cinematographic and visual works) was
greatly facilitated by the introduction of cultural mediation5 in the 1990s (Degros 2013).
This approach aimed to make artworks accessible to individuals with disabilities through
audio descriptions or adapted subtitles among other things. A few years later, cultural
mediation was officially recognized by the ‘museum law’ of January 2002, in which
article L. 442-7 stated that each French museum should have a department in charge of
welcoming the public and providing cultural mediation (Degros 2013). While the 2002
law required that museums make their collections accessible to the largest possible
audience, it was quickly followed by France’s 2005 disability law for equal rights and
opportunities, participation, and citizenship of people with disabilities. As per the 2005
law, every existing French establishment open to the public had ten years to meet
accessibility standards to ensure that any disabled person could access them, move
around therein, and receive information available to the public by means of adapted
mediation (République Française 2005).
In 2009, the Champagne-Ardenne Regional Cultural Office commissioned the
production of a guide on accessibility best practices regarding disabled audiences. This
document provides an overview of numerous technical tools that have already been
successfully implemented in many cultural institutions in response to the 2005 law. To
cater to the needs of visitors from the low-vision and blind community, the guide
recommends differentiating between physical accessibility and issues in accessing
artworks. More specifically, it insists on the need to foster a safe environment by
5
In the current study, the cultural mediation approach is paired with participatory action research to ensure
that participants have a voice in the process of designing a multi-sensory solution to translate two paintings.
16
providing lighting contrasts, contrasting floors (non-slip), warning tiles at the top of
stairs, and avoiding abrupt changes in floor level (Coulon 2009). Artworks should also be
accompanied by braille labels, audio descriptions, audio guides, reduced-scale tactile
models, adapted computers (documentation centers), and tele-magnifiers (Coulon 2009).
Regardless of these recommendations and of the obligation to conform to the
disability law by 2015, advocacy groups alleged that some exhibition spaces remained
inaccessible to people with reduced mobility, or failed to provide French sign language
(FSL), or tactile models (Vazzoler 2019). In light of these claims, the Senate launched a
working group on access to culture for people with disabilities and mandated Senators
Nicole Duranton and Brigitte Gonthier-Maurin to evaluate the progress made as well as
the gaps that still existed in French cultural offerings. The Senators noticed that a large
number of cultural institutions prioritized the addition of adapted guided tours over
investing in devices such as tactile tablets, which could be explained by the fact that
cheaper initiatives were preferred (Duranton and Gonthier-Maurin 2017). Such findings
showed that the question of funding remained central to these initiatives. The fact that
each institution complied with the 2005 law differently was not only acknowledged in
their report, but also explained by the ambiguity of the disability law. The law made no
direct mention of the issue of access to culture, and was vague about the level of
accessibility expected, leaving the door open for interpretation by cultural institutions
which led to a range of accessible options in different museums (Duranton and Gonthier-
Maurin 2017).
17
THE INTRODUCTION
The 2005 Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA)

In 2005, Ontario was the first Canadian province to pass a law to improve accessibility
for individuals with disabilities by focusing on specific areas. The Accessibility for
Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) created committees to develop accessibility
standards. These standards are intended to guide concerned persons and organizations in
improving key areas ranging from customer service, transportation, information and
communications, employment, and the built environment (Jacobs 2016, 105). Such
measures, policies, and requirements need to be met before January 1, 2025 (AODA
2005).
In contrast to France’s 2005 disability law, which guarantees physical
accessibility to buildings, article 80.49 of the AODA provides guidelines about training
for staff on how “to interact and communicate with persons with various disabilities”
(Ontario 2016). While this article constituted a first step towards a better understanding
of social responsibility in addressing accessibility issues for individuals with disabilities,
the numerous obligations under the AODA are resulting in gaps in compliance. Under the
2007 requirement, organizations were given until December 31, 2012, to fill out a report
to inform the government about their detailed plan to train staff, receive customer
feedback, and accommodate customers with disabilities (Monsebraaten 2013). Yet, two
years after the first filing due date, seventy percent of private business with twenty
employees or more failed to provide the required report to the Ontario government
(Jacobs 2016, 105). This percentage represents 36,000 business across the province,
which have not been audited or fined (Monsebraaten 2013).
In the 2017 Accessibility compliance and enforcement report, the Accessibility
Directorate of Ontario reported having sent over 37,000 emails, over 20,000 letters, and
18
15,000 phone calls to remind businesses about the compliance reporting deadline
(Ontario 2017). Though the fifth part of the AODA covers the question of compliance by
determining exact amounts for daily penalties, amounts for various administrative
penalties are left to the discretion of corporations’ directors (Ontario 2016). Given the
limited number of annual audits and verifications that are conducted in person,
enforcement remains uneven in practice. Individuals with disabilities have noted that
some business owners might outright lie on their annual report, which would make
people with disabilities responsible for reporting non-compliance to the government
(Rodier 2010, 70). For other persons with disabilities, the AODA’s lack of enforceability
could be justified by the need to find “a balance between pushing for compliance and
making sure organizations did not get too annoyed with the whole process” (Rodier 2010,
70–71).
To assist organizations in complying with the AODA, the Accessibility
Directorate of Ontario launched the EnAbling Change Partnership Program in 2011/12
(TAPA 2011). The objectives of this annual shared-cost transfer payment program are to
provide funding and expertise to not-for-profit organizations, professional associations,
and industry organizations to educate their stakeholders about accessibility (Ministry of
Government and Consumer Services 2020). Later known as the EnAbling Change
Program, this initiative also funds a limited number of projects that either meet additional
goals to increase accessibility awareness or have an impact across the province
(Community Futures Ontario 2013).
In response to the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, the Ontario
Ministry of Tourism, Culture, and Sport revised their Standards for Community
19
THE INTRODUCTION
Museums in Ontario to acknowledge the need for each institution to make services and
resources available to all potential users. The first version of this document was created
in 1981 to provide basic museological guidelines; this newer edition gives detailed
recommendations to improve the following standards: governance, finance, collections,
exhibition, interpretation and education, research, conservation, physical plant,
community and human resources (Ontario Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport 2017).
To ensure that museums are accessible and relevant, the 2017 version of this document
specifies seven requirements under the community standard, two of which seem more
important in complying with AOAD:
• Endeavour to provide equality of access to information about the

museum's collections, services and programs through adequate
promotion.
• Endeavour to provide equal access to all members of the community,
both physically and intellectually, to the museum's collections,
information, services and programs, including through electronic
means e.g., a website or social media. (Ontario Ministry of Tourism,
Culture and Sport 2017)
As with the AODA, there is very little information on potential audits or verifications to
ensure that all community museums are meeting the ten revised standards by a certain
date. The Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport specifies that it will continue to offer
advisory services, resources and materials to help community museums comply with
these guidelines. In lieu of arbitrary audits, the eligibility of Ontarian community
museums for operating grants is contingent on the museums meeting the minimum
standards set out in the “Standards for Community Museums in Ontario” (Ontario
Heritage Act 1993).
20
Bill C-81 – The 2019 Accessible Canada Act

From July 2016 to February 2017, the federal government consulted with Canadians to
gather feedback on how the country could become more accessible. First introduced in
Parliament on June 20, 2018, the Accessible Canada Act received Royal assent in June
the following year and became an official law as of July 11, 2019 (Government of
Canada 2020). Based on the findings of the preliminary national survey, Bill C-81 seeks
to identify and remove accessibility barriers in six key areas (Parliament of Canada
2019):
1. Built environments (buildings and public spaces).

2. Employment (job opportunities, policies and practices).
3. Information and communications technology.
4. Programs and service delivery.
5. Procurement of goods and services.
6. Transportation.
The purpose of this national regulation is to ensure Canada is accessible to all persons,
especially individuals with disabilities by January 1, 2040. The Act applies to Crown
Corporations and organizations operated by the Government of Canada, which includes
the six Canadian museums designated under the federal Museums Act: the National
Gallery of Canada, the Canadian Museum of History, the Canadian Museum of Nature,
the National Museum of Science and Technology, the Canadian Museum for Human
Rights, and the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 (Government of Canada
1990). This legislation also applies to the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum, as well
as the Canada Aviation and Space Museum, and the Canadian War Museum, which are
respectively managed by Ingenium in the case of the first two, and by the Canadian
Museum of History Corporation for the latter (Government of Canada 2017). Indeed,
21
THE INTRODUCTION
Ingenium and the Canadian Museum of History Corporation are both defined and
established as Crown corporations.
The Accessible Canada Act is expected to ensure equal participation of persons
with disabilities in society. For museums, this means that they should anticipate how the
Act will impact the ways in which their physical and digital spaces are experienced by
staff and visitors. As such, national museums are required to prepare and publish
accessibility plans to propose solutions to accessibility barriers with regards to their
policies, programs, practices, and services (Government of Canada 2020). These plans
should be written in consultation with individuals with disabilities, and this duty to
consult members of the community also applies to the publication of progress reports
(Parliament of Canada 2019). To enforce the Act, the Accessibility Commissioner has the
power to employ several tools to ensure that organizations are meeting the standards.
These can range from inspections, production orders, compliance orders, notices of
violation, fines, or compliance agreements (Government of Canada 2020).
Thesis statement and hypotheses
Although my Master’s thesis project proved to be successful in relation to the initial
hypotheses, and generated considerable media attention (newspapers, TV news,
broadcasts), it still had some limitations. The study did not include any participants who
had been born blind and did not include in situ data collection once the prototypes were
exhibited at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. In situ data collection could have yielded
additional insightful research findings, but was beyond the scope of the Master’s project.
Moreover, the thesis itself had to be submitted and defended months prior to the
exhibition. For these reasons, I am further developing the research initiated during my
22
Master’s degree as part of my doctoral studies, which includes two participants who were
born blind. My doctoral research also investigates the potential contribution of multi-
sensoriality in the appreciation and understanding of two-dimensional art works by
individuals with visual impairments, focusing in this case on painting and colour.
The number of vision-impaired and blind individuals in the world is set to triple
by 2050 (Agence France-Presse 2017) due to population growth and the aging of the
population. Therefore, the issue of accessibility for the blind and visually impaired is set
to become even more pressing. The issue of access to art for these audiences comes with
its own set of challenges and questions that will need to be addressed. What is lost when
tactile experiences of original works are not possible? Who else could benefit from a
multimodal experience of art in gallery contexts? One of the objectives of this study will
be to explore how a multi-sensory approach could contribute to the understanding and
appreciation of paintings by individuals with visual impairments.
This experiential research aims to confirm the following thesis statement: co-
creating multi-sensory translations of paintings for and with people with visual
impairments will make paintings more accessible and will generate new knowledge
regarding sense perception as it relates to visual art. As such, this research will aim to
answer the following questions: Could such translations have the potential to open new
possibilities about the perception of colour in abstract works for these specific audiences
within art gallery contexts and in the experience of art more generally? Could
“sonification”—the use of non-speech audio to perceptualize data—be used to create an
augmented version of tactile prototypes, making them even more broadly accessible
(Haverkamp 2012a, 1–5)? How can we measure the success of a multi-sensory approach
23
THE INTRODUCTION
in conveying the content and colours of paintings? One hypothesis is that the use of
sound, including sonification and other forms of auditory feedback, may prove to be
essential to conveying emotions, especially given that ever fewer people have been
learning to read braille in recent years (N. Levent and Pascual-Leone 2014, xiii–xxvi;
Kastrup and Sampaio 2012, 103–9; Vermeij 2009).
Current resources available to visitors with visual impairments tend to focus on
describing—via recorded audio descriptions—the narrative content of paintings rather
than conveying their colour content and composition. Although the narrative approach is
helpful for certain types of paintings (particularly representational paintings with a clear
narrative), it does little to render the experience of non-representational abstract images.
With very little being known about how abstraction is perceived by those who cannot see
and given the ocularcentric focus of conventional art history, many institutions seem to
tacitly assume that abstraction is mainly a visual experience (Howes 2006). How could an
audio description convey the impact of colourful compositions such as a Barnet Newman
painting, or the geometric rhythms of colour in an abstraction by Piet Mondrian? Where
words fall short, augmented tactile and sonic representations may make an important
contribution to the experience of blind and visually impaired visitors.
Research focus
When looking at how art is experienced by visitors from the low-vision and blind
community, most of the research literature focuses on the improvement of recognition of
the objects in a given painting as a way to measure the success of a tool or technology
such as tactile replicas (Cavazos Quero, Iranzo Bartolomé, and Cho 2021). This thesis
will build on the research conducted by Simon Hayhoe, Reader in Education at the
24
University of Bath, and expert in the field of disability and cultural inclusion. In his book
Blind Visitor Experiences at Art Museums (2017), Hayhoe investigates the deep-rooted
myth that blind people cannot understand art. To do so, he interviewed and observed
blind visitors at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. His work not only
challenges the emphasis placed on the recognition of specific elements in a painting, but
also provides new ways of thinking about this issue. One of his findings is that blind
visitors were not necessarily interested in “paintings as visually aesthetic works, but
simply as representative objects fixed in their era” (Hayhoe 2017, 145). Such research
needs to be broadened to better understand how intellectual and emotional meanings
associated with a painted artwork’s narrative as a historical place marker can be
conveyed perceptually.
Aim and scope of the study
In this doctoral thesis, my process involves generating knowledge through exploring
prototypes. As tools to collect data, these prototypes could, in the end, become templates
that accompany recommendations either for museums directly or further research in this
field. Thus, I believe this exploratory study has the potential to make a substantial
contribution to improving the accessibility of museum experiences through multi-sensory
perception. By researching, designing, and exploring new ways for people with visual
impairments to experience paintings, I hope to make culture more broadly accessible.
Most importantly, this research aims to address a noticeable gap in the art gallery
experience for visitors with visual impairments by examining what kinds of sounds and
tactile experiences communicate information and how they can do so, thus leading to
potential recommendations. To narrow the scope of the project, this research focuses
25
THE INTRODUCTION
primarily on the nature of works of art in art galleries or art museums, offering an
opportunity for these institutions to become more accessible. Consequently, this study
will exclude other types of museums, such as science museums or natural history
museums, although some of the research findings may be applicable to other institutional
settings.
Significance of the study
The main contributions of this thesis are twofold: 1) it advances the scholarly discussion
of accessibility within the fields of museum studies, sensory studies, and translation
studies and 2) it has the potential to create tangible solutions that will benefit blind and
low-vision communities. Another secondary aim of this participatory study is to
challenge traditional forms of spectatorship based on passivity that define visitors by their
ability to see and appreciate artworks from a respectful distance (Pollock 1995). In that
sense, beyond offering new theoretical knowledge, this thesis has the potential to result in
transformative outcomes not only for museum visitors with visual impairments, but also
for visitors from other communities, researchers in accessibility, and museum staff.
Value
From a cultural standpoint, there has been a growing emphasis on accessibility in
Canadian public institutions (Dodd 2001, 4–43) as greater numbers of museums and
galleries are continuing to take the experiences of diverse audiences into consideration.
For instance, many museums and galleries are beginning to acknowledge the positive
impact of touch in facilitating access to artworks. During “touch tours” aimed at visitors
with visual impairment, specially trained volunteers provide detailed verbal descriptions
26
of artworks, which helps to not only visualize objects, but also situate them historically
(McGee and Rosenberg 2014, 30–35; Bérubé 2018b, 62–64). Yet, visitors with visual
impairments often have the feeling of missing something, of not grasping the essence of
the work in its entirety and generally feel a greater need for proximity with the works of
art (Bérubé 2018a).
By using sound, in addition to tactile textures, this study could not only lay the
foundations for the development of multi-sensory approaches, but also differentiate itself
from the previous master’s degree project. By fostering a multi-sensory approach, the
objective of this doctoral project is to explore a cultural mediation process with the
participants in a way that generates ideas, options, and concepts for making art more
accessible for these visitors. Finally, this research may be of value to interdisciplinary
scholars by providing a deeper understanding of touch in relation to visual perception,
sound, and multi-modal layering. More specifically, attention will be paid to the role of
touch as a trigger to the other sensory layers and how they shift between each other to
deepen the overall multi-dimensional interpretation experience.
Originality
The originality of this research lies in its unique interdisciplinarity, its exploratory and
experiential nature, as well as its potential for practical applications for art museums,
galleries, future research, and development. Moreover, this thesis coincides with a critical
moment in which many art museums are trying to access broader audiences through the
development of a multi-modal approach to make their collections more accessible to
larger audiences (Sandell 1998; 2007; Baker 2008; Ursi 2020; Vaz, Freitas, and Coelho
2020). These new approaches could allow cultural institutions to move away from more
27
THE INTRODUCTION
traditional trends that saw the art museum experience as primarily nontactile and
nonperceptual for visitors with visual impairments (Hayhoe 2017). Since this dissertation
draws on several rounds of interviews with people from the low-vision and blind
community, it could allow us to learn more about the preferences of visitors with visual
impairments. Insights about the development of multi-sensorial mediation processes for
translating a painting could be beneficial to all visitors including not only individuals
with disabilities, but also children, people who are neurodiverse, as well as older adults.
Overview of the study
This dissertation consists of the following seven chapters: Introduction, Literature
Review Part One, Literature Review Part Two, Methodology, Results, Discussion, and
Conclusions. The second chapter provides an overview of historical and current theories,
discourses and debates surrounding accessibility, blindness and visual arts,
occularcentrism, museum studies and the senses, the psychology of touch, sensory studies
and anthropology of the senses, tactile perception and haptics, plus translation studies.
Chapter three examines current practices, applications, and technologies, such as assistive
technologies, (co-)design and the senses, innovative uses of 3D printing in art museum,
as well as the use of sound and sonification in art. This part of the thesis also includes a
more extensive discussion on the co-design approach and how it is currently being used
in some museum studies. The rationale for separating this content into two different
literature review chapters was to investigate both the theoretical and practical elements
that may be of relevance to the current study.
The fourth chapter dives into the methodology of this project, explaining the
qualitative approach to the study, my position as a researcher, and the research design. In
28
doing so, it focuses on the creation of the multi-sensory prototypes, from the selection of
the painting(s) to the production of tactile prototypes, and a digital representation of the
chosen paintings with an interactive audio component. Participant recruitment and
selection criteria are examined, along with the data collection processes, which include
three rounds of individual semi-structured interviews and one co-design session.
The Results chapter incorporates all the qualitative findings, including the
outcomes of the online co-design session aimed at identifying potential improvements for
the prototypes. These include data coding in NVivo, through a first cycle of open coding
to determine processes and strategies (categories), and a second cycle of axial coding to
uncover themes. This chapter summarizes the data.
The Discussion chapter synthesizes the data and examines the research findings in
relation to my research statement and objectives. It also assesses the role of touch in
relation to visual perception, sound, and multi-modal layering based on the insights
arising from the qualitative findings. More specifically, this chapter discusses how these
findings can be connected to theories from the field of translation studies while
examining the contributions of crossmodal correspondences in helping people with visual
impairments explore paintings in a different way. In addition, this chapter will provide
more insight on what criteria must be met for these multi-sensory translations to be
considered successful. Other topics covered include the limitations as well as the
ontological implications of this project.
Finally, the concluding chapter advocates for new accessibility standards in art
museums and examines the potential of multi-sensory representations of visual art works
to make museums more broadly inclusive. This section will also provide
29
THE INTRODUCTION
recommendations based on the findings that emerged in this study, which may be
relevant to the sensory or multi-sensory design literature. Finally, the concluding chapter
discusses possible future applications and research.
Overall, this study assesses and explores the potential contribution of multimodal
perception in the understanding and appreciation of paintings for visitors with visual
impairments. This was achieved through a collaborative process comprised of three
individual interviews and a co-design session that resulted in the production of multi-
sensory prototypes translating one painting by Franklin Carmichael and another by
Duncan de Kergommeaux. This project is part of the broader museum and disability
studies movement for greater democratic access and inclusiveness, rethinking translation
and interpretation theories pertaining to intersemiotic translations. The complex
relationship between visual impairment and the visual arts provides an engaging context
for learning more about the role of touch and hearing in generating an effective
translation that provides a rich sensory and aesthetic experience for blind gallery patrons.
30
CHAPTER 2
Literature Review Part One
The visually impaired are a problem of access, a figural ghost that haunts the
galleries of the museum threatening to bring ruin if their demands for unlimited
touch are met but at the same time they are also a figure through which the
museum can represent its good access practice. It can gain Museum and Gallery
commission registration, access to various sources of money, advertise good
practice through various disabled symbols on its publicity leaflets and present
itself favorably to those to whom it is accountable by mobilizing this figure to its
advantage.
(Hetherington 2000, 460)
Understanding current theories, discourses, and debates
The first part of this literature review sets out to better understand the accessibility
barriers encountered by visitors with visual impairments and by cultural institutions
wishing to reach marginalized audiences. This research will build on work done in
several interrelated fields including accessibility/disability studies, visual studies,
museum studies, sensory studies, anthropology of the senses, and translation studies.
Accessibility and inclusion
Cultural democratization vs. cultural democracy

Since the late 1990s, there has been an ongoing debate regarding two cultural paradigms
that express different perspectives on how culture was made accessible after transitioning
31
LITERATURE REVIEW PART ONE
from modernity to postmodernity (Evrard 1997). If “cultural democratization”— a
process that was inherited as much from the Enlightenment as from “bourgeois”
culture—was seen as a policy of dissemination and accessibility of culture, the concept of
“cultural democracy” was characterized by the rehabilitation of “popular” or even
“marginal” cultures (Bellavance 2000, 12–13). Where cultural democratization aimed to
counter the socio-economic inequalities of access by legitimating artworks through
education and awareness, cultural democracy seeks the recognition of the active
participation of all citizens in cultural life (Lafortune 2013; Anderson 2019). These two
paradigms are part of a broader transformation of culture in the wake of new cultural
policies and artistic practices drawing on the interactive potential of digital technologies
(Lafortune 2013). In certain respects, this movement was simply echoing the ways in
which American fine arts institutions of the late nineteenth century built on class and race
distinctions; visitors to early art museums were part of a socio-demographic elite that
excluded people based on race, class, and disability (DiMaggio 1991, 133–36; 1996,
162–64; Levine 1990, 7–15).
Two important themes emerge from the dichotomy between the democratization
of culture and cultural democracy: accessibility issues and cultural inclusion. According
to the American Alliance of Museums, the terms accessibility and inclusion are pivotal
keywords that are defined as follows:
Accessibility is giving equitable access to everyone along a continuum of human

ability and experience. [It] encompasses the broader meanings of compliance
and refers to how organizations make space for the characteristics that each
person brings.
Inclusion refers to the intentional, ongoing effort to ensure that diverse

individuals fully participate in all aspect of organizational work, including
decision-making processes. It also refers to the ways that diverse participants
32
are valued as respected members of an organization and/or community.

(American Alliance of Museums 2018)
Together, these concepts are of particular importance in gaining an appreciation of the
issues of access and inclusion of people with visual impairment when they visit cultural
institutions like art museums. These are important issues because they are tied to the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ emphasis on everyone’s right to freely
participate in the cultural life of society, and to enjoy the arts and their benefits.
Accessibility issues for visitors with visual impairments

Many authors have addressed the issue of museum and galleries’ (in)accessibility with
regard to people with visual impairments, suggesting that it reflects a reductionist
understanding of the visually impaired among museum professionals (Candlin 2006,
137–41; Wapner 2013; Caillet 1995, 93–95). Such an understanding is shaped by how
sighted culture only accepts the narrow binary of presence and absence. “[T]here is no
allowance for a liminal state of partial blindness or partial sightedness” states
independent scholar and activist Beth Omansky (Caeton 2015, 36). This point of view
suggests that one can either be sighted or fully blind,6 thus leaving aside any in-between
conditions of visual impairment.
Several scholars discuss the present and future of museum accessibility for people
with visual impairments (Cole and Lott 2019, 121–26; Hetherington 2000, 449–51;
Hudson 2018, 9–13; Wapner 2013; Poria, Reichel, and Brandt 2009), going so far as to
categorize the main concerns into mobility issues and inaccessible artworks (Asakawa et
al. 2018, 383; Hooper-Greenhill 2000, 17; Stewart 2015). Others advocate for the politics
6
According to the 2012 Canadian Survey on Disability, 756,300 (2.8%) of Canadian adults were identified
as having visual impairments that limited their daily activities, while 5.8% of that number identified as
legally blind.
33
of sensorial access (Cachia 2018, 210–16; Pye 2007, 13–26), highlighting the importance
of making exhibitions, their discursive elements7 and museum designs accessible to all
(Deffner et al. 2015, 4–13; Hamraie 2017, 1–18; Vazzoler 2019; Cachia 2013b). This is
often referred to as Universal Design, “a late twentieth-century design philosophy aimed
at creating built environments that are accessible for both disabled and nondisabled
users” (Hamraie 2017, xiii).
To be truly inclusive, design must go beyond the idea that accessibility is limited
to ensuring physical access to a given place. Museum exhibit and program evaluation
consultant, Ellen Giusti, stresses that museums have the responsibility to guarantee not
only physical access to its spaces, but also intellectual access to exhibited contents by
designing multimodal learning experiences for its visitors (Giusti 2008, 98). These
considerations are foundational to the concept of Universal Design, which promotes the
idea that people of all ages and abilities should be able to experience the design of
products and environments without requiring any adaptation to them (Story 1998, 4).
According to the Center for Universal Design at North Carolina State University, the
principles of Universal Design include the following:
1. Equitable use: it is useful and marketable to people with diverse abilities;

2. Flexibility in use: it accommodates a wide range of individual preferences
and abilities;
3. Simple and intuitive: easy to use and understand regardless of the user’s
experience, knowledge, language skill, or current concentration level;
4. Perceptible information: it communicates necessary information
effectively to the user, regardless of ambient conditions or the user’s
sensory abilities;
5. Tolerance for error: it minimizes hazards and the adverse consequences of
accidental or unintended actions;
7
In her paper Talking Blind: Disability, Access, and the Discursive Turn (2013), Cachia argues that
inclusive design must extend to the exhibit’s discursive elements: docent tours, symposia, catalogues and
websites. According to her, these elements present a way to expand access for visitors and others.
34
6. Low physical effort: it can be used efficiently, comfortably and with a

minimum of fatigue;
7. Size and space for approach and use: it is of appropriate size and space is
provided for approach, reach, manipulation, and use regardless of user’s
body size, posture, or mobility.
Adherence to these seven design principles should help museums and other institutions
address accessibility-related issues including body fit, comfort, awareness, understanding,
wellness, social integration, personalization,8 and cultural appropriateness (The Center
for Universal Design 1997).
Nevertheless, when talking about cultural accessibility, it is important to make a
distinction between economic access, physical access, and intellectual access.9 To this
end, two currents of thought seem to exist, dividing those who believe that accessibility
issues can be solved with the help of technology (Lisney et al. 2013, 353–56; Giusti
2008, 101–6), and those who argue that the issues need to be addressed through more
collaborative curatorial practices (Papalia 2013; Sánchez-Guerrero 2017, 127–31).
Considering these different attitudes towards accessibility, one focusing on the
contribution of new technologies to resolve accessibility issues and the other being
grounded in a curatorial perspective, I decided to incorporate both approaches in the
practical component of my dissertation research. The first approach, involving assistive
technologies is broader in the sense that it is not specifically targeting the museum
context. A curatorial perspective, on the other hand, is centred on the importance of
8
To know more about the concept of personalization in the museological context, refer to Rothberg and
Reich (2014).
9
To me, intellectual accessibility refers to the fact that museums should broaden their definition of an
“idealized visitor” and become more flexible in the ways they interpret and explain artworks. By
developing a pedagogical and philosophical approach that would customize museum contents (including
labels, descriptive panels, mediation tools, etc.) with different publics in mind, museums could become
more broadly accessible to people with diverse cognitive capabilities and bodies.
35
staging the experience in the museum world, from the design of the exhibition space to
presenting specific content with different museums in mind. For these reasons,
combining the two approaches seemed to be a wise decision for the practical phase of this
study.
Cultural inclusion
Another debate in museum studies is centered on the social role of museums in terms of
their ability to include different audiences. While a few authors believe that museums can
foster a sense of identity, including a shared national identity (Newman and McLean
2003; Coffee 2008), others contend that museums play a role in stereotyping the ‘other’
and need to reform their approaches when representing different groups (Sandell 2007, 7;
Coffee 2008, 265–66). Shepherd (2009) and Dodd (2001) recommend that museums
become more inclusive by consulting with different communities, taking their
experiences and perspectives into consideration.
Blindness and the visual arts
When trying to understand blindness in relation to visual arts, many authors have used
‘either/or’ strategies in an effort to theorize the absence of vision. As Michael
Schillmeier, Professor of sociology at the University of Exeter, notes:
Blindness brings back the multiple dis/abling practices of how bodies, senses,
and things relate. Through the history of blindness, the history of the ‘social’
becomes visible and constantly remains to be explained by the ways different
bodies, senses, and things associate. (Schillmeier 2012, 43)
For Schillmeier, the history of blindness is mostly tied to the “history of how visual
cultures try to deal with blindness” (Schillmeier 2012, 45). Traditionally, the cultural
expectations of the visually impaired have always been suppressed, as explained by
36
researcher Marcus Weisen in a chapter titled ‘Les aveugles et malvoyants – Musées et
handicap visual’ [The blind and visually impaired – Museums and visual impairment]:
“Tu es aveugle : tu ne peindras pas, tu ne sculpteras pas, les musées ce n'est pas pour toi”
[“You are blind: you will not paint, you will not sculpt, museums are not for you”]
(Fondation de France 1991, 68, my translation). Although this kind of thinking was more
prevalent in the 1990s, the problematic perception that museums are not for people with
visual impairments has been widespread historically.
The imagined spectrum of visual experience often positions blind people in
opposition to artists, on the assumption that the latter possesses a special kind of vision
that allows them to see more than ordinary people (Kleege 2018, 2). Thus, there appears
to be a long-standing philosophical tradition that associates seeing with knowing, which
implies that blind individuals can only have second-hand knowledge of art based on the
impressions and interests of others (Kleege 2018, 14–28; Candlin 2003a, 102–5).
In a chapter titled ‘Why Do We Think That People Who Are Blind Cannot
Understand the Visual Arts?’ (2017), Hayhoe comes up with three important conclusions
for the study of blindness and art:
1. It is possible for people who are registered blind, even those who were
born without sight, to understand, describe, and create artworks using
wholly visual concepts.
2. Education fails to understand the needs of people born blind and, most
important, their capabilities.
3. Creativity and close drawing [can take] over the academic challenge
[that people with visual impairments crave, especially] when the other
options of literature and numeracy [are] placed beyond [their] reach.
(Hayhoe 2017, 19–20)
37
Other researchers note that blind individuals are able to recognize a raised contour line as
the boundary between a given object and its environment (Darras and Duarte 2007;
Kennedy 1993; Eriksson 1998).
Many scholars agree on the need for museums to establish a “non-visual learning
routine” (Candlin 2003, 109), or to offer an “intermodal transfer” that allows for the
translation from one sensory modality to another (Couty 2015). There is less consensus,
however, about the importance of focusing on subjectivity and emotion when describing
a painting verbally (Couty 2015; Papalia 2013) instead of on objective facts such as
enumerating the artist name, date of birth and death, as well as the dimensions of the
work (Kleege 2018, 109; Remael, Reviers, and Vercauteren 2015). Assessing the relative
importance of a work of art’s emotional impact is one of the goals of the present study.
Ocularcentrism
Ocularcentrism as a Western construct

Ocularcentrism—defined as the ways in which modern and postmodern societies tend to
rely heavily on sight to experience the world (Lauwrens 2012b, 28)—is a Western
construct with roots stretching from Greek antiquity to Cartesianism and beyond.
According to Martin Evan Jay, Sidney Hellman Ehrman Professor of History Emeritus at
the University of California, Greek thinking was greatly influenced by the fact that
philosophers favored vision over the other senses (Jay 1994, 24). In Western philosophy,
sight was considered as the “sense of simultaneity,” due to its ability to survey a wide
visual field in one single glimpse, compared to other senses—like hearing or touch—
which were more “temporal” (Jay 1994, 24). In his foundational book Inside the White
Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space (2000), Irish art critic Brian O’Doherty recalls
38
how the birth of the “spectator” coincided with the era of modernity. Also known as the
“viewer,” “observer” and “perceiver,” the spectator is a conceptual figure defined by their
ability to look at Modern art (O’Doherty and McEvilley 2000, 39–55).
In the Cartesian tradition, philosophers claim that the mind is separated from the
corporeal body, which means that sensations and the perception of reality can be doubted
(Dunning 1991). Historically speaking, this long-lasting tradition has played an important
role in the development of the idea of a ‘Cartesian viewer’:
With their unified space and viewpoint, the self-centered painted

illusions of the Italian Renaissance, the baroque and rococo
periods, and the first half of the nineteenth century, construct a
Cartesian viewer. […] the very structure of the painting implies
that it is to be viewed by a single viewer who stands in one
specific location and visually extends a sense of self through a
window-like transparent picture plane into an illusionistic
pictorial space in the painting, as if both body and consciousness
might travel into and move through the same pictorial space.
(Dunning 1991, 132)
In other words, the development of perspective in Renaissance painting was a crucial
innovation that contributed to the supremacy of vision in Western culture (Jay 1994, 44).
The supremacy of vision has long been discussed by scholars, although different
terms have been used to explain this situation. Whereas Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2003)
recognized the “pure gaze”10 as the mastery of certain cultural codes by the elite
(Bourdieu 2006), French philosopher Régis Debray acknowledged the existence of the
“aesthetic glance”11 in Western culture (Debray 1994, 58). Others preferred to talk about
10
Bourdieu’s definition of the “pure gaze” is that it is proper to those who are culturally and artistically
competent, which is in direct opposition to the ordinary way of seeing the world, one that privileges
function over form.
11
The “aesthetic glance” refers to the critical demystification of the speculation on the meaning of art.
39
“ways of seeing”12 (Jenks 1995, 8; Macdonald 1998, 9; Davis and Davis 2011, 6;
Lauwrens 2012a, 3; Berger 1997) and even of the succession of vision to “visuality”
(Davis and Davis 2011, 10). Despite the variety of terms used, most authors seem to
agree that Western culture tends to privilege vision over the other senses.
Vision, visual arts, and art history

Many scholars have examined the history of vision and its evolution throughout different
centuries (Crary 1988; Debray 1994; Jay 1994; Bellion 2010; Nanay 2015), with some
focusing specifically on the relation between ocularcentrism, visual arts, and art history
(Davis and Davis 2011; Leahy 2014). In her paper entitled ‘Incorporating the Period
Eye,’ Helen Rees Leahy, a Professor of Museology at the University of Manchester,
looks at the impact of the Cartesian tradition on the reception of works of art. More
precisely, she revisits the concept of the ‘period eye,’ which was first developed by the
American art historian Michael Baxandall to describe the cultural conditions under which
art was created, viewed, and understood in the Italian Renaissance. This concept
emphasizes how vision is culturally constructed and structured through a set of viewing
norms, and these processes then influence how artists produce their work (Leahy 2014,
287). In his book Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy: A Primer in the
Social History of Pictorial Style, Baxandall argues that our ability to process visual
information depends on a combination of innate skills and on our previous experience
(Larson and Baxandall 1996, 40). But such skills only exist because they are mirrored by
other individuals in the same culture and the act of displaying them constitutes a public
12
The fundamental notions surrounding the “ways of seeing” are based on art historiography, more
specifically the concept of the ideal spectator – or connoisseur – in Western Enlightenment, and how they
ought to look at art.
40
gesture that ensures individuals belong to a given community (Bennett 1995b). In other
words, these skills can be understood as social codes that are culturally determined; when
displayed, they become an indicator of social class.
According to British sociologist Chris Jenks, the term ‘visual culture’ refers to ‘all
those items of culture whose visual appearance is an important feature of their being or
their purpose’ such as painting, sculpture, design, and architecture (Jenks 2002, 16). In
that regard, museums constitute an interesting case in point since they operate as public
institutions and are based on specific regimes of vision “informing both the manner in
which things are arranged to be seen and the broader visual environment conditioning
practices of looking” (Macdonald 2008, 263).13 As such, museums offer programs of
“civic seeing,” in which objects are staged for the visitors’ visual pleasure, while the
process of the visit itself is ritualized by conditioning practices of seeing (Bennett 2008,
121). This practice of looking also includes a social component in the sense that while
looking at others, visitors learn how to behave and are seen in return. Similarly, the
training of art historians was, and still is, based on visuality as it allows them to conduct
art-historical analyses of given artworks (Bardes, Gillers, and Herman 2001, 1157;
Bellion 2010, 22). The existence of a visual culture is therefore closely intertwined with
the dominant ocularcentric approach that enabled its development, and of which it is a
consequence.
In his book titled Vision and Painting: The Logic of the Gaze (1986), Norman
Bryson, a theoretician and art historian, differentiates between the glance and the gaze,14
13
The politics and practices of visiting and viewing works in museums will be examined further in the
next chapter.
14
According to Byson, the gaze goes beyond a receptive passivity during which the act of viewing is
constructed through the disappearance of the body, thus transcending temporality and spatiality.
41
with the latter being victorious over glance because of its implied removal of spatial and
temporal dimensions:
As the eye traverses the canvas, the path of its movement is irregular,
unpredictable, and intermittent; and though, through its traversals, the Glance
will gradually build up a conceptual version of the compositional structures,
these cannot be taken in by the Glance; they are not disclosed during the actual
time of the Glance, but exist on either side, before the Glance and after it: before,
in that information yielded to the present Glance is back-projected into the sum
of inferences concerning composition which has accumulated so far; after, in
that the process of accumulation means that full apprehension of the
compositional order is always postponed, until more information from the work
of the Glance will have been admitted. (Bryson 1986, 120–21)
As the gaze slowly became known as the art of looking, Griselda Pollock, an influential
art historian asked an important question: What if “[i]nstead of art history’s study of
‘look[ing] at objects,’ […] we [would] consider a different historical object: not vision
with its seeming autonomy, but a history of the politics of looking”15 (Pollock 1995, 41)?
Like Pollack, Bourdieu addresses the politics of looking in his essay “Distinction & the
Aristocracy of Culture,” first published in 1984, which discusses the political
implications of mastering the “pure gaze” (Bourdieu 2006). There also appears to be a
connection between the politics of looking at art and Cartesian philosophy, which could
help explain the history and strong correlation between ocularcentrism and visual arts in
the West.
In her book Body Art/performing the Subject, art historian Amelia Jones indicates
that the Cartesian tradition came to be intertwined with modernist art and art history.
Predicated on vision […], Cartesianism had a special force within artistic

modernism, which was first dominated by French artists and writers embedded
in the Cartesian tradition, then borrowed by the United States from France
after World War II. (A. Jones 1998, 36)
15
The politics of looking at art is based on Wollheim’s social history of art, according to which the viewer
should have the ability to formulate questions about the art: why was this artwork made, for whom, and
what effects did it have on the viewer?
42
Hence, it could be contended that ocularcentrism had a major impact, not only on how
visual arts and culture are produced and consumed, but also on the development of art
history and visual studies as disciplines, further reinforcing ocularcentrist tendencies.
From the “Pictorial Turn” to anti-ocularcentrism

First introduced in 1994 by German art historian Gottfried Boehm and American scholar
William John Thomas Mitchell, the terms “iconic turn” and “pictorial turn” describe the
resurgence of images used as a means of metaphorical language (Bertolini 2015, 123).
The growing emphasis on visual culture built on Western aesthetics, further emphasizing
vision and hearing as the dominant senses in the perception of beauty (Marks 2008, 239).
Despite the close connection between the Cartesian tradition and visual culture,
some theorists have observed recent changes within the discipline of art history that point
to the limits of vision as a sensory modality (Lauwrens 2012b). A growing body of
discourse advocates for an array of sensory experiences in cultural spaces. In her article
“To Touch and Be Touched: Affective, Immersive and Critical Contemporary” (2016),
scholar and curator Saara Hacklin states that some researchers now speak of the
‘affective turn’ of Western societies, which is marked by an “emotional and affective
reception of the artworks by the public” (Hacklin 2016, 2). For others, such as Jenni
Lauwrens, senior Lecturer in Visual Culture Studies at University of Pretoria, there is no
doubt that art history has been predominantly ocularcentric for most of its existence:
Criticism of the dominance of sight in art history’s methodological toolkit is

rooted in a broader cultural and philosophical interrogation of sight having
become the ‘master sense of the modern era’. […] Tied up with the resistance to
art history’s ocularity is its continued allegiance to a notion of ideally detached
observers, who, owing to their looking at works of art from a distance, are
separated from what they see. (Lauwrens 2012a, 3)
43
Rather than speaking of an “affective turn,” Lauwrens discusses the “sensory turn” or
“sensory revolution” that aims “to introduce novel ways in which to approach not only
works of art that set out to engage the audience in multi-sensorial ways […] but also
works of art (such as paintings and photographs) that appear to limit multi-sensorial
engagement” (Lauwrens 2012a, 3). Such a tendency is reflected in installation art, which
Claire Bishop, a British critic, art historian, and Professor of Art History at the Graduate
Center (CUNY) in New York, defines as “the type of art into which the viewer physically
enters, and which is often described as ‘theatrical’, ‘immersive’ or ‘experiential”
(Bishop 2011, 6). Considering the experiential aspects associated with this type of art, it
is strange to be once again talking about “viewers,” which goes to show just how deeply
rooted our vocabulary is with regards to the Cartesian tradition.
Within the pictorial turn, the idea of the public as comprised of “viewers” also
extends to media such as photography and cinema. If these two media changed our
perception of time, particularly through montage (Nanay 2015, 260), they do share one
thing with painting: vision is the primary vehicle of access. With paintings, photographs,
and films all presenting the vision of a given setting based on a different historical or
cultural context, one could say that the viewer becomes a sort of interpreter tied to their
own era (Heffernan 2006, 1). More recently, there has been a growing body of literature
(Donnelly 2019; Selfridge and Pauletto 2022; R. S. Jordan 2022) focused on sound in
cinema, so while vision may predominate this medium, sound certainly constitutes a
major component of film studies research today.
44
Museum studies and the senses
Since the early 2000s, a large and growing body of literature has investigated the multi-
sensory nature of museums (Miguet 1998; Morgan 2012; N. Levent and Pascual-Leone
2014; Classen 2017; Brown 2018), paving the way for the development of a sensory
museology (Chatterjee et al. 2008; Howes 2014b; Clintberg 2016; Boda 2016). These
studies suggest that museums should be seen as “sensory gymnasium[s]” (Howes 2014a)
or as “sensescape[s]” (Classen and Howes 2006), while also suggesting the recognition of
sensory aesthetics (Drobnick and Fisher 2012) and the need for a multi-sensory
interpretation (Christidou and Pierroux 2019; Joy and Sherry 2003). Such studies were
grounded in a pivotal work by Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben titled Profanations
(2007). In this book, Agamben questions the traditions inherent to the process of
museification,16 going so far as to assert that “everything today can become a [m]useum,
because this term simply designates the exhibition of an impossibility of using, of
dwelling, of experiencing” (Agamben 2007, 87). By challenging the physicality of the
museum, Agamben opened the door to more discussions about its possible formats,
settings, and the ways in which its contents are accessed.
Challenging the supremacy of vision or not?

In Art and the Senses (2011), Francesca Bacci and David Melcher emphasize the ways art
history reflects the tendency of Western thought to dismiss the proximal senses as
inferior, a bias that extends to visual culture (Bacci and Melcher 2011, 239). Here, the
proximal senses refer to touch, smell, and taste, which are theoretically placed in
16
The term museification refers to the non-institutional transformation of a given object or space into a
museum. In that regard, it reproduces the logic of a museum which exhibits objects for the contemplation
of the public. For more information on museification or musealization, please consult the work of Ruy et
al. (2020).
45
opposition to sight, a distal and superior sense. In a chapter titled “The Witch's Senses:
Sensory Ideologies and Transgressive Femininities from the Renaissance to Modernity,”
Constance Classen, a cultural historian specializing in the History of the Senses, sheds
light on the ranked, gendered sensorium. She reveals how the senses were structured
differently based on gender, with women being associated with the supposedly lower or
proximal senses through taking care of children and cooking meals, while men were
associated with the supposedly superior senses of sight and hearing, both proving
essential for hunting and survival (Howes 2005, 70–84).
This gendered sensorium extends to visual culture as well, because if you can't
see, you must depend on the “inferior” senses to appreciate art, the sole difference being
that such exclusion affects visually impaired men and women equally. In his chapter
“Aesthetics Beyond Aesthetics,” German philosopher Wolfgang Welsch recognizes that
the perception of an artwork is a complex task which inevitably involves multiple senses:
The perception of a work of art is not a single aesthetic act. Rather, a multitude
of different activities from an entire range of aesthetic perceptual modes may
enter the perception of a piece. (Welsch 2008, 187)
This awareness is supported by a growing curatorial and scholarly interest in sensory
experiences prioritizing the non-visual senses, hearing in particular (Clintberg 2016,
215).
Museums and the sense of hearing

Having critically examined the primacy placed on vision in museums historically, I will
discuss the contribution of sound to the experience of galleries and museums. Sound can
be appreciated as the first step in the development of a multi-sensory mediation,
particularly in the way it can convey supplementary explanations about artworks to the
museum’s public. This is exemplified by the expanding popularity of audio guides as
46
tools to accompany museum visits. However, when looking at the place of sound in some
museums, we quickly realize how it is tangled in paradox. On one hand, the use of certain
construction materials such as glass, drywall, stone, and wood generate the conditions for
audition in many museum contexts; on the other hand, such materials tend to increase
reverberation time, which can hinder the visitor's ability to focus on a specific sound,
such as that from an interactive audio content (Cox 2015).
In 1969, Michael Southworth coined the term “soundscape,” which was the first
instance of this word being mentioned in a scientific article (Axelsson, Guastavino, and
Payne 2019). More specifically, his article focused on the problem of auditory perception
within the urban environment (Southworth 1969). Several years later, the Canadian
composer R. Murray Schafer delineated the concept of soundscape as “any acoustic field
of study,” whether it is a musical composition, a radio program, or any other acoustic
environment (Schafer 1993). Over time, the term came to be defined as the “acoustic
environment as perceived or experienced and/or understood by a person or people, in
context,” and applied to different fields of study (International Organization for
Standardization 2014). In the museological context, Hein Schoer suggested that “cultural
soundscapes” should be considered as important tools in Museum Education, especially
in regard to intangible heritage, such as the oral heritage of Indigenous communities
(Schoer 2009, 100). Regardless of their specific contexts, soundscapes include different
layers of sounds, which may incorporate dialogue and music, and it is this multi-layered
complexity that contributes to its immersive nature (Krause 2008; Oleksik et al. 2008;
Truax 2002; Ystad et al. 2010) .
47
Beyond this understanding of the museum as a cultural or sensory soundscape,
sound materializes in other forms within its walls. Curator Barbara London suggests that
museums and galleries ought to showcase “sound art” to a greater extent—artworks that
utilize sound as a primary medium, but are intended to be exhibited in art spaces rather
than performed in venues associated with musical performance (Dunaway 2020, 26). For
art historian Don Goddard, it is clear that this type of art is encouraging “another form of
seeing” by relying on the sense of hearing, which is one of the ways to challenge the
primacy of vision in the museum space (Pardo 2017, 36).
Museums and the sense of touch

In The power of touch: handling objects in museum and heritage contexts (2007),
Elizabeth Pye, Emeritus Professor of Archaeological and Museum Conservation,
encouraged museum professionals to re-evaluate the role of touch in the appreciation and
study of objects in an art gallery setting. This foundational work paved the way for other
studies that focus on museums and the sense of touch. In 2008, Chatterjee et al. published
a book titled Touch in museums: policy and practice in object handling, which presents
an extensive compilation of scientific articles discussing the value of object handling as
well as new possibilities for the museums’ public. This was followed in 2010 by another
important book, Art, museums and touch, in which Candlin (2010) highlights the
importance of touch as an accessible way of engaging with art collections. Then, in 2011,
Wood and Latham discussed the museum as a phenomenological text that results in
sensory stimulation through acts of consciousness, memory, and perception. In this study,
authors not only revisited the historical evolution of touch in museums, but also
concluded that touch constitutes a vital modality in a museum visit (Wood and Latham
48
2011, 57). More recently, an article by Novak et al. assesses the benefits of touch in a
science museum with regard to the visitors’ recollection, perceived autonomy, and
overall satisfaction after the visit (Novak et al. 2020). These studies clearly indicate that
there is a relationship between the sense of touch and a positive museum experience, a
subject that will be discussed further under the section Tactile perception and haptics.
Museums and the sense of smell

If the sense of smell was traditionally considered to be the most dispensable sense,
(Korsmeyer 2002; Howes 2014b), some scholars believe that its successful integration
within the museum space could trigger imagination, personal memories, and emotions,17
thus inducing a feeling of inclusion among visitors (Stevenson 2014, 161).
In 1985, John Douglas Porteous explained how the concept of “smellscape”
compares to visual impressions, noting that much like visual information, smells can be
spatially ordered or relate to one specific place (Porteous 1985, 359). These
“smellscapes” are building on multi-sensorial experiences, suggesting they can only be
fully appreciated by being attuned to all the other senses (Porteous 1985, 360). In his
chapter entitled “The Museum as Smellscape,” Jim Drobnick explains how olfaction
slowly permeates the museum shops via the medium of consumerism: people like buying
things that smell nice (Drobnick 2014, 177–78). This begs the following question: did
museums really move away from a consumerist approach based on the commodification
of smell for financial purposes, to recognizing the contribution and validity of fragrance
as an artistic medium?
17
However, it should be noted that some smells may trigger negative emotions or memories in visitors.
49
As early as the 1980s, “olfactory art” was recognized as an artform using scent as
a trans-corporeal medium (Shiner 2015; Hsuan L. Hsu 2016, 2). This artform is rooted in
post-media practices, and aims, among other things, to produce or recreate various
olfactory atmospheres (Drobnick 2014, 182; Diaconu 2006). Several museums started
incorporating an olfactory component in their programmed sensory guided tours
addressed to visitors with visual impairments, thus contributing to the smellscape of
museums (Stevenson 2014, 160).
Along with the appearance of olfactory works of art, the field of olfactory
museology recently emerged, not only as an academic discipline, but also as a new
curatorial practice (Stenslund 2015, 22). More broadly, this discipline is part of what is
known as sensory museology, a curatorial approach that emphasizes the importance of
physically sensing objects rather than relying exclusively on sight, as the latter can lead
to disinterested visual contemplations (Howes 2014a; Howes et al. 2018).
Museums and the sense of taste

Although the status of the culinary arts has been elevated in recent years, there is still a
debate about the artistic merits of taste as its ephemerality runs counter to a materialistic
conception of art (Diaconu 2006). Here, the act of eating a gustatory creation challenges
its status as an artwork (Whittall 2016). In other words, there remain doubts on the ability
of the signifier of the sense of taste, that is food, to rise to the same level as painting or
sculpture and be recognized as works of art.
Yet, taste and food have been present in museums for quite some time, mainly as
artful dishes served in museum’s cafes or restaurants. This is indicative of the fact that
the educative potential of this sensorial modality is not fully recognized yet (Mihalache
50
2014, 197–98). With the development of the sensory turn, however, some museums are
now starting to develop food-based exhibitions—both permanent and temporary—in
addition to offering themed menus in their restaurants to accompany such exhibitions
(Mihalache 2016).
Following the development of Food Studies, the new academic field of gustatory
aesthetics flourished, and was referred to as “the branch of aesthetics that claims the
possibility of philosophically dealing with taste in its literal and not metaphorical sense”
(Perullo 2018, 1). As such, this field comprises four gustatory practices: food art, edible
art, research cooking, and revolutionary cooking (Jaques 2015). During the 1960s, under
the impetus of the artist Daniel Spoerri, food art, also known as “Eat Art,” became a
recognized artistic movement characterized by the use of food as a medium (Novero
2010).
Of course, food is also a social phenomenon, entrenched in the sharing of food
traditions. Rather than being defined (solely) as artworks, we could consider food as one
of the missing pieces in the construction and transmission of intangible cultural heritage,
which encompasses social practices, rituals, and festive events (UNESCO 2003).
Regardless of the material ephemerality of food as an artistic medium, the act of sharing
food traditions greatly contributes to the formation of long-lasting social relationships
with family members or close friends (Winfree Papuga 2005). Often termed ‘food
cultures,’ such a phenomenon underlines the social role of food as a marker of identity,
including the ways in which it produces assumptions and stereotypes about other cultures
(Mihalache 2014, 197–98). While also encouraging the development of collective
meanings and values, these food cultures are perceived as “complex systems of
51
communication,” which are representative of specific cultural behaviors, and protocols of
usage (Barthes 2013, 24). Hence, several scholars (Quinet 1981; Telfer 2008; Novero
2010; Mihalache 2014; Brown 2018) argue that the sense of taste (and food) could be
better used in museum settings to engage visitors in a more participatory, and multi-
sensorial experience.
Cognitive psychology
While the existing literature on touch is extensive, many studies are centered on cognitive
or experimental sensory psychology, focusing on themes including: visual perception and
imagery (Hollins 1989; Zeki 1999; Gombrich 2000; Arnheim 2004; Ganis 2013; Gallace
2013), the cognitive processes behind tactile perception (Dresslar 1894; Millar and Al-
Attar 2002; Hatwell, Streri, and Gentaz 2003; Katz 2016), and the effects of blindness on
crossmodal and intersensory perception (Millar 1981; Kennedy 1993; Morton A. Heller
1997; Morton A. Heller and Ballesteros 2005; Jansson 2008; Renzi et al. 2013; Morton
A. Heller 2014).
In Visual thinking (first published in 1969), art theorist and perceptual
psychologist Rudolf Arnheim (1904-2007) suggests that looking at art involves mental
processes that build on sensory perception, memory, thinking, and learning (Arnheim
2004, 13). He argues that visual perception should be understood as “visual thinking”
since such an action also involves the cognitive functions of the brain (Arnheim 2004,
14). Arnheim points to the selective nature of vision, noting “the retina, in informing the
brain about color, does not record each of the infinitely many shades of hues by a
particular kind of message but limits itself to a few fundamental colours, or ranges of
colour, from which all the others are derived” (Arnheim 2004, 18). These findings
52
demonstrate how initial visual inputs can change after being analyzed by the brain, which
tends to simplify or reorganize some of this information to ensure that it can easily be
understood.
In 1999, Semir Zeki, a British neurobiologist specializing in the primate visual
brain, examined the link between the function of art and the function of the visual brain,
which he believed to have similarities. More importantly, Zeki dismantled the myth of
the “seeing eye” by demonstrating how the act of looking generates an active process that
requires “the brain to discount the continual changes and extracts from them only that
which is necessary for it to categorise objects” (Zeki 1999, 6).
Other authors have attempted to understand the formation of mental imagery
based on visual perception (Hollins 1989; Ganis 2013), or to show the contribution of the
sense of touch to mental imagery, also described as tactile imagery (Gallace 2013; Renzi
et al. 2013; Katz 2016). Hence, visual perception appears to be intertwined with the
psychology of the pictorial representation which relies on the act of perceptual
classification, that is, “our capacity to recognize in them things or images we find stored
in our mind” (Gombrich 2000, 182–83).
After conducting a series of studies on the psychology of touch (1894), F.B.
Dresslar, a fellow in Psychology, revealed the dependency of tactile perception on the
other senses and its major contribution in proving their assertions, even through our use
of language:
This fundamental and deep lying significance of perception through touch is seen
in the commonest words having for their import to know:— perceive means to
take thoroughly or to take hold of; conceive has for its fundamental and original
meaning, to take hold of things together; apprehend is to catch hold of;
comprehend means only to catch hold of more than one thing; understand means
53
measurement of things by letting them rest on you; we accept a thing mentally

when we take hold of it. (Dresslar 1894, 316)
While most studies focus on the psychology of sight or touch in sighted individuals, a
handful investigate how sensory or intersensory perception is experienced in blind
individuals. Some of these authors conducted studies with people with visual
impairments to confirm their hypothesis that blind individuals tend to rely more heavily
on touch to compensate for the loss of vision, and as a mean to access or read tactile
maps and drawings (Kennedy 1993; Morton A. Heller 1997; Eriksson 1998; Hatwell,
Streri, and Gentaz 2003; Morton A. Heller and Ballesteros 2005; Morton A. Heller 2014).
Other studies focused on the contribution of sound when navigating and avoiding
obstacles (Kolarik et al. 2017; Sánchez et al. 2010; Merabet and Sánchez 2009) or even
in the development of echolocation abilities (Kolarik et al. 2014).
Sensory studies and anthropology of the senses
Over the last 30 years, the academic literature on the senses has flourished and
culminated in the development of two research fields: sensory studies and anthropology
of the senses. Sensory studies emerged in light of a “sensual revolution” in the
humanities, a revolution that highlighted the intricate nature and role of the senses as
cultural and political processes (Bull et al. 2006, 5). More recent trends in this
interdisciplinary field are focusing on the contestation of the senses as a single modality
of aesthetic perception, as well as on their sublimation, ambivalence, transmutation,
politicization, and technologization (Bull et al. 2006, 7). The anthropology of the senses
first came to prominence in the early 1990s within cultural studies as a response to
ocularcentrism and as an attempt to investigate some of the fundamental empirical and
sensory dimensions of human existence (Classen and Howes 2006, 199). The objectives
54
of both fields are twofold: to shed light on the historical role and impact of the senses
through time, as well as examining the cultural dimensions of perception (Trott and
Classen 1996).
In 2005, David Howes edited the book Empire of the senses: the sensual culture
reader, which includes essays by several authors that examine the historical and cultural
study of the senses through an interdisciplinary lens (Howes 2005, 6). Twelve years later,
Eleanor Betts, a Baron Thyssen Lecturer in Classical Studies at the Open University,
edited Senses of the Empire: Multisensory Approaches to Roman Culture, and purposely
selected this title as a tribute to Howes’ book. While Bett’s book focused on the Roman
world, it did build on Howes’ concept of intersensoriality, which implies the “multi-
directional interaction of the senses and of sensory ideologies, whether considered in
relation to an individual, a society, or a work” (Howes 2005, 9). This concept is key in
the development of sensory studies, especially since it presented a new way to understand
the senses in relation one to another:
Intersensoriality refers to the interrelation and/or transmutation of the senses,

which may take many forms, such as: a) cooperation/opposition, b)
hierarchy/equality, c) fusion/separation, and d) simultanaeity/sequentiality. It
helps to think of each of these dyads as describing a continuum. (Howes 2013)
In stressing how the modalities of different sensory perceptions are continuously
entangled with others, and demonstrating how our senses are culturally constructed,
Howes was moving away from the traditional ocularcentric approaches that result in
sensory biases (Howes 2005, 9).
Earlier studies generally focused on visual and auditory modalities solely (Day
and Singer 1967; Schmidt 1967; Balmuth 1968; Siegenthaler Bruce M. and Gruber Vera
1969; Massaro 1970; Ihde 1970; Rubinstein and Gruenberg 1971). Although there are
55
some exceptions (Parker and Stabler 1913), it was not until the 1980s that historians
started considering the cultural history of the sense of smell as worthy of scholarly
attention, making it the last of the senses to be studied in depth (Bradley 2015, 8). Much
of the research on olfactory perception has focused on identifying and evaluating the role
of smell in the ancient world (Bradley 2015; Classen 2002, 13–94), on the cultural
construction of smell within a multi-sensory context (Classen 2002, 9), and on theorizing
olfactocentrism (Drobnick 2014) or smellscape (Porteous 1985; Bradley 2015, 16).
Similarly, studies regarding the auditory sense as an important modality started in the late
1960s, with a focus on the sonic environment of cities (Southworth 1969) such as the
World Soundscape Project (Schafer 1993) which was followed by others in sound studies
exploring the concept of soundscape (Porteous and Mastin 1985). Previous research
established taste as a sensory modality, exploring its links to emotion, opinion, situation,
circumstance, and aesthetics (Korsmeyer 2002; Diaconu 2006; Perullo 2018, 1–2).
In line with this trend towards understanding the senses as multimodal, scholars
started to extend their work to broader fields and disciplines in the early 2000-2010s. In a
pivotal book titled A cultural history of the senses in the age of empire, 1800-1920
(2014), Constance Classen brings together writings by a variety of scholars who explore
the sensory values and experiences in different periods and societies, covering a wide
range of topics and disciplines: the social life of the senses, urban sensations, senses in
the marketplace, senses in religion, philosophy and science, medicine, literature, art and
media (Classen 2014). They also present case studies from 1300-1700 for which scholars
specifically seek to explore the collaboration of the senses in art (Diaconu 2006; Howes
2014b; Clintberg 2016; Classen 2017; Walker and Sanger 2017).
56
Several authors discuss intersensory experience. Howes, for example, examines
synesthesia18 as a framework to conceptualize perceptual processes (Howes 2006, 383;
2010). Other researchers have found that environmental cues from multi-sensory sources
are processed simultaneously by all five senses (Millar and Al-Attar 2002). Such findings
have proven to be important for the education system, as a high number of publications
have promoted multi-sensory approaches to education (Donald 1991; Willingham 2005;
Elias 2006; Clarke 2010; Hasanzadeh and Shahmohamadi 2011; Shatalebi et al. 2012).
Another relevant example is that of Susanna Millar, an experimental psychologist who
examines intersensory perception in blind individuals through the lens of crossmodal
theories, which are often divided into those stressing either the “separateness” or “unity”
of sensory modalities (Millar 1981, 282). A broader perspective has been adopted by
Laura U. Marks (2008), a philosopher and Grant Strate Professor at Simon Fraser
University, who echoes Howes' work in proposing de-hierarchized aesthetics to highlight
the multi-sensory aspects of culture (Marks 2008).
Tactile perception and haptics
While touch was once described as a passive sense, new studies suggest that tactile
perception should be understood as a sensory system that builds on the combined
accumulation of tactile and kinesthetic information about the environment (Paterson
2007, 1–14; Bicchi et al. 2008, 45:25–37; Lederman and Klatzky 2009, 1439–42). The
concept of “haptics,” also referred to as “active touch” by some scholars, involves not
only sensors in the skin, but also sensors in muscles, tendons, and joints (Jansson 2008,
18
Synesthesia is a rare neurological condition in which stimulation of one sensory modality leads to
involuntary experiences that materialize through a different sensory or cognitive pathway. An example of
this could be someone seeing a specific colour in response to a certain letter or number.
57
135–39). Based on this definition, the hand becomes a perceptive system that relies on
active exploration to gather information, thus requiring more concentration. Conversely,
scholars in industrial design have shown that there is no difference between active and
passive touch with regards to form recognition, specifically when the stimulus pattern is
smaller than a finger pad (Vega-Bermudez, Johnson, and Hsiao 1991). Active touch
extends to more situations, such as an object indirectly coming in contact with a person
through a movement like vibration, and without any intentional or directed aspects of this
individual’s behaviour (Smets and Overbeeke 1994; A. M. Smith et al. 2009; Bernhaupt,
Drouet, and Pirker 2019).
In a museum context, visitors could benefit from haptic modalities, which would
allow them to experience a closer and more subjective relationship with objects or
artworks (Jansson 2008, 137; Katz 2016, 40). Although touch does not provide
individuals with an overall view of a scene or environment, Gunnar Jansson believes that
the tactile system will always play a key role in the understanding, exploration, and use
of the physical environment. The strength of this tactile system would lie more in a space
if proximity in which the hands are able to perform multiple tasks, such as identifying
objects and recognizing surface properties (Jansson 2008). In his book Frames of Mind:
The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, American developmental psychologist Howard
Gardner (2011) notes that touch appeals to the “bodily-kinesthetic” intelligence of
individuals by allowing them to explore objects in a different way than is usually possible
with “logical-mathematical” intelligence. This form of bodily intelligence refers to our
ability to interact manually with our environment, which is not exclusive to people with
visual impairments.
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Literature on sensorial modalities has mainly focused on other senses, notably
vision, hearing, and olfaction. The lack of attention paid to touch can be explained by its
crossmodal nature and the fact that what we feel through touch is also determined by
complementary stimuli from our other senses (Bremner and Spence 2017, 260). In a 2013
study, researchers concluded that the human finger is capable of detecting variations in
relatively small surface structures, thus indicating that haptics could potentially play a
role in the development of nanotechnologies (Skedung et al. 2013, 5). Surveying the
literature, it seems that touch is understood variously as a haptic sense (Paterson 2007;
Bicchi et al. 2008; Lederman and Klatzky 2009; Gori et al. 2012), a bodily sense (Cowie,
Makin, and Bremner 2013; Katz 2016), and even as a social sense (Morrison et al. 2009;
Fairhurst, Löken, and Grossmann 2014; Hacklin 2016).
Translation studies
The act of translating is justified by the need to remediate a lack of understanding of one
specific language. French philosopher and translator Marc De Launay, along with
Umberto Eco (1932-2016), an Italian philosopher and semiotician, both defined
translation as a practice that inevitably results in the destruction of the original (De
Launay 2006, 41; Eco 2007). Yet, the act of translating implies that one understands the
inner system of a language and the structure of a given source text in that language
enough to be able to re-create similar effects in a different textual system, language, and
context (Eco 2007, 16). Often seen as a rewriting, translation results not only in the
translated text existing in another language, but also in a renewed value and
understanding of the text, shedding light on the cross-cultural dimensions associated with
the act of translating (Dokhtourichvili 2017).
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The fact that the translation of all books on a planetary scale is dominated by
some twenty languages, mostly European, is a symptom of colonialism and globalization,
and contributes to the endangerment of 6000 of the 7000 existing languages worldwide
(Brisset 2017, 267–72). In that sense, the act of translating might also be thought of as
democratizing because of the power dynamic at play: capturing other languages and
rationalizing them in linguistic, visual form can be seen as reinforcing a colonizing
impulse, or as an organizational principle. Since the 1980s, such preoccupations coincide
with the “cultural turn” of translation studies, marked by a shift to a descriptive approach
that acknowledges translations as “documents which exist materially and move about,
add to our store of knowledge, and contribute to ongoing changes in esthetics” (Sherry
2006, 7). By considering the role and impact of translations as they circulate, some
translators reconceived of their role as a social practice (Wolf 2010), recognizing the
political dimensions of their work in other areas of the world (Brems and Ramos Pinto
2013, 142).
The translator’s role: author or interpreter?

The long-lasting debate on translator invisibility, or lack of recognition, bespeaks the
complexity of the relation between author and translator (Flynn 2013, 12). Roland
Barthes (1915-1980), a French literary theorist, first introduced the notion of the death of
the author in his 1967 essay in which he argued that the author’s intentions, biographical
facts, and political and religious views should not have any effect on the interpretation of
their writing (Barthes 1944). In response to Barthes’ work, French philosopher Michel
Foucault (1926-1984) discussed the disappearance of the role of the author and the need
to prioritize literary anonymity to ensure that the historical period and context stand out
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rather than just the thoughts of a singular person, that is, the author (Foucault 1975).
Translation can raise questions about authorship too. According to translator and
Concordia University professor Jean-Marc Gouanvic, the foreign origin of a given work
can be partially masked by replacing the author’s name with that of the translator, a
practice that calls into question the notions of authority and authorship (Gouanvic 1997,
127). In the 17th century, translations aimed at reconstructing a text in accordance with
the thinking of another era, with little regard to the author’s intentions in the original
version (Dussart 1994, 111). Although this practice was more prevalent in the past, it
brings into question the role of the researcher and participants as co-translators in this
study.
If history has shown that some translators were concerned primarily with bringing
ancient texts closer to their contemporary readership, it also highlights the need to
account for different historical contexts—that of the original text, but also of the
translator’s moment in time—as well as the necessity of considering the target reader.
Also known as ‘reader-response criticism’, the reception-focused theory was formulated
in the 1970s by literary scholars such as Wolfgang Iser and Hans Robert Jaus (Bacci and
Melcher 2011, 59). This theory encompasses the translator as part of an “interpretive
community” (Fish 1982), thus implying that their translation will be influenced by the
communities of which they are a part, which in turn are shaped by geography, history,
education, age, status, gender, etc. (Brems and Ramos Pinto 2013, 142). Gender is central
to translation studies, and it should be noted that this discipline shares several concerns
that are integral to feminism (Bassnett 2003; Toury et al. 2008; Leena 2013). According
to Simon Sherry, a Distinguished University Research Professor in French Studies at
61
Concordia University, both feminism and translation are interpellated by “the way
‘secondariness’ comes to be defined and canonized,” and share a “clear sense of language
as a site of contested meanings” (Sherry 2006, 8).
In contrast to authors, good translators must master the experience of
intertextuality in their own language first, which allows them to take cultural differences
into account and to enhance them by way of annotations, comments, as well as references
to other contemporary texts (Dokhtourichvili 2017). Because of that, some scholars
believe that the translator becomes a co-author or a second author (Buffagni, Garzelli,
and Zanotti 2011; Flynn 2013, 14–17; Dokhtourichvili 2017; Tuna and Çelik 2021),
putting an emphasis on the creative nature of rewriting and the liberty that is granted to
the translator (Bassnett 2003, 6). At other times, the role of the translator is described as
that of an interpreter or mediator, a function that suggests their ability to distance
themselves from the original text to focus on its recontextualization (Dussart 1994, 109–
11).
Authenticity versus inauthenticity

One of the central concepts in the field of translation studies is the principle of fidelity,
which is expected to guide the translator in their work and is used to measure the
“authenticity” of a given translation. Consequently, this concept implies that translation is
a form of interpretation that needs to convey the intentions of the original work, what the
text says or suggests, rather than try to understand the author’s intention (Eco 2007, 15).
The fidelity of a translation not only gauges its authenticity, but also determines what
constitutes a good interpretation (Dokhtourichvili 2017, 185). Whereas some scholars are
interested in finding out which criteria should be used to evaluate the relevance of a
62
translation (Derrida and Venuti 2001), others contend that a good translation should
celebrate the translator’s freedom above all things (Sixel 1994). Another fundamental
criterion of translation quality is the concept of equivalence that is “determined by the
socio-historical conditions in which the translation act is embedded, and by the range of
often irreconcilable linguistic and contextual factors” (House 2001, 135). The quality of a
good translation can thus be assessed according to two key guiding principles: the
translation must be of comparable value to the original, and the initial meaning must be
effectively preserved across two different languages and cultures (Halliday 2013). For
others, like translator Daniel Gouadec, a good translation can also be measured in two
different ways: by the quality of the end-product, that is the translated material, and the
quality of the transaction itself or the service provided (Gouadec 2010). As authenticity
seems to equate with a good quality translation, the need to juggle an irreconcilable
source culture with the ever-changing nature of target cultures implies that the act of
translating can never be definitive, and is thus always open to interpretation (Bassnett
2003).
Translations in visual arts

More often associated with literary texts, films, and even plays, the notion of translation
is less common in visual arts. When it is mentioned, it is mainly to deal with the question
of “ekphrasis,” which refers to the textual description of a visual work (Eco 2007, 245–
46). For semiologist Umberto Eco, the detailed analyses of paintings made by art critics
are good examples of ekphrasis, that is, the translation of a “visual text” into written text
or oral discourse (Eco 2007, 245). Like textual translations, translations in the realm of
visual arts necessitate that we focus on three kinds of signs:
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Firstly, there are likenesses, or icons; which serve to convey ideas of the things
they represent simply by imitating them. Secondly, there are indications, or
indices; which show something about things, on account of their being physically
connected with them. […] Thirdly, there are symbols, or general signs, which
have become associated with their meanings by usage. (Peirce 1988, 5)
When applied to the understanding of visual art, these semiotic tools can be used to
decipher images or artworks and to grasp the significance of their historical codes or
symbols (Bal 1998). Yet, according to Barthes, the language of the image is not limited to
its formal elements, composed of signs and codes, but also includes the ‘surprises’ of
their meaning (Barthes 1964, 49).
Intersemiotic translation or transmutation occurs when we translate between
different semiotic systems, like when turning a novel into a film or vice versa (Eco 2007).
Because intersemiotic translation is so complex and radically transforms the initial
content, it is also referred to as a form of adaptation and/or transposition (Dusi 2015).
Although traditional forms of translation usually focus on one single sense, like sight or
hearing, intersemiotic translations tend to be multimodal in nature. Among these, sight
translation, also known as “prima vista”—such as American Sign Language—is a mode
of simultaneous interpreting that translates an oral language into a visual one, and vice
versa (Čeňková 2010; Cross 2016). This type of translation can also include audio
description which is typically aimed at visually impaired audiences (Taylor 2013). When
thinking about a museum setting, verbal descriptions can be used to translate the visual
sensation and narrative of artworks, whether in person during a guided tour, or through
the use of an audio-guide or application that can be installed on the visitor’s mobile
phone (De Coster and Mühleis 2007).
While less common, multimodal translations also encompass the act of translating
visual arts into tactile objects with the aim of producing comparable aesthetic experiences
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(Juricevic 2009). When it comes to the translation of visual arts into tangible objects of a
different format (e.g., from a painting or drawing to a tactile object such as a sculpture),
one question that arises is whether these multimodal translations constitute copies of the
original work or not. For German philosopher Walter Benjamin (1892-1940), copies can
never be elevated to the level of the original work for the simple reason that they are not
unique and thus lack creative authority (Benjamin et al. 2008). For others like Barthes,
the value of such translations should be assessed on their ability to produce real signs,
like the original artworks, and not just groups of disconnected symbols (Barthes 1964).
Nonetheless, history reveals that the validity of reproductions can be justified by their
acceptance as ‘reasonable substitutes’ for original works that are unavailable (Fawcett
2003). This could include original works that are too fragile to be exhibited, as well as
works that were destroyed or that are located elsewhere. In that sense, the reproduction of
works of art could serve the broader objective to salvage cultural knowledge.
Conclusion
Ocularcentrism is a Western construct that has had a major impact on the
production and consumption of art. Some authors highlight the potential contribution of
Universal Design in making museums less ocularcentric and more accessible and
inclusive. This is particularly important when thinking of audiences who have been
denied cultural experiences because of disability, notably visitors with visual
impairments. A growing number of studies stress the importance of examining the
cultural dimensions of perception and understanding the senses as multimodal.
Furthermore, the literature in the field of translation studies reveals that very little
65
research has been conducted on intersemiotic translations or transmutations when we
‘transpose’ visual content into a different medium, like sculpture.
The literature review provided in this chapter provides the theoretical framework
for this study, providing an overview of relevant theories, discourses, and debates. The
following chapter complements this literature review with a discussion of current
practices, applications, and technologies aimed at making the visual arts accessible to
people with visual impairments.
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CHAPTER 3
Literature Review Part Two
Once digital media is no longer ‘new technology’, we can use a different set of
assumptions, a different lexicon of terms, and free ourselves from discursive set
pieces around uptake and advocacy. We can be free to reach for alternative sets
of theoretical reference points and break away from the gravitational pull of
dominant theories of technological adoption. With digital media normative
(naturalized, ambient, and augmented) in the museum, we are now ready to reset
our relationship with it.
(Parry 2013, 37)
Understanding current practices, applications, and technologies
The field of museum studies was first introduced as an academic discipline in the early
1900s. Throughout its history, museum studies has been defined largely by the dichotomy
between museological theory and a field of practice (Duff, Cherry, and Sheffield 2010).
Understanding key theories and debates related to the question of access to art and culture
requires that we also look at current practices, applications, and technologies in this field.
As such, I will be examining museum settings, assistive technologies used in cultural
institutions, applications of experimental psychology on blindness, sensory design,
innovative uses of 3D printing, as well as sonification and sound in art gallery settings. I
will then survey contemporary practices of curatorial activism and explore questions
related to phenomenology and perception.
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LITERATURE REVIEW PART TWO
The museum setting: how are works presented?
Since museums came to be defined by their ability to give the world something to see,
their setting plays an important role on establishing how relationships are negotiated in
these spaces: relationships between curators and objects, between sights and sounds, and
between artifacts and visitors (Chaumier 2010, 24). Western museums often function as
“empires of sight” in which artifacts are removed from their original cultural setting and
presented within the “visual symbol system of the museum” (Classen and Howes 2006,
200). In doing so, museums typically frame visitors’ experiences as if they were formed
exclusively by their sense of sight (Hetherington 2000, 448), thereby contributing greatly
to the institutionalization of a visual culture (Trodd 2003).
Seeing is not only structured by the museum space, but also by the cultural and
social codes that regulate the visit. As Shannon Wellington puts it, “seeing properly
depends on knowing how and where [or at what distance] to stand in relation to the
displayed painting” (Wellington 2012, 45). The conditions of viewing are dictated by
curators, who are responsible for determining the ideal height at which to hang each
painting and for negotiating sightlines in consideration of a room full of visitors
(Wellington 2012, 46–47). In other words, museums have been traditionally set up in a
way that gives precedence to the visitors’ eyes and minds, neglecting to take into account
the presence and capacities of visitors’ bodies, a phenomenon that can even be observed
in installation shots of photograph exhibitions characterized by the absence of visitors’
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bodies19 in the modernist ‘white cube’20 space of the gallery (O’Doherty and McEvilley
2000, 42; Wellington 2012, 48).
This ‘disembodiment of perception’ is also reinforced by other institutional
practices, including the interpretation and mediation surrounding the presentation of
works of art (Wellington 2012, 49). As a result, museums tend to offer visitors limited
ways of seeing visual imagery, failing to ‘grasp the lived relationship between visual
depiction[s] and politics’ (Fyfe and Law 1987, 9). The traditional layout and
arrangements of galleries’ collections also structure the museum experience through the
addition of wall texts, labels, photographs, videotapes, and guidebooks (McClellan 2003,
173). The use of text at the entrance of every exhibition suggests that reading—and thus
seeing—are prerequisites for the viewing of art. Professor of Museum Studies at Tufts
University, Andrew McClellan, believes that such labels and educational aids were
created primarily to educate uninitiated visitors in how to look and what to see when
visiting a museum (McClellan 2003, 36; 89).
According to Carol Duncan, a renowned American art historian recognized for
her contribution to the development of a socio-political approach to art, the display and
behavioral conventions associated with the museum experience can be understood as part
of a secular ritual:
This ritual is both personal and social. It is personal because of the visitor’s
individual choice to enter a ‘liminal’ zone in which a state of exaltation can be
reached through contemplation of, and engagement—perhaps even a sense of
communion—with, works of art presented as paragons of aesthetic beauty (and
not, for example, as material elements of social histories). (Duncan 2005, 78)
19
This was more common in the late 1970s and it has since changed as a result of the recent laws about
accessibility and the importance given to cultural mediation within these institutions.
20
The contemplative white cube is meant to be a universal, neutral space into which aesthetic objects are
placed. This not only includes removing colour as well as other distracting sense stimuli like smell.
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Duncan observes that this ritual is reinforced by the ‘organization of the museum setting
as a kind of script or scenario’ that is then performed by visitors (Duncan 2005, 86).
With these perspectives in mind, I will be critically examining and reimagining the ritual
aspects of the museum experience.
Assistive technologies in cultural settings
Also known under the label of ‘access technology’ (AT), assistive and adaptive
technologies are equipment, devices, or products that are used to maintain or increase the
functional capabilities of people with disabilities (Pal 2015, 1). For instance, some of
these technologies focus on improving mobility with the use of customized wheelchairs
or motorized prostheses, while others aim to enhance communication using mobile
handheld devices, and speech recognition software (Pal 2015, 6). Given the diversity of
assistive technologies, I will focus primarily on technological innovations that can be
used, or are already being used, in the museum environment.
In museum settings, one of the objectives of assistive technologies is to provide
people with better physical access, wayfinding, and indoor navigation (Coelho et al.
2020). One promising tool is audio beacon technology, which involves specific beacons
that are triggered when near a user’s phone. While this technology can provide relevant
exhibit-related interpretation as well as useful wayfinding information to users—who
may or may not be visually impaired—this solution is not infallible as it is subject to
equipment malfunctions (Landau et al. 2005).
Another assistive technology that is being used to improve both indoor navigation
and access to exhibition content is QR codes, which are paired with a smartphone or
Apple iPad to allow visitors to follow paths in a museum. To do so, users need to scan
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QR codes along the way, prompting informative videos, pictures, text, or audio on the
user’s smartphone or iPad. Yet, this technology requires regular maintenance, particularly
with regards to the information behind labels and to keep up to date with technological
changes, such as phone updates (Haworth and Williams 2012). What happens when a
visitor is unable to physically access the museum? Beyond the web-based options for
virtual tours, a less common alternative is telepresence technology, which allows visitors
to explore the gallery space virtually through the intermediate of a robot that they can
control remotely from their home (Hebert 2016). Unfortunately, the acquisition of such
technology is not a viable option for many institutions considering its high price tag.
Another key priority in developing assistive technologies is to capitalize on
participatory research to facilitate accessible museum experiences for disabled visitors
(Garcia Carrizosa et al. 2020). Such initiatives can include the use of Augmented Reality
(AR) or Virtual Reality (VR) to generate multi-sensory experiences that encourage the
inclusion of visitors with cognitive and sensory disabilities (Llamazares de Prado and
Arias Gago 2021). Other approaches involve co-developing touchscreen-based
applications to better support autistic visitors within the museum walls (Magkafa,
Newbutt, and Palmer Mark 2021), or the assessment of the benefits of hearing assistive
technology (HAT) to improve accessibility for adults with hearing loss when engaging
with docents (Meyer et al. 2017).
For individuals with visual impairments

Some mobility-related access technologies have been developed specifically for
individuals with visual impairments. Inspired by echolocation in animals like dolphins
and bats, which use ultrasonic waves as a way of locating and visualizing surrounding
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environments or potential prey, such technologies enable blind and low vision individuals
to navigate the world around them. The efficiency of echolocation as a means of
navigation has inspired researchers to develop a long cane using similar echolocation
signal processing techniques as well as ultrasonic technology (Hoyle and Waters 2010).
The final product is marketed as the UltraCane (also known as the Batcane), and it can
help users by detecting any obstacles or street furniture within 2 or 4 meters through
ultrasonic sensors (Hoyle and Waters 2010). A similar innovation is Echolocation
Headphones, which are a wearable sensory extension composed of a pair of opaque
goggles that allow users to concentrate on a focused sound beam and ‘see’ their
environment with sound (Chacin, Iwata, and Vesna 2018).
Other assistive technologies can be grouped under two distinct categories: mobile
applications and wearable technologies. In a recent conference paper titled MusA:
artwork accessibility through augmented reality for people with low vision (2021),
Ahmetovic et al. explain how an inclusive mobile application can support museum
visitors with low vision by providing them with interactive descriptions of visual
artworks in Augmented Reality (AR) (Ahmetovic et al. 2021). The ‘mobile’ technologies
type refers to any device that is portable and can be used in motion, such as mobile
phones or smartphones and other handheld computer devices. These devices support
different technologies and software that have been developed to assist users through
speech recognition, non-speech auditory feedback, haptic feedback allowing users to use
braille, multimodal input, and even software that supports connecting a phone to a braille
display (Hakobyan et al. 2013). Another exciting new technology for people with visual
72
impairments is the ColorWatch,21 which is a wearable wrist-worn analog tactile device
that works in combination with an integrated colour sensor or smartphone camera to
detect colour information through the watch’s tactile interface (Jabbar, Lee, and Cho
2021).
Another interesting example of assistive technology is Aira, an on-demand wearable
technology designed for people with low vision. Users wear modified glasses with an
integrated camera that can be accessed simultaneously by a remote sighted individual
who assists the visually impaired user with a specific task like reading the label of a
medication bottle (Nguyen et al. 2019). At the time of this writing, a similar web-based
platform called Be My Eyes has over 6 million volunteers who assist blind and low
vision individuals with a variety of tasks.
A new trend in assistive technologies is Augmented Reality (AR), and while these
technologies have tended to be too expensive for many individual users, people are now
starting to come up with inventive ways to build less expensive devices on their own.
One example of this is the see-through display that uses the inexpensive Google
Cardboard to turn a smartphone into a cheap version of a head-mounted AR display such
as the EPSON BT200 model (Sandnes and Eika 2017). Other initiatives include
combining AR with beacon technology to create an interactive museum tour that can be
accessed through an application (Tsai et al. 2017; Meliones and Sampson 2018) as well
as the creation of digital museum guides (Cober, Au, and Son 2012), and the use of sound
to develop a universal touch screen interface for visually impaired people (Yairi 2017).
While telepresence via an intermediate robot is less common, recent advances in the
21
While this technology might have been useful to convey the colours of paintings, it was not considered
further in the case of the current study as it does not involve touch.
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development of telerobotic communication systems could be a game-changer in the field
of access technology, enhancing access to, and enhancing mobile navigation and object
exploration of, a remote environment for visually impaired visitors and/or those with
mobility disabilities (C. H. Park, Ryu, and Howard 2015).
Assistive technologies are benefiting from 3D printing to produce what is known
as ‘tactile graphics,’ which can often be traced back to the origins of braille as the official
tactual code for the blind (Bérubé 2018b). As a result of the growing importance and
easier usability of new technologies, such as screen readers and other audio recognition
devices, fewer people are learning braille (Bérubé 2018a). However, tactile graphics have
increased in popularity because of their potential to show something beyond textual or
audio description (Knochel, Hsiao, and Pittenger 2018). Some of the technologies used to
create tactile graphics, like graphics-specific embossers or embossing printers and
microcapsule paper remain costly, and their software is difficult to maintain and update
(Knochel, Hsiao, and Pittenger 2018). Yet, several studies (Campbell et al. 2011;
Buehler, Hurst, and Hofmann 2014; Watanabe, Hatakeyama, and Tomiita 2015; Winfrey
and McDonald 2016; Schwartz et al. 2020) underline the significant potential of 3D
printing in the development of assistive technologies in the cultural field, as well as for
clinical and commercial applications.
In a study by Vaz et al. (2020), researchers reviewed and analyzed existing
assistive technologies that are used to enhance the experiences of museum visitors with
visual impairments. These technologies were grouped in five technological approaches
ranging from haptic interfaces to interactive touch replicas, gesture-based reliefs,
assistive navigation, and hybrid solutions (Vaz, Freitas, and Coelho 2020). Lastly,
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another assistive learning tool worth noting is the use of tactile symbols to represent
colour (Vankrinkelveldt 2003; Ramsamy-Iranah, Rosunee, and Kistamah 2016).
Reviewing these studies raises the question: what other technologies could potentially be
used in art museums to improve access?
Touch, representation, and blindness
Since the 1960s, a growing body of literature and research on blindness has shifted from
anecdotal approaches to more rigorous scientific approaches (Rusalem 1961). The
findings from these studies are being applied in a number of areas, notably with regard to
assistive technologies, with the aim of helping vision rehabilitation, orientation, mobility
(i.e., wayfinding devices), educational learning, sensory substitution, and even web
accessibility (Manduchi and Kurniawan 2018). Important discoveries have been made
regarding how visual imagery is used in texture perception. When asked to differentiate
between a broad range of textures (M. A. Heller 1989b) or familiar 3D objects (Postma et
al. 2007), researchers observed no differences between blind individuals and sighted
people who wore blindfolds. While touch and vision were found to show similar
performance with recognizing coarse textures, touch was considered superior to vision in
the depiction of finer surface textures (M. A. Heller 1989a). In a recent study, researchers
demonstrated that blind participants “spontaneously used many geometric concepts such
as parallelism, right angles and geometrical shapes to detect intruders in haptic displays,
but experienced difficulties with symmetry and complex spatial transformation” (Heimler
et al. 2021, 1). Moreover, studies focusing on the role of sound in the formation of mental
imagery (Cavazos Quero, Iranzo Bartolomé, and Cho 2021; Schoer 2009; Haverkamp
2012b) showed the potential of sound effects in facilitating the mental visualization of a
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given artwork. Other key findings in the field of cognitive science about multi-sensory
perception could translate into concrete applications in design, such as rethinking how
design takes into account both the tactile and visual experience of objects and spaces (C.
Park and Alderman 2018, 34–36).
Crossmodal correspondences
The idea that crossmodal correspondences could occur between different senses and
result in various sensory impressions was of particular interest to a number of artists in
the twentieth century, including Cézanne and Kandinsky (Spence 2020b, 17).
Intersensory associations have been referred to as a neurological condition known as
‘synesthesia,’ in which information meant to stimulate one specific sense simultaneously
stimulates another, or even several, of them22 (Ward 2013; Cytowic 2002). Some
synesthetes, for instance, can perceive letters or numbers as colours, or hear a sound and
simultaneously visualize a colour (Haverkamp 2012b, 295–300).
Researchers have made another important distinction between intrasensory
transfer and intersensory transfer: intrasensory or intramodal transfer occurs when the
information and the task are in the same sense mode; intersensory or crossmodal transfer
happens “when an organism uses information from one sense mode to perform a task or
solve a problem involving a different sense mode” (Rubinstein and Gruenberg 1971,
385). With the advances in both cognitive neuroscience and behavioral psychology,
designers are starting to better understand the principles and functioning of
multimodality. As a result, multimodal design is becoming cross-disciplinary (C. Park
and Alderman 2018) and can be the result of a collaboration between different fields such
22
It is important not to confuse synaesthesia with multi-modal design as it is considered a health or body
situation that cannot be controlled and the later is clearly designed to be manipulated by users.
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as industrial design, educational psychology, biology, engineering, etc. (Villanueva et al.
2019).
Recent research has focused on crossmodal correspondences, which can be
defined as the associations that some people experience between different perceptual
modalities or senses. Charles Spence (2020) has examined the particularity of
temperature-based correspondences, discovering that feelings of cooling or warming can
be elicited thermally (with radiant heat), chemaesthetically (through skin contact with
menthol, etc.), or internally (when individuals feel a chill, or are overheated) (Spence
2020a, 648). Although temperature is perceived by the body mostly through touch, its
crossmodal nature lies in the way temperature is tied to the somatosensory system.
Another study revealed an even stronger association between temperature and taste,
notably the influence of food temperature on taste attributes (Motoki et al. 2020, 10). For
instance, Motoki et al. (2020) found evidence that warmth has a positive influence23 on
taste attributes while drinking Japanese tea. As mentioned by Spence (2020), a potential
area of application for temperature-based crossmodal correspondences could be in virtual
and augmented reality environments, which offer a new challenge: figuring out how to
transfer thermal information to a virtual space using sight and specific colours (Spence
2020a, 670).
While literature on audiovisual crossmodal correspondences, such as associations
of colours with sounds, is more widespread (Alsius and Soto-Faraco 2011; Klapetek,
Ngo, and Spence 2012; Adeli, Rouat, and Molotchnikoff 2014; Hong and Shim 2016;
23
Authors do not indicate the taste attributes in further details: they stressed that temperature can have an
impact on the intention to buy a given product like Japanese tea, and that it can also influence our
perception while drinking it.
77
Sun et al. 2018; Roque, Lafraire, and Auvray 2020), little is known about intersensory
correspondence between vision and olfaction. This might be due to the difficulty in
naming odours, or because colour cues can bias odor judgements as “[a]ppropriate colors
increase and inappropriate colors reduce the accuracy of odor identification” (Gilbert,
Martin, and Kemp 1996, 335–36). Other studies demonstrate the existence of a
crossmodal correspondence between odors and visual shape stimuli (Hanson-Vaux,
Crisinel, and Spence 2013), as well as odour-colour correspondences used in the
commercialization of perfume brands24 (Spence 2020b, 13), and even between auditory
qualities like timbre or pitch and odour25 (Deroy and Spence 2016). Similar findings were
made with regards to crossmodal associations between colour characteristics and the
intensity of tactile sensations like vibration or pressure through vibrotactile feedback
(Slobodenyuk et al. 2015). This field of research lays the groundwork for the
development of visual sensory substitution devices that allow visually impaired
individuals to access visual information and increase colour memory (Hamilton-Fletcher
and Ward 2013).
Intersensory correspondences begs the question: are our senses separated, or are
they united? This question is important because each answer implies a different
understanding of how the human body works: either the brain combines sensory cues
from each sense one at a time or it analyzes sensory cues using our different senses all at
once. While some argue that our senses are interconnected (Walk and Pick 1981; Deroy
24
According to Spence, some perfume brands base their visual design on the crossmodally corresponding
colour palette, such as the Blue or Red perfume by Hugo Boss. Such perceptual correspondence was
observed between increasing colour lightness and less intense olfactory stimuli. These findings are also
discussed in Deroy and Spence’s paper (2016)
78
and Spence 2016; Heimler et al. 2021), others, like Susanna Millar, believe that
crossmodal theories are “complementary and convergent” (Millar 1981, 282; 308)
suggesting that sense modalities cannot be understood as either separate or united, thus
recognizing that information from different sources is used in a flexible manner
depending on the situation.
Sensory design
In a 2011 conference paper, Schifferstein explained that a multi-sensory approach can
only be carried out if designers understand that the design process also requires them to
incorporate all the perceptual knowledge acquired through explorations in all sensory
modalities, not just in one specific sense. Similarly, in 2012, Michael Haverkamp
published a book titled Synesthetic Design: Handbook for a Multi-Sensory Approach, in
which he explained that the term ‘multi-sensory design’ should be replaced with
‘synesthetic-like design,’ because it not only deals with various senses but it
“encompasses all possible strategies of perceptual connections between the modalities”
(Haverkamp 2012b, 15). Schifferstein and Hekkert’s recommendations build on earlier
research in design aesthetics on the role of pleasure in sensory design. These studies
examined how aesthetic pleasure resulting from using designed products can operate
across the senses (Hekkert 2006; Green and Jordan 2006), leading to four distinct types
of pleasure: physical, sociological, psychological, and ideological. The first category,
also known as ‘physio-pleasure,’ implies that pleasure is derived from the sensory organs
within the human body and is “connected with touch, taste and smell as well as feelings
of sensual pleasure” (P. W. Jordan 2005, 11). Sociological pleasure occurs when
socializing with others while psychological pleasure is related to the pleasure and ease of
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use of a given product. Ideological pleasure pertains to users’ values and how they want
to be perceived by others. Another approach, known as ‘emotional design,’ can be
mapped through three levels: visceral design (appearance), behavioral design (pleasure
and effectiveness of use), and reflective design (self-image, personal satisfaction,
memories) (Norman 2005, 39; P. W. Jordan 2005). Echoing these studies on emotional
design, Dr. Jun Dong Cho, a Professor of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at
Sungkyunjwan University, conducted a study in 2021 in which he concluded that
empathy is an important communication skill used by one person to share their personal
perceptions and experiences with others.
The use of a sensory design methodology is said to benefit companies, whose
multi-sensory products have a greater likelihood of positively influencing the user’s
mood and their consumer behavior (Erenkol 2015). As a result, the arts and design can be
seen as “sources of hedonistic pleasure with a capacity for market exploitation or social
control,” thus reopening the question of the significance and place of the senses in the
modern world (Heywood 2017, 24).
Involving users in the design process is also a crucial element in sensory
marketing, an approach that can be described as “a group of key levers which are
controlled by the producer and/or by the distributor to create a specific multi-sensory
atmosphere around the product or the service” (Raz et al. 2008, 719). According to Raz et
al. this can be achieved by focusing on communication, product environment or the sales
outlet environment, and the product’s characteristics. In other words, sensory marketing
and sensory design both acknowledge how the products’ sensory aspects directly
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influence our preferences, perceptions, memories, emotions, choices, and consumption of
such products (Krishna 2011, 2; 2012).
In the past fifteen years, sensory design has been applied to various areas of study
including, but not limited to, architecture, inclusive design, education, games, and virtual
reality. Among architects, some like Zaha Hadid (1950-2016), conceive of architectural
space not only in terms of spatial relationships like length or height, but also in relation to
how the space is experienced differently at different times of the day. Hadid’s innovative
use of technology in lighting design allowed her to create a unified spatial-time
experience through a process of gradual sensory-stimulation generated by illuminating
different design elements successively, thus surprising visitors with a directional and
changing experience (Hidayat and Dharmawan 2020). Other studies aimed to develop a
notational system building on an understanding of the urban environment as a multi-
sensorial experience that needs to be enhanced by multimodality in design (Lucas and
Romice 2008; Piga and Salerno 2017, 1–10).
Sensory design considerations have become increasingly prevalent in gaming and
virtual reality applications. Until recently, most video games have been designed to use
the prevailing perceptual channels of vision and hearing; however, recent approaches
prioritize diverse sensory experiences. Examples include wearable interfaces, Kinect-type
games that use movements and haptic devices, audio games that use sounds instead of a
specific language, and Pixelate, a game based on the act of eating (Cardoso Garone,
Nesteriuk, and Belluzzo de Campos 2020). Another interesting example in virtual reality
is the so-called Cave Automatic Virtual Environment (CAVE), which is a room used to
immerse one or several individuals in a virtual environment that is projected onto its
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walls.26 One key feature of CAVE is that users are wearing see-through glasses, which
means they are not isolated from their physical surroundings or other people in the room,
thus allowing them to interact normally with each other (de Back et al. 2020).
Along with these developments, sensory design is also believed to play an
important role in the field of design education by contributing to the development of
innovative courses that are more engaging for students while keeping up to date with the
needs of society (Zi 2021). Indeed, researchers have recently discovered that academic
learning could yield higher learning gains by using CAVE compared to traditional
textbooks: its immersive nature nurtures collaborative and active learning (de Back et al.
2020). One longitudinal study on Immersive Virtual Reality (iVR) by Elor et al. (2020)
reports that head-mounted displays (HMD) have surpassed CAVEs as a promising
technology to motivate users with and without cognitive disabilities to “exergame”27
(Elor et al. 2020). These examples constitute only a small part of the recent innovations
in the field of sensory design and should not be viewed as an exhaustive list.
Of particular interest for this research is a relatively small body of literature on
sensory design that is concerned with the effects of sensory impairment on product
experience and personal well-being. In one study, researchers examined the roles of
sensory modalities in user-product interactions by blocking one modality at a time.
Blocking vision resulted in the largest loss of functional information, increased

task difficulty and task duration, and fostered dependency. On the other hand,
the other senses were used more, and product experiences increased in perceived
intenseness. When touch was blocked, the perceived loss of information was
smaller, and participants reported that familiar products felt less like their own.
Blocking audition resulted in communication problems and a feeling of being cut
26
Although it doesn’t use the same technology, the ‘immersive’ exhibition Imagine Van Gogh, which was
presented in several locations worldwide, is also in line with this trend.
27
This term is used to describe video games that are also a form of exercise. Such games often rely on
technology that tracks the users’ body reaction or movements.
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off. Blocking olfaction mainly decreased the intenseness of the experience. These
outcomes suggest that vision mainly plays a functional role in everyday user-
product interactions, whereas the main role for olfaction lies in the affective
domain. (Schifferstein and Desmet 2007, 2)
Similarly, Levy (2020) observed an unambiguous relationship between multi-sensory
design and the primacy of vision as a sensory modality. Considering this, it can be argued
that to be fully accessible, sensory design needs to be implemented in accordance with
accessibility policies (AODA, Bill C-81) and the principles of Universal Design (Levy
2020).
Another potential application of multi-sensory design about which relatively little
is known is the role of emotions on sensory perception in neurodiverse individuals. While
emotions and affect have recently started to be taken into consideration in the study of
autism (Davidson and Orsini 2013), there is a paucity of research on how emotions are
experienced in other neurodivergent individuals. Furthermore, little is known about how
emotional responses influence neurodivergent people’s perception of social activities
such as a museum visit, or even how multi-sensory design could address sensory hyper-
sensitivities. Findings in this field might have significant implications for the
development of inclusive and accessible mediation for the disability community.
The psychology of colours and phenomenology
The psychology of colours

As research in cognitive psychology progresses, there have been several discussions
about the role that the psychology of colours plays not only in the appreciation of works
of art, but also in other fields such as medicine. These debates have promoted renewed
interest in centuries-old practices such as chromotherapy, a method of treatment which
“uses the visible spectrum (colours) of electromagnetic radiation to cure diseases”
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(Azeemi and Raza 2005, 481). Another approach, developed by Max Lüscher, invites
patients to isolate non-associative scales of colour-preference during laboratory testing
with the aim of allowing the psychologist to interpret the subject’s character in various
contexts: medical diagnosis and therapy, ethnographic research, marriage guidance,
gerontology, and personnel selection (Gage 1999, 32). This approach has been widely
criticized by psychologists who point out the problems inherent in colour-vocabularies,
which brings up concerns about the viability of attributing affective personality
characteristics to colours on a universal scale (Gage 1999, 33). Previous research (F. M.
Adams and Osgood 1973, 156) has established that the affective meanings of colours
often vary among individuals for the following reasons:
1. Physiological: the physiology of vision, which implies that certain

colours, like red, might be associated with stronger emotions for
some people and not others.
2. Environmental: the normal relationship of human beings to the
world they live in: in some cases blue sky or green fields are good,
versus in some cases darkness (night) are less safe.
3. Cultural: the significance and meaning of colours varies in different
cultural contexts (e.g., the colour associated with death and
mourning is not the same in different cultures (Yu 2014)).
Other findings suggest that in the relationships between colour perceptual attributes,
emotions associated with colours, and different cultural backgrounds, the most prevalent
influencing factors are brightness, chroma, and hue28 (Gao et al. 2007, 229). There are
also extensive conversations about colour from a philosophical standpoint, with an
emphasis on the question of colour perception. For instance, one study revealed the limits
of sight, noting that colour perception is influenced by various factors such as lighting
condition and distance from the object—it can also include proximity to other colours
28
Brightness refers to intensity in terms of light, while chroma has to do with color (hue) saturation.
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(Stekeler-Weithofer 2017). Such studies suggest that visual colour perception is highly
subjective. More research is necessary to determine the extent to which colour perception
involving touch is similarly subjective.
The relation to phenomenology

Developments in the field of phenomenology are particularly relevant to the
understanding of art as a sensory experience in which “[p]aintings describe scenes,
delight the senses, express emotions, communicate ideas, and allude either to other art
works or to common experience[s]” (Rohrbaugh 2005, 635). In the case of works that
represent common experiences, paintings are not only perceived as works of art, but are
experienced within a spatio-temporal perspective through which we compare the artwork
with past experiences:
That a quality, an area of red should signify something, that it should be, for
example, seen as a patch on a background, means that the red is not this warm
colour which I feel and live in and lose myself in, but that it announces something
else which it does not include, that it exercises a cognitive function, and that its
parts together make up a whole to which each is related without leaving its place.
Henceforth the red is no longer merely there, it represents something for me, and
what it represents is not possessed as a ‘real part’ of my perception, but only
aimed at as an ‘intentional part’. My gaze does not merge with the outline or the
patch as it does with the redness considered concretely: it ranges over and
dominates them. (Merleau-Ponty 1962, 11)
Phenomenology, more specifically Husserlian phenomenology, is characterized by the
theory of intentionality which entails that our “experience is directed toward—represents
or ‘intends’—things only through particular concepts, thoughts, ideas, images, etc.” (D.
W. Smith 2018). For instance, for many people, the image of a couple embracing would
reflect the idea of love. To further this idea, French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-
Ponty (1908-1961) argues that perception is “an ‘interpretation’ of the signs that our
senses provide in accordance with the bodily stimuli, a hypothesis that the mind evolves
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to explain its impression to itself” (Merleau-Ponty 1962, 29). This idea is exemplified by
the fact that instead of seeing an object in double because of our two eyes, the brain
constructs only a single image of it, and it is this retinal impression that is perceived.
Furthermore, Merleau-Ponty viewed painting as a privileged site through which the
essence of perception and of our experience of the world are unveiled to us (Lannoy
2008, 18).
Some theoreticians claim that the status of an original work of art is justified by
the presence of copies, which precisely contributes to increasing the value of the original
(Latour and Lowe 2011). Yet, this idea directly challenges the ontological thinking that
an original artwork gains its status because it is considered to be irreplaceable. In the case
of what Walter Benjamin defined as “mechanically reproduced works of art,”29 copies
can be instantiations or representations:
To be clear about the distinction between instantiations and representations, it

will help to think of the case of pictorial representation. In the normal instance,
a picture is a two-dimensional configuration of lines and colors that represents
a three-dimensional state of affairs. In such cases, the picture is a representation
of what it depicts, but not an instantiation of it. (Z. Adams 2015, 652)
Following this reasoning, the multi-sensory prototypes developed for this project could
be seen as instantiations30 of the original paintings, raising the question of whether the
status of an artwork might not depend directly on its function. The main function of the
multi-sensory prototypes is to help visitors with visual impairments gain a better
understanding of selected paintings through a multi-sensory interpretation. It might be
29
For more information, refer to his book titled The work of art in the age of its technological reproducibility,
and other writings on media, which was published in 2008 by Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
30
In other words, the author explains that an instantiation would be like making a newspaper collage. As
the latter involves cutting and pasting newspaper fragments and pasting those fragments themselves, they
cannot be defined as representations of them, but rather as instantiations of the original newspaper.
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more accurate to define them as ‘exhibition tools’ or even as ‘tool-objects’ (Davallon
1999, 168) than works of art in their own right. Although they are tactile and multi-
sensory ‘copies’ of the originals, they are exhibition or mediation tools that do not aspire
to the status of art themselves. That said, they could maybe be defined as supplements
too, such as the frame around a painting, which would imply that they may affect the
meaning of the original work, but not its content.
Similar projects and innovative uses of 3D printing in art museums
As early as February 2009, the accessibility program at the Centre Georges Pompidou in
Paris was displaying a total of 10 tactile translations of paintings—five modern works
and five contemporary works—that were scattered over 7 levels in the building (Lire
Dans le Noir 2013). These tactile paintings were exhibited on an inclined angle to make
them easier to explore through touch, and were accompanied by braille labels as well as
large print instructions and descriptions31 (La Croix 2009). The project was developed
over two years by a team composed of an informatician, an art history professor, and a
visually impaired person. The ten paintings were selected for their importance in the
history of art. The objective was to produce tactile interpretations of the narrative content
of these works, with no direct transformation of colour into texture (Kastrup and Sampaio
2012, 103). Even though these tactile paintings were not produced with 3D printing
technology (they were instead engraved in cellulose acetate plates), they remain relevant
to the present study because they incorporated a progression of different textures and
shades of gray to highlight the essential elements of each work (20 Minutes 2009).
31
The same information was also available through an audio guide.
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Recent developments in accessibility policies as well as research on cognitive
psychology and sensory museology are leading to new projects of a multi-sensory nature
in art museums. One project worth noting involved a team of researchers who
collaborated with an accessible art gallery and a school for visually impaired people to
co-design an interactive multimodal guide prototype (Cavazos Quero, Iranzo Bartolomé,
and Cho 2021). Their prototype was designed with different sensory modalities in mind:
the audio component, which can either be accessed through speakers or headphones,
includes narrations, sounds, and background music to convey iconographic information.
The tactile modality is stimulated by touching a 2.5-dimensional bas-relief representation
of the visual artwork, which allows the user to get an idea of the spatial arrangement and
composition of the artwork including the location of depicted elements and their textures
(Cavazos Quero, Iranzo Bartolomé, and Cho 2021, 8). Such a model is created by
extracting the topographical information from drawings or paintings like outlines. Once
that is done, the model is 2.5D printed32 and some areas are painted with electric paint to
make them touch-sensitive, and it is this touch sensor input that will be processed by the
control board that then provides audio feedback to the user (Cavazos Quero, Iranzo
Bartolomé, and Cho 2021, 9). The experimental portion of this project culminated with
two art exhibitions using the Interactive Multimodal Guide (IMG), and the team used this
opportunity to conduct evaluations with eighteen participants. The results of this project
confirmed that a multimodal approach coupled with an interactive interface proves to be
more effective, compared to tactile graphics used alone (Cavazos Quero, Iranzo
Bartolomé, and Cho 2021, 15).
32
This method of printing consists of multiple layers of ink or materials that do not go over 10mm thick.
They are printed on various rigid and flat surfaces and do not qualify as a 3D volume.
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In a 2020 study, Avram, Ciolfi, and Maye focused on co-design in museums by
involving designers, developers, and cultural professionals in a long co-design process to
create a platform for the realisation of a tangible interactive solution. While their research
did not involve end-users, others have used a participatory action strategic approach as a
means to enhance the participation of people with disabilities and increase the
accessibility of arts and cultural events. To do so, they invited a wide range of
participants to discuss in focus groups including people with disabilities, managers of
cultural organizations, caregivers and health care providers, and politicians (Milligan,
Nieuwenhuijsen, and Grawi 2014). If such approaches can help to raise awareness about
disabilities and accessibility, they also bring into question the nature of the social codes
surrounding the creation of designed spaces and the relationship with designers. In a 2016
paper, Rieger and Strickfaden address this question, emphasizing the importance of co-
design—an approach that is “inclusive of the embodied experiences of people with
disabilities in context with objects and spatial environments” (Rieger and Strickfaden
2016, 8). It is important that these guidelines build on ‘empathetic links’ between
exhibition-makers and museum visitors to ensure a positive collaboration (Hesseldahl,
McGinley, and Monk 2018). In another study, researchers worked with people who are
visually impaired to co-create inspiring and meaningful designs using inclusive
multisensorial processes that reconsidered the museum space in three case studies in
Canada and Belgium (Rieger, Herssens, and Strickfaden 2020). As in the previous
example, which questioned the codes of design, Rieger et al discuss ableism in the
context of co-design, noting that one way to address ableism is to incorporate ‘techné’ in
the co-design process, a form of embodied knowledge that is inclusive of “multisensorial
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and multimodal explorations, observations and creations” (Rieger, Herssens, and
Strickfaden 2020, 148).
As in the current study, Cho et al (2021) have translated colours by associating
different textures with colours through a series of user tests with 23 visually impaired
adults. Their work, which is in the foreground of recent developments in tactile
technology, resulted in the creation of tactile colour pictograms (TCPs)—“raised
geometric patterns” that represent “ideographic characters” allowing participants to
recognize and differentiate between colours (Cho et al. 2021, 103). This study introduced
three different TCPs—CHUNJIIN, CELESTIAL and TRIANGLE—which they used to
code colours from the Munsell Colour system based on three properties: value
(lightness), hue (basic colour), and chroma (colour intensity) (Cho et al. 2021, 104). This
initiative is reminiscent of the European patent application that was filed in 2001 by artist
Mark Vankrinkelveldt. In this document, he proposed a tactile colour code to help blind
and visually impaired people recognize different colours by randomly associating each
colour with a geometric shape (Vankrinkelveldt 2003). Vankrinkelveldt pushed his idea
further, drawing inspiration from braille to create a tactile reading of the nuances of
colours. For example, if a triangle is used to represent the colour yellow, a dot can be
added next to the right end of its base to represent light-yellow colour; two dots represent
dark yellow. Despite some similarities between their approaches, one of the key findings
of the study by Cho et al. is that it is preferable to use tactile patterns to translate colours,
rather than braille, since the latter varies from language to language. Thus, compared to
braille, patterns have greater potential to meet international standards and have a greater
chance of becoming a universal solution.
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In another ground-breaking study with people with visual impairments, Cho
appears to confirm the results of the present study on the contribution of multi-
sensoriality to the translation of visual works:
In the visually impaired, the sense of touch can stimulate neurons that are usually
reserved for vision. Neuroscience suggests that, with the right tools, the visually
impaired can appreciate the visual arts, because the essence of a picture is not
vision but a meaningful connection between the artist and the audience. (Cho
2021, 3)
In addition to highlighting the potential of crossmodal sensory experience, Cho’s study
makes clear the importance of conducting research in the emerging field of translating
visual arts into multi-sensory formats to make them accessible to people with visual
impairments.
More common uses of 3D printing by museums pertain to educational initiatives
that promote accessibility, inclusion, and preservation (Short 2015). A good example of
an educative use of 3D printing is that of the Van Gogh Museum which offers a
workshop specifically tailored to the needs of visitors with visual impairments in which
they are invited to touch a three-dimensional reproduction of Van Gogh’s famous
Sunflowers painting (Ronco 2021, 52). Preservation applications take advantage of
developments in 3D scanning and 3D printing to create realistic three dimensional
“physical reproductions of paintings,” that are then exhibited in the place of originals that
are too fragile to show (Elkhuizen et al. 2019, 2). Over the past 10 years, art museums’
growing interest in using this type of technology has led to a new marketing opportunity
for companies specializing in 3D printing solutions for museums. One of the most
recognized companies in this field is Tactile Studio with offices in Paris, Berlin, and
London. Tactile Studio targets European museums and galleries, and more recently
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Canadian and American ones. They describe themselves as “an inclusive design agency
aiming to promote access to arts and culture for everyone” with a specialization in
“designing educational solutions enhanced by sensory experiences—touch, sound, smell”
(Tactile Studio 2020a). For one of their projects, Tactile Studio created a tactile
representation of the Portrait de Madame de Senonnes by Jean Auguste Dominique
Ingres for the Musée d’Arts de Nantes, which is accompanied by descriptive labels,
ambient sounds, and a diffusion of scents, as well as samples of fabric like silk and velvet
(Tactile Studio 2020b). Whether three-dimensional artifacts are reproduced for
educational or conservation reasons, such reproductions might still be subject to
copyright issues when they are not part of public domain (Cronin 2021).
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York hosts a creative hub known as
MediaLab in which students and researchers explore projects at the intersection of the
museum experience, art, and technology (The Met 2021a). In collaboration with the
Met’s Access Programs and Community Programs Office, Ezgi Ucar, a former MediaLab
Intern, shared some of his ideas for a suite of multi-sensory products (The Met 2021b).
As with all projects that are developed at the Met’s MediaLab, Ucar’s design proposals
are in accordance with the principles of Universal Design:
1. A multi-sensory booklet that can be carried around by visitors and

features pictures of key artworks in the collection that is equipped
with touch-activated smells and sounds to convey certain ambiances.
2. A multi-sensory sculpture that is a small touch-sensitive clay replica

of an original sculpture, with essential oil, and that produces a buzzer
sound when touched.
3. A material booklet that allows visitors to touch small samples of

materials similar than those used to create a specific artwork.
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4. A scratch-and-sniff painting that reproduces paintings created with

powdered fragrances, incense, and spices, all of which aim to
communicate the olfactory atmosphere present in the original
artwork.
In a similar way, the Access to Art Resource Hub at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO)
has hosted a series of talks featuring the work of Graduate Students enrolled in an
Inclusive Design Multisensory Museum Course at the Ontario College of Art and Design
University (OCADU) (AGO 2021b). In this series, students presented their co-creative
process of translating paintings from the AGO collection into multi-sensory experiences
(AGO 2021a). Of particular interest in the context of the present study is the talk given
by Shivani Gulati in which she presented her design prototype for a multi-sensory
translation of the painting Storm over the Fields by Carl Schaefer (1937) (AGO 2021c).
In addition to providing a detailed audio description of the paintings as well as its sounds,
smell, and textures, Gulati created an immersive space that led participants to the original
artwork. To do so, she was inspired by the concept of biophilia, suggesting that a
connection with nature that might provoke an emotional reaction in those engaging with
the work. She strategically used contrasting ground lighting effects reminiscent of the
stormy atmosphere of the painting as well as tall grass to represent the fields (Art Gallery
of Ontario 2021). While such examples illustrate that there is a growing interest in
stimulating the senses to convey the atmosphere of a given artwork, it also demonstrates
that recent multi-sensory initiatives tend to go beyond detailed verbal descriptions to
accompany a visual work and convey its meaning (Ansaldi 2021).
Sound and sonification in art
In recent decades, sound has become a medium of choice for many artists working in
institutional contexts associated with the visual arts (Abenavoli 2017, 9–11). Throughout
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the twentieth century, the fine arts have opened to diverse artforms, including those
entailing a creative use of the telephone, phonograph, cinematographic film, radio,
magnetic tape, digital recording, and computer software for producing experimental
works involving sound (Abenavoli 2017, 11–13).
One of the most famous pieces to presage the field of sound art was John Cage’s
so-called “silent piece” titled 4’33’’ (1952) in which the performer was instructed to
remain silent for 4 minutes and 33 seconds (Schafer 1993, 5). In the absence of any
explicit musical sounds coming from the performer, Cage encouraged audience members
to listen to and experience the ambient sounds of the concert hall as music. Although
many considered 4’33’’ more a philosophical statement than a musical composition
(Pritchett 2009, 175), Cage argued that any sounds could constitute music, and he was
known for introducing worldly sounds or noises into musical compositions (Kahn 1997,
556). Cage exerted considerable influence over what would come to be known as sound
art as other artists began incorporating sound into their work in contexts outside of the
traditional concert hall, including art galleries.
From 2000 to 2009, there were at least 128 sound art exhibitions in museums
worldwide, compared to only 21 occurrences from 1970 to 1979 (Džuverović 2020, 15).
Since then, the sonic arts have sparked considerable attention resulting in an upsurge of
exhibitions in museum settings including Soundings: A Contemporary Score (2013) at
the Museum of Modern Art, Word.Sound.Power (2013) at the Tate Modern, the travelling
exhibition Revolutions Per Minute: Sound Art China (2013-2015) (Delany 2013), and the
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traveling exhibition Seeing Sound33 (2020-2024) (Independent Curators International
2019), to name just a few. Some sound artists examine the boundaries between sound,
noise, and music, while others prefer to investigate the cultural or political implications
of certain sounds (Buffenstein 2016).
In contrast to sound art, sonification refers to the use of non-speech sound to
perceptualize and represent data. Sonification is part of an “auditory display,” a technical
device that allows the construction, transformation, and diffusion of data in auditory form
(Abenavoli 2017, 18). Auditory displays are more comprehensive systems than
sonification because they include the “aspect of conversion of sound signals into audible
sound,” thus also encompassing “the technical system used to create sound waves” or
even “all possible transmissions” occurring within the user’s context (Hermann 2008, 4).
With regards to the sonification of art, there appears to be a distinction between the use of
(pre-)recorded data, often recuperated from technical or scientific data sets or videos
(Aytar, Vondrick, and Torralba 2016) versus the use of real-time data which links the
artwork to a specific situation in time (Sinclair 2012, 174). Data sonification can be
produced with specific software like Photosounder (Liam Taylor 2018), TwoTone
(Ransbeeck 2019), or SonART, the latter being a multi-purpose multimedia environment
that allows users to integrate data from images to audio signal processing or vice versa.
SonART also fosters a “networked collaborative interaction with applications for art,
science and industry” (Yeo, Berger, and Lee 2004, 1). As a result, artistic sonification is
33
This exhibition featured sound installations by eight artists who explore the use of sound across
contemporary art practices and was curated by Barbara London who teaches in the Sound Art Department
at Columbia University. This exhibition allowed her to share her interest in artworks that both integrate
and interrogate the notion/medium of sound.
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an emerging discipline that has lead to large-scale and unique projects such as the sound
installation titled Coral Symphony (2014) that unveiled voices from the Great Barrier
Reef in Australia (Johnstone 2013). More specifically, it was “built from the sonification
of annual data cycles of Myrmidon Reef, synthesi[z]ed with sampled sounds generated
by installation participants to make long sonic tapestries” (Johnstone 2013, 194). Such
installations can be interactive, as in the case of the interactive sound installation
SoundThimble (2018), which utilizes a Vicon infrared motion capture system and custom
software “to track, interpret, and sonify the movement and gestures of a performer
relative to a virtual object” (Burloiu, Mihai, and Damian 2018, 770).
In terms of the field of multi-sensory art, one interesting trend is that of
associating ambient sound with paintings, as in the case of the former MediaLab Intern,
Ezgi Ucar, who came up with a project for “touch-sensitive sound paintings” (The Met
2021b). This practice is described as mapping sound onto an image, which is supposed to
create an analogy between sound and image through the notion of the soxel, that is a
“representation analogous to the pixel” (Lee, Yeo, and Berger 2007, 1). One way to
achieve this is to map sound loudness to image size following a linear perspective space
(Yeo, Berger, and Lee 2004, 3). In other words, the size of various elements in an image
would be mapped to sound intensity and would thus translate into multiple layers of
sonification (Clapie 2019). It is important to point out that sonic visualizations are not
limited to images or videos, as textual information can also be translated into sound. This
is exemplified with The Listening Machine, a “generative music system which
incorporated real-time conversations sourced from Twitter to produce a piece of data-
driven music of indeterminate length, parametrised by the content, sentiment and
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conversational prosody of 500 online participants” in the UK (D. Jones and Gregson
2014; Ransbeeck 2017). A similar experiment was conducted in 2017 and centred around
the translation of an academic text, a book chapter titled “The democratic (media)
revolution” into a sound art composition (Christidis and Carpentier 2017). Other
applications have combined sonification with a virtual reality environment to provide
users with a visual frame of reference and an increased sense of immersion (Morawitz
2018).
It has been argued that music is experienced by all of our senses (Tabei and
Tanaka 2012; Kerchner 2013; Russo 2019), and that it is perceived as more than just
sound (Heywood 2017, 167). Some even propose extending the definition of sonification
to include the notion of ‘musification,’ which refers to the “incorporation of data features
that represent more traditional elements of a musical work such as melody, harmony, and
rhythm” (Coop 2016, 1; Gresham-Lancaster 2012). This suggestion is all the more
important considering that music-based approaches to non-speech sound communication
date back to the early developments of a framework for interactive sonification in the
1990s (Diniz et al. 2010). When applied to music, image sonification allows musicians
and composers to use software, like SonART, as a musical device to create musical
performances (Jonathan Berger and Yeo 2005). Still, the definitions and boundaries
between sound art, sonification, and music are blurred, which leads to crossovers
between the three. Sonification, for instance, can be understood to exist within sound art
and music (Vašulka Kitchen Brno 2020), while others believe that sound art is the only
possible form of sonification (Tittel 2009) which is also used by product designers and
marketers (N. S. Levent, Pascual-Leone, and Lacey 2014; Morawitz 2018).
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The growing popularity of sound art has resulted in the creation of alternative
spaces to support its production and diffusion (Delany 2013). Such spaces are often
itinerant and can include smaller galleries like the SoundFjord, a London art gallery
“dedicated to the curation, production and promotion of sound arts and related disciplines
to a broad audience” (SoundFjord 2021) or New Adventures in Sound Art (NAISA) in
South River, Canada.
Given the advances in multi-sensory design, 3D printing, and sonification, the
question remains: why do so few contemporary artworks incorporate tactile and auditory
experiences as a means of making the art more broadly accessible? One possible reason is
the idea that non-visual elements in art, such as sound, are often used to enhance sight
(Urist 2016). Further studies must be conducted to assess the impacts of ‘sonic inclusion’
in support of a more comprehensive approach to accessibility in cultural institutions
(Renel 2019).
Curatorial activism
As revealed by Maura Reilly, American curator and author, the term “curatorial activism”
is often used to describe a practice in which curators organize art exhibitions in a manner
that ensures that certain communities are no longer excluded from mainstream art
narratives (Reilly 2017; 2018; deMontigny 2018; Farrar 2019). This practice goes beyond
curating or exhibiting political artworks34 and includes “activism through a curatorial
practice that takes ethical commitments into account” (Albarrán Diego 2018, 2). In
curatorial activism, museums are understood as “contradictory spaces for negotiating
34
This approach is known as art-activism.
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difficult relations between knowledge and politics, ethics and aesthetics, power and
participation” (Aronsson 2012, 36). A good example is the work of independent
curatorial activist Amanda Cachia, who believes that her role is to challenge museums
and broaden their perspective regarding access issues, as well as the embodiment or
representation of disabled corporeality (Cachia 2013a). Such considerations are echoed
by some museums (such as Ingenium and the Smithsonian) that have developed
guidelines for accessible exhibition design (Smithsonian n.d.; Trepanier 2018).
Curatorial activism offers a different understanding of the role of the curator:
instead of the traditionally white, male authoritarian expert, curatorial activism prioritizes
‘collaborative museology’ or ‘community curating’ as a mean to produce content with the
concerned communities (Desmarais and Jérôme 2018; Janes and Sandell 2019). One
positive outcome of this curatorial practice is that by including local people in the
decision-making process, museums provide them with greater opportunities for self-
representation and self-determination (Schultz 2011). For this reason, such an approach
could be described as ‘caring activism,’ because it acknowledges the politics of legible
co-dependencies (Krasny 2018, 3). It also implies that curators are not anchored in a
single discipline and can, therefore, wear more than one hat at a time: curators, activists,
artists, collectives, scholars, heritage groups, etc. (Farber and Mussai 2019, 3).
Conclusion
The previous literature review chapter surveyed current theories, discourses, and debates,
shedding light on the emphasis placed on vision in the art world in terms of both artistic
production and the appreciation of artworks by museum visitors. In contrast, this chapter
surveys current practices, applications, technologies, and multi-sensory initiatives aimed
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at improving the museum experience and including visually impaired audiences. Initial
efforts focused on translating visual arts into tactile representations without converting
colours into touch, whereas more recent approaches build on research findings in
cognitive psychology and sensory museology to further investigate the question of
intersensory translation.
The current study addresses a significant gap in the literature, namely finding out
more about the preferences of visitors with visual impairments in terms of multi-sensory
mediation tools that may foster an appreciation of visual art. This project, which will
result in the translation/transposition of paintings into tactile prototypes that will be
accompanied by sounds and audio descriptions, will allow us to evaluate the contribution
of multimodality in art gallery contexts. In this regard, this research builds on and
complements recent projects (Tactile Studio 2020b; Cavazos Quero, Iranzo Bartolomé,
and Cho 2021; Cho et al. 2021; The Met 2021b; AGO 2021c), and contributes to the
growing trend of museums making their content accessible to all their visitors.
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CHAPTER 4
Methods
Equitable collaboration is one of the three conditions required for participatory

action research […]. Engaging users as participants in developing design vision
has been described as the co-design era. Beyond, design research is open to
recursive action where participants may evolve as research partners.
(L. Sanders and Stappers 2013, 33)
A phenomenological approach to qualitative research
Through participatory engagement with visually impaired museum visitors, this research
will enable a better understanding of the accessibility potential of multi-sensory
approaches to current mediation practices. I decided to adopt a phenomenological35
approach (Ortiz 2013) to qualitative research because this study attempts to understand
the participants’ perspectives on the museum experience, and how paintings and colours
can be experienced through other sensory modalities (Muratovski 2016, 79). This
approach is in line with an important demand of the disability rights movement, which
states that people with disabilities should always be involved when making decisions that
concern them—as embodied by the slogan “nothing about us without us.” This phrase is
a demand for self-determination and for the recognition of the individual and collective
rights and necessities of the disabled community (Charlton 2004). Since I am sighted, I
35
Phenomenology is an approach that understands individuals’ subjective perceptions of the phenomena
around them. In this study, I am taking a constructivist (interpretivist) approach in which my role, as a
researcher, is to listen carefully to my participants’ views and interpret the findings based on their
experience.
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put my own experience aside in order to highlight and understand that of the participants
in this study (Creswell 2002, 17).
By adopting a Participatory Action Research (PAR) methodology, this study
allowed the voices of participants to be heard in the research findings, while decentering
the authority of the researcher (Liamputtong 2006, 191). The PAR approach implies that
the researcher becomes a participant in a given research project, using his or her expertise
and research knowledge to assist the co-researchers—who are the experts of their own
lived experiences—in their own co-creative process of discovery (Liamputtong 2006,
193). This research used an iterative process in which participants from the low-vision
and blind community took on the role of co-researchers and provided feedback at several
stages of the study. To move away from an ‘us and them’ approach, participants had
ongoing opportunities to influence and contribute to the direction of the design. By using
a collaborative approach, this research is more likely to result in solutions that will
benefit the low-vision and blind community (Balcazar, Keys, and Kaplan 2006, 2–4).
Methods of co-creation and co-design fostered a “collective creativity” that will apply to
each step of the process with the overall objective of bringing about change (Steen 2013,
16).
Research context
Accommodations due to COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic imposed several limitations on this research. With public
health restrictions in place, physical contact between individuals had to be limited to
ensure everyone's safety and reduce the risk of transmitting the virus. For these reasons,
my data collection was designed to be done remotely: I delivered the prototypes to the
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participants and they interacted with them at home while we met over Zoom. The
physical distancing protocols necessitated by the pandemic also impacted the selection
criteria for participants. Only individuals who had access to a computer with a built-in
camera, an internet connection, and those who lived with a sighted partner or family
member who could provide technical assistance as necessary were recruited.
Research design
Since the aim of this project was to create and improve tactile representations of paintings
by taking the input of participants from the low-vision and blind community into
consideration, I facilitated three rounds of individual interviews and one co-design
session in small groups. This study culminated in the co-design and production of two
multi-sensory prototypes, each one translating a specific painting through tactile and
audio components. Table 1 summarizes the research design and timeline associated with
each phase of the research.
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Table 1 - Visual Model of Research Design
- May 2021: Ethics clearance

Qualitative
Data - June 2021: Recruitment
Collection
- July 2021: First round of individual interviews
▪ Objectives: Select the paintings
Discuss the tactile prototypes
▪ Outcome: Production of the first tactile prototypes
- Oct. & Nov 2021: Second round of individual interviews

▪ Objective: Test the first tactile prototypes
▪ Outcome: Gather data to start rethinking the design
- February 2022: Co-design session (2 groups of 3 participants)

▪ Objectives: Suggest improvements for the prototypes
Discuss options for the audio components
▪ Outcomes: Improve tactile prototypes
Create a digital representation with sound
or audio
- March 2022: Third round of individual interviews

▪ Objective: Test the multi-sensory prototypes
▪ Outcome: Assess the potential contribution of this
technology
- September 2021 to March 2022: Transcribe interviews with Otter.ai

Qualitative
Data - December 2021 to March 2022: Coding and thematic analysis in
Analysis NVivo
Start writing chapter 4 (methods)
Start writing chapter 5 (results)
- January - March 2022: Analyze, interpret, and summarize findings

Finish writing chapters 4 and 5
Write chapter 6 (discussion)
Write chapter 7 (conclusions)
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Researcher positionality
Sometimes, researchers conducting qualitative research are part of the community they
are investigating (Moore 2012). In the case of this doctoral research, however, I chose to
work with people from the low-vision and blind community, communities to which I do
not belong. As a non-member of the group, my position as a researcher is also that of an
outsider, which implies a psychological and physical distance from the community being
studied (Manohar et al. 2017; Acker 2000). For that reason, I was mindful not to impose
my opinions or beliefs on the participants in this study, all of whom live with visual
impairments. Instead, I took on the role of facilitator during the interviews and co-design
sessions, and that of interpreter when I analyzed the data using a Critical Disability
Studies perspective. More specifically, I adopted the social model of disability as a
framework, since it is based on a more progressive understanding of disability that does
not consider the individual with a disability as defective (Haegele and Hodge 2016). The
social model states that disability is a social construct (Haegele and Hodge 2016, 194).
Rather than considering disability as something needing to be fixed (as in the medical
model of disability), the social model understands disability to be something that is
socially (and often physically) constructed: physical barriers (such as inaccessible
buildings), for example, are disabling to people in wheelchairs; discriminating attitudes
and social behaviors contribute to the exclusion of some individuals within society, etc.
(Müller 2017).
Data collection and co-creation of the multi-sensory prototypes
Prior to commencing this research, ethical clearance was sought from Carleton
University’s Office of Research Ethics (CUREB-A), and was obtained on June 17th,
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2021.36 This section will provide an overview of the different steps pertaining to the data
collection process (participant recruitment, paintings selection, semi-structured individual
interviews and co-design session), as well as to the co-creation of the multi-sensory
prototypes consisting of tactile prototypes and an augmented digital representation with
audio.
Participant recruitment
Given this study’s use of qualitative methodology, my initial goal was to recruit a total of
6 to 8 participants. Criteria for selecting the research collaborators included the
following: participants needed to be over 18, proficient in English, be visually impaired
or blind, and live in the Ottawa-Gatineau area. The selection criteria also specified that
participants must have access to a laptop or computer with a camera, along with good
internet connection. Although it was helpful if participants lived with a sighted partner or
family member who could assist as necessary, this did not constitute an exclusion
criterion.
To recruit participants, I reached out to one of my contacts at the Canadian
Council for the Blind (CCB), who forwarded the email invitation to her own contacts. For
accessibility purposes, I ensured that the email invitation could be read through
traditional text-to-voice software. Following the email invitation, I received several
messages from people who expressed interest in taking part in the study. Because it is a
close-knit community, it was not necessary for the CCB to advertise the study directly
through their digital newsletter. In this case, word of mouth was sufficient to connect
36
See Appendix B – Ethics certificate
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with members; some of the participants forwarded the recruitment materials to people
they know. Through this process, I managed to recruit a total of 6 participants. Table 2
presents demographic information about the participants, including two individuals born
blind and others who are visually impaired or with guiding vision. The average age is
about 55, with the youngest participant being 25 years old and the oldest being 79.
Similarly, the level of braille literacy varies greatly in the group, with half of the
participants being completely proficient, one user not proficient, one recent learner and
one person relying on large prints instead of braille.
Table 2 - Demographic data of participants

P1 P2 P3 P4 P5 P6
55 years old 67 years 79 years old 75 years old 25 years Late 20s
old old
Born blind Congenital Stargardt Retinitis Born blind Lost sight at 4
glaucoma macular pigmentosa y.o. after
dystrophy surgeries to
remove brain
tumor and cyst
Works at Works at Accessibility Retired Works at Worked at
CCB CCB advisory (lawyer by the government
panel profession) government (currently
unemployed)
braille braille Not a braille braille braille braille
(fully (not user (uses (recent (fully (fully
proficient) proficient) large print) learner) proficient) proficient)
Compensation and withdrawal process

Each participant was compensated in the amount of $15 after completing the second
individual interview, in the form of an Amazon gift card or Starbucks gift card. An
additional $10 Amazon or Starbucks gift card was sent to participants via email after
completing the co-design session in February. If a participant withdrew after the
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informed consent was recorded (audio consent) or signed, they were still compensated.
With regards to the withdrawal process, participants could withdraw at any time during
the data collection. If a participant withdrew their consent during the study, all
information collected from them before their withdrawal would have still been used,
unless they requested that their data be removed from the study and deleted. To do so,
they were required to give notice to the principal investigator by email before April 2022.
While no participants withdrew from the study, one participant was unable to partake in
the co-design session and last interview as they were abroad with limited internet access.
Selecting the paintings
As for the choice of painting(s)37 that were transformed into tactile prototype(s), artistic
styles such as hard-edge or geometric abstraction (e.g., Mondrian, Frank Stella, Ellsworth
Kelly, Barnett Newman) were prioritized initially. With that in mind, I spent the months
of June and July 2021 exploring the Ottawa Art Gallery’s collections database online to
find artists and artworks that could match these criteria. More specifically, when
searching through the database, my two main concerns were to ensure that the works
were within public domain or that the artist could easily be reached through the Ottawa
Art Gallery or SODRAC (Society for reproduction rights of authors, composers and
publishers in Canada), and to ensure that the various elements represented in the painting
could be represented by precise and simplified contour lines.
Based on these criteria, I made a preselection that included three artworks under
the representational painting section and two works for the abstract painting section:
37
I made the decision to choose painting as it forms the bulk of the collection in most galleries and
museums, and I wanted to work collaboratively towards making this important aspect of our cultural
heritage available to the participants.
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Section I – Representational art

1 Franklin Carmichael
In the Nickel Belt
1928
Oil on canvas
122.2 x 102.2 x 2.5 cm
Firestone Collection of
Canadian Art
The Ottawa Art Gallery
Figure 1
(Public domain)
2 Frank Johnston
Algoma Landscape
1923
Tempera on cardboard
73.4 x 98.3 cm
Canadian Art
Figure 2
(Public domain)
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3 Albert H. Robinson
Study of Mrs. W. L. Davis
1939
Oil on wood
33 x 28.6 cm
Canadian Art
Figure 3
(Public domain)
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Section II – Abstract art
4 Duncan De
Kergommeaux
Outport Icon #2
2001-2002
Oil on canvas
106.7 x 106.7 x 3.2 cm
Collection of the Ottawa

Art Gallery
Figure 4
© Duncan De Kergommeaux (rights granted to the Ottawa
Art Gallery by the artist for educational image use)
5 Takao Tanabe
Cut Corner, Landscape II
1968
Silkscreen on paper
45.4 x 45.4 cm
Collection of the Ottawa

Art Gallery
Figure 5
© Takao Tanabe (rights granted to the Ottawa Art Gallery
by the artist for educational image use)
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The Methods: Semi-structured interviews and co-design session
Data for this study was collected by conducting three rounds of individual interviews
with six participants, as well as two co-design sessions with three participants in each
group. Initially, these interviews were planned to be conducted remotely on Zoom due to
the COVID-19 pandemic. While the participants’ anonymity was guaranteed for the three
rounds of individual interviews (each participant was assigned a code name – P1, P2, P3,
P4, P5 and P6), it was difficult to guarantee their anonymity during the co-design
sessions due to the relatively close-knit nature of the Blind and Low Vision community in
the Ottawa area. In addition to a semi-structured approach for the individual interviews,
we used the “thinking aloud method” (Nielsen 2012). This approach allows participants
to think out loud while using a specific system, which in this case involved the textures
and prototypes, as a means to discover what they really thought of the design. Recordings
of the interviews and co-design sessions were transcribed using the software Otter.ai, and
the de-identified data was kept on a secure computer in a password-protected file.
First round of individual interviews – End of July 2021

At the beginning of the first interview, participants were invited to give their informed
consent orally, which was then recorded. The main objective of this first meeting was to
gather more information and ideas before fabricating the tactile prototypes. The
questionnaire design (see Appendix D) prioritized semi-structured interviews that
focused on several themes and were interposed with open-ended questions to spark
discussion and elicit more elaborate responses (Qu and Dumay 2011, 246–55; Meho
2006, 1290–91).
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The first set of questions focused on socio-demographic information about each
participant, encouraging them to introduce themselves, explain their visual impairments
and the impact they had on their life, as well as their past experiences in visiting
museums. The reasons for asking these questions were twofold: to gather information on
their lived experiences as well as their feelings of inclusion/exclusion when visiting
museums, and to evaluate if their interests or preferences in art changed with the onset of
their visual impairment. During this round of interviews, participants were also
questioned about their familiarity with raised-line drawings that are often used when
learning braille, and if they had ever experienced similar tactile tools in museums before.
Each participant was then invited to discuss opinions on the following topics: how to
translate or convey the colours of a painting, what is the appropriate scale for a 3D
printed model, and which type of textures or materials should be used in this process?
In the last part of this first meeting, I took the time to provide a verbal formal
analysis of the three figurative paintings and the two abstract works that were preselected.
These descriptions included the following: title and artist, size, colours, composition,
depth, content, figures, style. All participants were then given time to reflect, before
being asked to share their preference for each of the two categories.
Second round of individual interviews – October - November 2021

After the first round of individual interviews were conducted remotely, a few of the
participants expressed concerns about the feasibility of testing tactile prototypes via
Zoom while having to control their webcam throughout the process. For this reason, a
change to protocol was filled out in September 2021 to request permission to meet in
person with participants for the second and final individual interviews. This request was
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approved by the ethics board on September 30th, and a new certification of institutional
ethics clearance was issued.38
The second round of individual interviews (see Appendix D) was held in person
in the last week of October 2021 and the first week of November 2021. The objective of
this session was to invite participants to test texture samples, followed by one tactile
translation of Carmichael’s painting In the Nickel Belt (1958) as well as a tactile
translation of de Kergommeaux’s work, Outport Icon #2 (2001-2002). I met with each
participant individually at a location of their choice, somewhere they felt comfortable
whether it was at their home or workplace. For each of these interviews, consent for
audio recording was sought at the beginning of the meeting. Participants were invited to
use their hands to discover the tactile elements in front of them, with little to no guidance
from the researcher. They were also invited to disinfect their hands between each
manipulation. After a first exploration by themselves, interviewees were given more
explanation to help them recognize the different elements depicted and to show them how
to use the wooden guidelines.
In the last part of this second meeting, interviewees were asked about what should
be given priority between texture or colour, and about possible modifications to the two
tactile prototypes. I also asked other questions aimed at determining the best location of
such materials within a museum, and if they always should be made available or only
upon request. Participants were also reminded that they were now eligible for a $15 gift
card (Amazon or Starbucks) and were asked about their preference.
38
See Appendix C – Certification of institutional ethics clearance
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With regards to COVID-19 protocols, participants were called the morning before
each interview and were asked the screening questions that are recommended in the
Ontario Screening Guidance Document. Physical distancing was respected, and both
participants and the researcher wore surgical masks for the duration of the meeting. A
maximum of two interviews were booked per day, and each participant tested a different
set of samples, as well as prototypes. In other words, there were two identical sets of
texture samples, two identical tactile translations of Carmichael’s work, and two identical
tactile translations of de Kergommeaux’s painting. After each session, the two sets of
tactile samples and translations were disinfected thoroughly, followed by another
disinfection upon returning home. Prototypes and texture samples were quarantined for
72 hours before being taken out for the following interview.
Co-design session – February 2022

After the participants’ first exploration of the tactile prototypes in October and November
2021, the third interview (see Appendix D) adopted the format of an online co-design
session over Zoom. The objective was to brainstorm and discuss possible improvements
to the prototypes in the manner of a design fiction exploration (Ahmadpour et al. 2019,
209–10; E. B.-N. Sanders and Stappers 2014, 12–13; Turhan and Doğan 2017, 2–3).
Participants were invited to share their ideas of how such multi-sensory elements should
be designed and potentially displayed in a museum. This co-design session had two main
objectives: deciding on possible modifications or improvements for the tactile prototypes
and determining the group’s preferences in terms of the audio component.
Ultimately, the group discussion helped gather information to better understand
the relation between art—including colours, shapes, composition, and pattern—and
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audio, as well as the merits of implementing sound or audio-feedback in art museums.
For this round, I adopted a more flexible semi-structured interview format, thus ensuring
that participants experienced more freedom in voicing their opinions and that I could be
responsive to their ideas. The first group included P1 and P2, while the second group was
comprised of P4, P5 and P6. One of the participants (P3) was not able to partake in this
group activity as they were abroad with very limited internet access.
Third round of individual interviews – March 2022

Held in March, the last interview was of particular importance as it allowed participants
to experience the multi-sensory prototypes. This interview was structured around three
objectives: 1) evaluate the usefulness of adding a complementary audio component, 2)
test the multi-sensory prototypes, and 3) gather feedback on the latter as well as on the
participants’ experience in this study.
Before the participants interacted with each painting, I played a brief verbal
description (see Appendix E) of a formal analysis that described the content (colours,
imagery, etc.) as well as the context of each works’ creation and their potential
meaning(s). This was followed by a short musical interlude and instructions on how to
proceed prior to testing. While participants explored the tactile components, I used a
Samsung S7 Tablet to activate the sounds and audio-feedback correlated with each area
of the paintings simultaneously. This audio component was created with the help of
Henry Lowengard, an American digital artist who developed the iOS version of the
Adaptive Use Musical Instrument (AUMI), software that allows users to play musical
phrases and sounds through movement and gestures (Mathieu 2020). Sounds were
selected by myself based on my discussion with the participants during the co-design
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session and with the aim of choosing sounds that are easily recognizable and that
represent sonically the corresponding elements of each painting.
Given that this last interview involved a multi-sensory exploration with a hands-
on approach, it was decided that it would be preferable to meet in person. The COVID-19
protocols discussed earlier were applied and respected for this last round of interviews:
screening questions prior to meetings, hand disinfections, physical distancing and
surgical masks, maximum of two interviews per day to allow for disinfection and safe
storing of prototypes for a period of 72 hours between interviews. Lastly, after sharing
their input on the multi-sensory prototypes, participants were given the opportunity to
share feedback regarding their participation in this research.
Coding in NVivo and data analysis
The data that was collected during the three individual interviews and the co-design
session was coded in two separate rounds with the help of the qualitative data analysis
software NVivo. For the first round of coding, I decided to prioritize the structural coding
method. Also known as “anchor coding,” “utilitarian coding,” “referential coding,”
“index coding,” and “macro-coding,” this approach emphasizes the classification of data
according to research questions or specific topics (Saldaña 2013, 130–31). For this
dissertation, structural coding was manually applied to organize around key topics that
were central to the interview questions. To do so, the transcriptions of each round of
interviews were coded independently of the other rounds to better manage the quantity of
codes and to isolate themes that would then be analyzed further. A second round of data
analysis was done using simultaneous coding, meaning that one piece of text could be
categorized under more than one code. To do so, I adopted a mix of inductive and
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deductive analysis to organize data and make sense of significant patterns or themes
(Bloomberg and Volpe 2018, 233).
Tactile prototypes
The process of co-creating the tactile prototypes started after the first round of individual
interviews in which the aim was to gather further ideas for textures with the end goal of
producing a prototype tactile translation of Carmichael and de Kergommeaux’s works.
This section will focus on the different stages of the production of these tactile elements,
discussing the technical aspects of their production and giving credit to the two external
partners involved in the project.
Partnership with Lezar3D

For the 3D printing needs of this project, I chose to work with the Montréal-based
company Lezar3D, having collaborated previously with the owner, Robert Gagnon, for
my Master’s project. This small company specializes in product development, 3D
printing, and prototyping.
Participatory Action Research in Practice

The precepts of Participatory Action Research and co-design stipulate that the
researcher—or designer—must take on the role of a participant, translator, or facilitator
between the users and the designers (L. Sanders and Stappers 2013). One of the
challenges in this study is that I am not part of the same community as my participants.
As a sighted person, I must be careful not to make assumptions or speak in their place.
Consequently, I made a conscious effort not to influence participants in any way during
the interview, and to place great value on their input and implement it, when feasible.
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Production of the first set of tactile prototypes

After several discussions via Zoom, I decided to use the same method as for the Pellan
project that constituted my MA thesis: the molds of the textures would be 3D printed
before being filled with silicone and then demolded. This technique has become one of
Robert Gagnon’ specialities. The decision to use the same method was reinforced by the
context of the global COVID-19 pandemic, which called for materials that could easily
be disinfected.
Because the original works did not necessarily have outlines, I provided Robert
with some visual instructions to indicate where the lines would be situated for each
painting. Although the outlines for de Kergommeaux’s work could be determined easily,
they were less apparent in Carmichael’s painting where the different layers of valleys,
smoke, rain, and clouds needed to be manually drawn and numbered in Microsoft Paint.
Figure 6
Visual guidelines and instructions for 3D printing made with Microsoft Paint
Source: Original works from Franklin Carmichael (public domain) and Duncan De
Kergommeaux (rights granted to the Ottawa Art Gallery by the artist for educational image use)
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Different materials were used to produce the different textures including silicone
20A for the white and yellow, silicone 30A for the blue and green, as well as urethane
flexible PMC for black and red. The wooden outlines on the other hand, were made from
MDF, a task that was outsourced to another Montréal-based company, uMake, which
specializes in laser cutting, CNC, waterjet cutting, and UV printing. These outlines were
then assembled by Robert Gagnon, as illustrated by Figure 9 below. Three different types
of glue were used for assembling the prototypes, namely Cyanoacrylate glue, Gorilla glue
in tube, and LePage Ultimate. Prior to gluing the different elements together, the
assembling process required Robert to adjust the 3D printed molds to fit seamlessly
between the wooden outlines (see Fig. 9 below).
Figure 7
Initial tests for 3D printed molds with demolded silicone texture samples
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Figure 8
Wooden outlines of the two paintings before and after assembling
Figure 9
Adjusting the 3D molds within the wooden frames
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Figure 10
Colour testing to find the closest tints for each texture
Figure 11
Unmolding the water texture for the second prototype
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Figure 12
Assembling the tactile prototypes and mounting of demolded silicone textures
Dye was then added to the silicone mixtures to try to match the different colours of the
painting’s components more closely (Fig. 10 above). The next step included casting the
silicone into the molds, waiting for them to set before demolding by section (Fig. 11
above), and gluing the sections together, using clamps when needed (Fig. 12 above).
After a few weeks of work, Lezar3D's printers completed the plastic molds needed to
make the two tactile translation prototypes. More time was then required to assemble
them. Two prototypes were made for each painting, bringing their total number to 4. This
decision was made to shorten the waiting time between interviews, and to comply with
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the ethics board demand for a 72-hour quarantining of the prototypes between each
participant.
New challenges
This doctoral research brought its share of new challenges. Among these was the question
of what to do when the same colour is used to represent different elements of a painting?
In the case of the Carmichael’s painting, the colour blue is used to represent the clouds
(Fig. 29, texture 4 and 5 above), but also the rain (Fig. 29, texture 1). This situation begs
the question what is more important: translating the colours or translating the narrative of
a painting into a tactile format? This question is relevant when thinking about how
textures can be created when there is not necessarily a link to the content it depicts.
Texture 8 (Fig. 29) is a good example of this: it was randomly created to represent the
turquoise colour, which is used by the Duncan de Kergommeaux to colour a boat, but
also some of the buildings found in his work. These questions suggest that further
research is needed on this topic.
Augmented digital representations of the prototypes
During the early stages of this research, one of the secondary objectives was to examine
the use of non-speech audio, also known as ‘sonification,’ in the perception of colour for
people with visual impairments. I had a series of interesting exchanges with Henry
Lowengard, the American digital artist hired to help with the audio component. These
discussions were focused around how sonification can be digitally generated based on a
hierarchical segmentation of each painting, a method which assigns a label to every pixel
in the image. However, as the interviews unfolded, participants expressed a preference
for verbal descriptions and simple sounds that are related to what is being represented.
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Given that the approach used in this research is one of collaboration and co-design,
decisions pertaining to the sounds of the audio component were determined by the
participants themselves.
From a technical point of view, it was decided not to have audio embedded
directly into the tactile prototypes due to the uncertainties arising from the COVID-19
pandemic. As it was impossible to know if the interviews could be held in person
throughout the entire data collection process, the decision was made to separate the audio
component from the tactile elements. After discussing the matter with Jesse Stewart and
Henry Lowengard, it was apparent that an alternative solution would be to make use of a
tablet’s touch screen interface to trigger sounds simultaneously as participants were
touching the corresponding area on the tactile models (see Figure 13 below).
Figure 13
Visual diagram to help visualize the proposed methodology. The image on the left represents the
participant exploring a prototype with his fingers, while the image on the right represents the
researcher holding the iPad with the digital replica of the tactile prototype.
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Lowengard explained that it would be possible for him to develop the audio component
as a webapp that would run on iPad, Android, or other tablets. Another advantage was
that this webapp can be loaded when the tablet is connected to internet, and then used
offline through the browser’s cache.
One component of the audio included ten different sounds that played
continuously as long as one’s finger touched the related section on the tablet, fading out
when one removed it. In this case, and due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the audio
component could not be implemented directly into the tactile board. For this reason, and
because we used an Android tablet to trigger the audio, participants could not be the one
controlling it as sight was needed to do so. We also decided to incorporate a one- or two-
word description of the pictorial element being touched. This functionality was set up so
that a two-finger tap would trigger a longer verbal description. During this session, I
watched participants run their fingers along the model as well as double-tap, and I
mirrored the movement on the Android tablet.
Another component of the audio is a short description of each of the paintings that
include a brief presentation of each artwork, followed by a musical segment, and
instructions on how to use the tactile translations. I made this recording using a free voice
synthesis software and edited it with a free digital audio workstation called Audacity to
add the music and ambient sound. The short musical clip was added in response to
requests made by some of the participants to include music that would convey the mood
of each work. I played each audio description prior to the multi-sensory exploration of
the prototypes.
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Conclusion
This chapter presented the methods used to gather data about the experience of
participants with museums and exhibitions, as well as their needs in such contexts and
their experience of the multi-sensory prototypes. The choice of qualitative methodologies
included two rounds of individual interviews followed by one co-design session and a
final individual interview. Using verbatim transcripts of the three rounds of individual
interviews and co-design session, I coded each round of data separately in NVivo: first by
determining categories through open coding and secondly by doing a round of axial
coding to expose the key themes. This chapter also introduced the different steps behind
the technical process of producing of the multi-sensory prototypes and the sonified
elements.
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CHAPTER 5
Results
Over the last decade, the prominence of disability studies in accessibility

research has increased and driven work that centers the perspectives of disabled
people. In general, accessibility research often examines the experiences of
disabled people through observations, interviews, interactive design activities,
and user studies with the common goal of identifying difficulties, frustrations,
and opportunities to relieve access barriers. This can have significant positive
impact; however, problem solving does not capture the full relationship between
disability and technology.
(Hofmann et al. 2020, 1)
Qualitative findings
This section will present an overview of the data findings for each round of interviews,
while also explaining the coding process in NVivo and the subsequent in-depth analysis
of data.
Semi-structured interviews and co-design session

During the first round of individual interviews, a variety of perspectives were expressed
in response to questions designed to assess participants’ previous experiences with
museums; their preferences regarding texture, colour, and scale; and the painting
selection. Although all the participants confirmed having visited museums, a recurrent
theme in these interviews was a shared sense that museums were not for them and that
exhibited content is most often inaccessible. Despite these negative views, four out of the
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six respondents reported positive and accessible experiences within museums thanks to
mediation accompanying the artworks, the physical orientation and/or navigational aids
in the space, and the staff training or interaction.
When asked about the type of textures they appreciate, a minority of participants
indicated that they have no preference, and there was no consensus among the other
participants. In fact, the experience of texture proved to be very subjective: one of the
interviewees expressed a dislike for “ugly, rough kind of textures.” Another participant
refrained from answering and instead expressed apprehension due to their lack of
familiarity with the type of textures and ‘substances’ that might be used in this project.
Concerns about the subjective nature of textures were brought forth in discussions about
colours, particularly pertaining to an individuals’ level of colour recognition. For
instance, one interviewee argued that people who are born blind might have ‘some
comprehension issue of colour,’ and noted that colour generally translates into a mental
image. Two participants also explained how many individuals associate certain emotions
with specific colours based on their feelings, as exemplified by the following excerpt:
I find a lot of vision impaired people describe it based on feelings. They're like,
oh, pink is very fun. Yellow is very warm. But to me, it's just not even enough,
maybe because of again, my standards and from what I remember. So, perhaps
sometimes there may not be just one sensory modality. (Participant 6, first
interview, July 2021)
Additionally, the subjective nature of colour and touch perception was reinforced by the
diversity of opinion on how to best describe colours, with one participant prioritizing
simple vocabulary (i.e., red, yellow), while another expressed an interest in detailed
descriptions of colours (i.e., blue based red versus yellow based red or matte versus
shiny). While a minority pointed at the difference between colours’ subtleties and
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contrast, all agreed that colours, including the language used to described them, are
highly important.
The key themes that emerged from these discussions include the following: the
impact of visual impairment on their lives; experience with technologies; the importance
of braille; opinions on, and criticisms of, museums’ accessibility levels; examples of
good experiences; and the components of tactile representations. The latter will be
analyzed further under the section on coding in this chapter.

In contrast with the first round of individual interviews, the second round was more
hands-on and was comprised of three tasks: exploring the texture samples by touch,
exploring the tactile translation of Carmichael’s In the Nickel Belt, and exploring the
second prototype based on de Kergommeaux’s painting. Consequently, the participants
spent most of the time testing the tactile components of the project while verbally
commenting on their experience as they went along, following the “thinking aloud”
method employed in usability testing. In doing so, they not only shared their impressions
of the textures or prototypes, but also explained their approaches to this tactile
exploration.
Exploration Pattern
The most frequent exploration pattern was: left to right (like reading a book),
edges to the inside, bottom to top, and top to bottom.
The Nature of the audio Component
Throughout their tactile explorations, participants were questioned about what
type of audio component should be added to enhance the tactile prototypes. These
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discussions addressed the place of braille in such initiatives in comparison to audio, as
illustrated by the following comment:
Okay, so at school when I was given assignments with maps, and I was given a
braille legend, I would have my braille legend on my left, and then the map on
my right. And in braille, I would have, for example, like number one, and it would
say, Canada, now on the map, where you'd have these blank spaces for countries,
I would have to have number one in a blank space, and then that's that I would
know as Canada […]. If there was some sensory touch where you touched it, and
then it made a sound, like the iPhone. I'm not sure what else I could suggest that
that I can think of right now. But that's what's coming to mind. And weirdly that
makes sense. (Participant 6, second interview, October 2021)
Taken together, the second interviews' results demonstrated a strong interest in the
addition of an audio component, with all six participants expressing interest in something
consisting of audio descriptions, sound or music with no vocals, or some combination
thereof.
Feelings of exclusion
These interviews brought to light what might be considered a form of injustice
when it comes to the lack of cultural training of some people with visual impairment.
Discussing this issue, an interviewee voiced a sense of perceived disadvantage due to not
being trained to interpret a painting:
Because I have never looked at art from a young age… I guess, kids, they start
to look at paintings. Well, similar to how we listen to music. So, I would start
listening to music. And I would start to understand that this is harmony…
Baroque music sounds like this and classical music, and rock music sounds like
that. And country music doesn't, and so you gradually sort of learn things that
you then know for the rest of your life, when you're analyzing music, or literature
or… It's just that nobody gave me an education, a similar education for art. So,
I didn't have—and still don't have—the concepts down, like from a long time
where I would know, all this means that in a picture. … I feel like I'm behind.
(Participant 1, second interview, November 2021)
Such a feeling was echoed by another participant’s comment on the fact that museums
were not welcoming places because she felt people did not believe they were a place for
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her. In making this comment, she sounded like she was internalizing parts of the stigma
associated with blindness and the fact that museums are, first and foremost, places where
one gazes at artworks. In total, four of the six participants directly raised the theme of
exclusion, sharing opinions that were very similar as those mentioned above.
Representational Textures
As with the first round of interviews, participants were divided about the textures
presented. The participants’ disagreement related to a preference, on one hand, for more
textural subtleties (2) and, on the other, a preference for more pronounced textures (4), in
addition to the specific textures themselves. Interestingly, the textures that obtained the
most positive and spontaneous reactions are the ones that were developed in my master’s
project, namely the white, red, and black textures. These findings are analyzed in further
detail later in this chapter, under the section pertaining to the NVivo coding of the second
round of interviews. The last two themes that were raised during this session were the
potential challenges of implementing such prototypes in museums and accessibility
considerations.

As part of the co-design session, the participants were split into two groups and
were asked to share their insights on three key topics: their experience with the tactile
prototypes, ideas for the audio component that would accompany them, and painting
accessibility. These topics were based on the initial ethics approve protocol script (see
Appendix D) and were used to prompt the discussion among participants. This session
was held in small groups, leaving enough space for all to express themselves on these
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subjects. Questions were mostly open ended, and the structure of the session was flexible
to allow participants to identify new topics.
Inaccessibility
When going through the data collected during this session, the first thing that
stands out is that all five participants shared the same sentiment regarding the
inaccessibility of paintings. During the first round of individual interviews, each of them
was asked if they thought museums were accessible. Most of them answered no, before
explaining the different reasons why they felt excluded in such spaces, one of them being
that paintings were not accessible to them. Yet, when being asked specifically about the
level of access to paintings, the group provided more insight on a concern voiced in the
first interview about feeling as though museums are not for them. This time, participants
explained that access to paintings was denied to them because of their disability, and that
visual arts were primarily made available to sighted visitors, who make up the majority of
the museums' clientele:
It's a gray area for me here where equality, you know, how does equality come
into play in a situation like this out of respect and consideration for the sighted
world--which is the majority--and the sighted world has to be respectful and
considerate of us? Is it possible that the blind and the sighted can be in a museum
together, and, and be complementary to each other? It’s not like I wouldn't want
to be in the museum where I was in a room by myself because I'm blind. But yet,
it would really bother me if I was out with the general public, and holding
somebody up, like I was slowing the flow... (Participant 2, co-design session,
February 2022)
Most of the interviewees reflected on the meaning of equality within the museum space,
while also demonstrating a significant sense of awareness to the needs of the majority of
sighted visitors.
All five respondents reported having only a vague recollection of the prototypes
tested a few months earlier and their feedback was rather generic in nature:
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You have, I'm sure, the different light and the different rays. And it adds so much
to it. But when you can't see, you can't see that detail, no matter what shape it is,
it wouldn't provide enough detail to be able to guess what on earth that is. I could
not distinguish. (Participant 6, co-design session, February 2022)
These comments are explained in further detail in the next section on NVivo coding, and
their analysis confirmed the importance of having an audio component alongside the
tactile elements.
The second interview laid the groundwork for an initial conversation
about the audio component, specifically by allowing participants to share their
ideas about the audio description, sound, and music without lyrics. The group
discussion allowed participants to further explore those ideas. Participants
generally preferred the use of a single sound to represent the subject with which
it is associated, such as the sound of a downpour to denote the rain in
Carmichael's painting. Interviewees also debated the roles of volume, intensity,
and duration, and three participants agreed that there is a need for an adjustable
control button for volume. They also noted that intensity is important, and that
the duration of each sound should be as long as the surface is touched.
Another finding that emerged from the co-design session data analysis
was that while sounds alone coupled with the tactile prototypes might carry a lot
of information, it might not be enough to truly convey what the paintings are
about.
Third round of individual interviews – March 2022

Like the second round for individual interviews, the third session provided the five
participants with the opportunity to test the multi-sensory prototypes translating
Carmichael’s and de Kergommeaux’s works. This interview was thus structured around
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three key objectives: listening to the audio guide; testing the multi-sensory prototypes;
and gathering feedback on the audio guide, digital soundmap, and tactile components.
Data collected from these interviews demonstrated a very positive overall response from
the participants regarding the audio and tactile components as well as the multi-sensory
experience. While these results will be analyzed in further detail in the next section on the
NVivo coding, one of the key findings was the widespread agreement that adding the
audio component not only enhanced participants’ understanding and appreciation of these
works, but also significantly enriched their experience. Commenting on the sounds that
were added to the Carmichael prototype, one of the interviewees suddenly paused, teary-
eyed, and said he was a little lost for words, before going on to explain how he believed
this unique project could change museums:
If I could go to a museum and feel stuff like this... I'd probably go back some
other time. But up until this point, museums have just not been a place of interest
to me at all—like zero interest. Like if you wanted to punish me for something
you know, take me to a museum basically. … But now, this project is alive. This
is fun. (Participant 2, third individual interview, March 2022)
This view was echoed by the other participants. Beyond their verbal comments, there
seemed to be a shared sense of enthusiasm and excitement over experiencing these multi-
sensory prototypes.
Another finding that emerged after analyzing the interview transcriptions was
related to the order of the multi-sensory exploration,39 which was not a topic that was
covered in the questions. At first, when discussing the audio guide, most participants
seemed to approve of the order in which information was presented; that is, the verbal
39
Refer to Fenko, Schifferstein, and Hekkert (2009) for more information on the ways sensory dominance
evolves through the different stages of product design, though their study does not focus specifically on
people with visual impairments.
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description first, followed by a musical interlude, and then instructions. Near the end of
the interview, however, one interviewee stated that she would prefer music to be played
at the very beginning, and another noted that the order was good, but that it should start
with a detailed description of the painting. Another potential concern arose during the
participant 1 interview. I had originally planned to play the audio guide before placing
the tactile component in front of the participant. After doing so for the first prototype,
Participant 1 requested that the second prototype be placed in front of her while the audio
guide was playing, allowing her to get a sense of the painting as a whole. This request
was recurrent as 2 other participants made it, which demonstrated that for such an
initiative to be functional in a museum setting, the sounds of the soundmap would have to
be activated as needed by the user, possibly by means of pressure sensors. Once the audio
guide finishes playing, participants would have the option of activating the soundmap and
experiencing the multi-sensory version of the paintings.
Another recurrent theme for two of the participants was the idea of equality. One
participant shared her hope for museums to become spaces in which visual arts could be
accessed simultaneously both by visually impaired and sighted visitors:
[…]maybe right beside like, have a display where people can touch it, like
beside the actual painting itself, so that somebody [sighted] look[s] at the
painting and people who are visually impaired look at the tactile
representation. (Participant 5, third individual interview, March 2022)
While it is complicated to assess whether such an experience is comparable to that of a
sighted person looking at the original painting, a number of interesting reflections were
expressed.
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Coding in NVivo and data analysis

Data from the first round of individual interviews were categorized in distinct themes: the
impact of visual impairment on their lives; experience with technology; the importance of
braille; opinions on, and criticisms of, museums’ accessibility levels; examples of good
experiences; and the components of tactile representations.
As shown in Figure 14 below, the first central theme to emerge from these
discussions was the impact of visual impairment on the participants’ lives, which was
grouped into three clusters: positive, neutral, negative. Several participants identified
what they perceived as the positive influence their visual impairments had on their lives
including getting accommodations or benefiting from accessible public transportation,
working with guide dogs, increasing their creative thinking, and having an enriched
social life. Interviewees also identified barriers and negative consequences to living with
a visual impairment, noting that they felt a need to ask for accommodations in a world
that was designed with sighted people in mind. To face these obstacles, they must
develop physical resilience, strong organizational skills, and emotional stability. Other
negative impacts included being confronted by misconceptions about blindness, getting
asked very personal questions about their impairment, relying heavily on multi-sensory
perception, and navigating difficulties that resulted in limited access. According to the
participants, such misconceptions about blindness are commonplace in society and often
stem from an either-or mentality in which the only two possible scenarios are that people
are either completely blind or not at all. This mentality fails to recognize the wide variety
of existing diagnoses and visual impairments. Other misconceptions mentioned during
the interviews were the idea that blind people are not intelligent, and the belief that
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because of their disability, places that rely heavily on the visual dimension such as
cinemas and museums are not for them.
The topic of braille came up on numerous occasions with participants noting some
of its common uses, such as in elevators, on bank notes, or in a cabin, on a cruise ship.
They also mentioned the limitations of braille, noting that bilingualism is a challenge
because more space is required to make content accessible in both official languages.
They also felt that the location of braille labels lacks consistency within museums.
Another lesser-known problem is that a large proportion of people who lose their sight
under the age of 50 due to diabetic retinopathy have neuropathy, a comorbidity that
translates into a loss of tension in the fingers. As a result, reading braille can be much
more difficult for these people who struggle to distinguish the different characters.
Concerns were also shared regarding the limitations of braille as a language, with the
most important being that only a very small percentage of the population of vision-
impaired people are proficient users.
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Figure 14
NVivo data visualization based on the first individual interviews summarizing
the impact of visual impairment on the participants’ lives
As noted by Participant 4, the recent decline in the number of braille users could
be explained by the development of new technologies that are readily available on cell
phones, which makes it less necessary to learn braille. Nevertheless, half of the
interviewees stressed the importance of braille, arguing that it should be mandatory in
school and outlining its potential in making museums more accessible.
On the topic of technologies, the participants’ responses were very positive, and
one of the participants even alluded to the fact that “there has been a revolution in the last
10 years and even in the last five years, with alternate technology, mainly through the
iPads, iPhones and so on.” In fact, participants were enthusiastic about new technologies
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such as Voice Dream scanner, a software that can read medicine labels or complete PDF
documents, or Voice Dream Reader, a software that can read entire books thanks to
artificial speech. Similarly, if the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in new accessibility
issues for some, participants generally found that videoconferencing software such as
Zoom allowed them to participate more easily as it did not involve physical presence.
Another underlying theme that emerged from the data analysis was the question
of accessibility in museums. While a minority of participants recognized that museums
are slowly improving through the implementation of new technologies such as 3D
printing or documentaries, a common view among interviewees was that museums are far
from being entirely accessible. Their comments and criticisms included the following:
museums were largely inaccessible online during the COVID pandemic, accessibility is
not necessarily inclusive, museums are difficult spaces to navigate, museum staff lacks
training around accessibility, and there remains a lot of work to be done to make
museums accessible. First and foremost, participants all shared the impression that
museums were not for them, noting how they were unaware of what services are
available to them and pointed out that the entrance fees at some galleries (notably the
National Gallery of Canada) are too high for non-sighted people considering the limited
number of accessible artworks. Respondents also reported several types of barriers
ranging from alarms that go off when they try to take a closer look to insufficient audio
descriptions and the inaccessibility of paintings. As a result, some comments were made
that museums were “boring” or “not appealing,” mainly because of the lack of a tactile
experience and audio descriptions. Discussing this issue, an interviewee likened his
situation to having blindfolded visitors touring a museum by themselves:
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Yeah, it would have to be audio described because having a museum that’s not
audio described, it’s like inviting your sighted friends in there and blindfolding
them, and telling them to enjoy themselves. Well, if you really want them to enjoy
themselves, you can't let them go in and blindfold them. Because there's nothing
to enjoy. (Participant 2, first interview, July 2021)
Other discussions revolved around positive experiences participants had when
visiting museums in the past (see Figure 16 below). Based on the interviewees’
comments, these positive experiences might be attributed to three specific
reasons, namely the mediation of the artworks, the orientation or navigation in
the space, and the museum staff. Defined as the “full range of tools and
resources used to forge a relationship between the visitor and a work of art,” the
notion of mediation is often associated with the curators’ work, and refers to
exhibitions, catalogues, lectures, guided tours, installations or workshops
(Louvre-DNP 2010).
Figure 15
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NVivo data visualization based on the first individual interviews summarizing opinions and
criticisms of museums’ accessibility levels
Figure 16
NVivo data visualization based on the first individual interviews summarizing positive
experiences that participants had when visiting museums
During their first individual interviews, participants described the following forms
of mediation as inclusive: artifacts or replicas that can be touched, braille books,
narrations, tactile rooms with braille labels and models that can touched, special tours for
visitors with visual impairments, interactive features, and video documentaries with audio
descriptions. Spatial orientation or navigation was another recurrent sub-theme
throughout these initial interviews and several favorable aspects were listed by the
participants including the contribution of audio guides that describe the exhibition space,
railings, tactile maps, and braille maps. Furthermore, the participants noted that some
museum staff members contribute to making the visit experience more meaningful by
beta testing with the low-vision and blind community prior to implementing new tools
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and by supplementing the guided tours with detailed audio descriptions. Some employees
and security guards also allowed participants to touch some artifacts or turned off alarms
to let them take a closer look.
Figure 17 below provides an overview of the participants’ views on the key
components of tactile representations as well as their potential limitations. These
components were organized into four distinct groups: audio component, colours, scale,
and textures. Regarding the audio component, some participants felt that sound should
come before touch, while others were mostly concerned with the idea of associating a
sound with a specific emotion by using different music styles or musical fragments to
represent different colours. When asked about translating colours through touch, a variety
of ideas were expressed by interviewees ranging from the need to describe colours simply
to providing a more detailed description to explain the nuances of a colour palette. The
majority of participants agreed with the idea of creating a tactile representation of a
painting, stressing the importance of including contrast or a braille label, while one
individual estimated there was no need to translate colours tactilely. In response to being
asked what the ideal size of a tactile representation should be, most interviewees argued
that it must be adjusted to be accessible within arm’s reach.
Other suggestions were made regarding the content of the tactile representation,
including the need to focus on some elements only, or to be allowed to touch the edges of
the original works and those of the representations to help understand their scale.
Furthermore, discussions surrounding the texture component led to different opinions
with some participants stressing the importance of using textures that align with colours,
and others advocating for the use of only one texture per colour and pairing these textures
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with an audio description. Participants also shared their preferences, identifying velvet,
fur, and tiles as their favorite textures, versus very rough textures like wool, tiny textures
like feathers, wet newspaper, slimy, slippery, or “ugly” textures. Two of the interviewees
introduced the question of temperature changes to represent colour changes, stressing that
cold colours like blue should be associated with low temperature, like using an icepack.
Beyond design considerations, the idea of creating a tactile representation raised some
concerns with participants noting that not everyone has the physical ability to see colours
or have colour recognition and touching takes more time than listening. They also noted
that gloves make it more difficult to feel or differentiate textures—particularly for people
who lost their sight due to diabetes and have less sensitivity left in their fingers. The
participants also stressed that the experience of art is subjective and therefore, the
experience of tactile representations of a work of art will necessarily be subjective too.
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Figure 17
NVivo data visualization based on the first individual interview summarizing the discussions on
tactile representation
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After coding data from the second round of individual interviews, multiple themes
emerged: approaches to tactile exploration; the audio component; the place of braille in
such initiatives; individual cultural training or background; and the two tactile prototypes
including their textures, their level of accessibility, and challenges associated with their
use.
The first theme identified in these responses is summarised in Figure 18 below,
which is organized around two main categories: possible approaches to tactile
exploration, and possible limitations or factors that influence a person’s exploration.
Although the sample size is too small to correlate participants' familiarity with braille
with the way they explored the tactile textures and prototypes, the participants in this
study used four approaches: left to right (like reading a book), edges to the inside, bottom
to top, and top to bottom.
Figure 18
NVivo data visualization based on the second individual interviews
summarizing the different approached to tactile exploration
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While interviewees mentioned that these approaches can depend on several factors like
finger sensitivity or braille reading, they noted that sufficient residual vision to detect
contrast, minimal colour perception, or some level of detail would have a greater impact
on their tactile approach. For instance, when exploring the first tactile translation of
Carmichael’s painting, Participant 3 said that because she did have some vision, “[t]he
white spot hit me so I would definitely go there first” (Participant 3, second interview,
October 2021).
When discussing the audio component that would accompany these tactile
prototypes, the four participants acknowledged its importance. As shown in Figure 19
(below), adding an audio component was deemed to be more accessible than braille and
participants highlighted the complementary nature of touch and hearing. One participant
felt that the audio component would either make or break this project, thus reiterating its
importance for the next steps. When asked about what they would like to hear through the
audio component, participants were divided between two different types of content. Some
interviewees expressed a desire for an audio description that would provide an
explanation of the following elements for each tactile translation: how to use the wooden
guidelines, what are the colours like, what is the narrative, what does each texture mean,
and where are each elements located? They also wanted to hear non-speech audio,
whether it was music to convey the mood of the painting or atmospheric sounds such as
the noise of falling rain or the sonic environment of a port. Depending on the option
being examined, participants proposed different ways to implement them, ranging from
more traditional technologies like an audio guide, headphones, or a mobile phone
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application, to more complex ideas such as having the audio component directly
embedded in the tactile prototypes or activated by buttons.
Figure 19
summarizing the discussions on the audio component
While the first round of interviews revealed that participants did recognize the
importance of braille, as well as its limitations, the second meeting led to a general lack
of consensus concerning whether braille should be used with these prototypes. Some
interviewees argued in favor of creating a braille booklet or a braille legend of the
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different textures, whereas others believed it was not needed because audio or large prints
would be more accessible. The latter also pointed out that the very nature of these tactile
prototypes which involves tactile exploration, would make it very difficult to concentrate
enough to read braille at the same time.
Figure 20
NVivo data visualization based on the second individual interviews summarizing the tactile
exploration of the first prototype by participants, with little audio guidance
The fourth theme focused on the notion of cultural training or background,
culminating in a very interesting discussion that intersects with some of the elements
contained in Figure 14. More specifically, this second meeting shed light on how the
museum setting is not welcoming for people who are vision impaired because of some
key aspects that constitute obstacles for this group: lack of places to sit, online
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inaccessibility, staff lacking proper training to welcome and guide people with visual
impairments, social expectations that assume museums are for sighted people, and the
mandatory wearing of gloves for touch-based tours. An additional barrier that was
highlighted in this round of interviews is a lack of proper cultural training or
background—some participants felt that they were never taught how to experience
paintings and decode their symbols because of their disability.
As is apparent in Figure 20 (above), the tactile exploration of the first prototype
translating Franklin Carmichael’s painting titled In the Nickel Belt resulted in a mitigated
response, which at times was marked by enthusiasm and at other times by confusion. As
mentioned previously, while exploring this first prototype, participants were given very
little guidance and were asked to provided verbal feedback on what they felt when
touching the tactile prototype. While completing this task, some participants expressed
satisfaction when they recognized key elements of the paintings, namely the rain, the
clouds, and the grass or ground texture used to depict the valleys. In comparison, a
majority of participants expressed confusion when trying to read the prototype given the
juxtaposition of different textures as well as the apparent lack of interaction between
them. One participant noted that some of the pictorial elements, rain for example, are
things that we don’t typically explore through tactile exploration, which makes it more
difficult to connect some of the elements in the painting to their real-world counterparts.
This led to a discussion of the choice of silicone to represent natural elements, and the
reasons for having a clear separation between each texture. If such separation appeared to
make sense when trying to translate the artistic content of the painting, this same
respondent wondered if it these separations should be more flexible to allow the
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elements, in this case the rain, to interact with the valleys. Consequently, more
interviewees struggled with the lower part of the tactile translation of Carmichael’s
painting which consisted of several valleys, but even more so with the volcano. Several
participants asked questions about the timeline of its eruption and although one
participant found that the texture used to represent the volcano’s smoke did not feel
dangerous, others thought this texture was interesting and a good choice. While this
round of tactile exploration was not accompanied by audio description or guidance, it did
shed light on the fact that such an initiative would not be accessible without a tactile or
braille legend. It was noted that this legend should also provide users with more
contextualization about the painting and artist.
After exploring the tactile translation of Carmichael's piece, participants were
invited to test a second prototype, this one offering a tactile version of Outport Icon #2, a
painting by Duncan de Kergommeaux (see Fig. 21 below). Once again, this tactile
exploration was done with limited audio guidance to identify potential problems specific
to the use of this tactile format. Before starting this task, interviewees were reminded of
the title of the painting and of the fact that it is more abstract than the previous work they
explored. The topic of abstract art was met with different reactions as participants shared
their initial expectations prior to their tactile exploration. Some of them assumed the
abstract nature of this painting would translate into a more creative work, one that might
not contain representational elements like birds or trees. For others, this was an indicator
that they would be looking for specific shapes in the painting—such as a banana shape
for the moon—or that the perspective might be different as if from a bird's eye view.
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Figure 21
NVivo data visualization based on the second individual interviews summarizing the tactile
exploration of the second prototype, with little audio guidance
These opinions were echoed by another participant who wondered if more audio
description might be needed when dealing with abstract art:
Like, how much detail do you need? How much more information do you need
when you do an abstract [piece] because there isn't a picture that forms in
somebody's mind naturally. And I mean, if you're thinking of Picasso, who has
pieces all over one thing, he deconstructed stuff... You know? (Participant 2,
second interview, October 2021)
Four of the six participants were able to recognize the shape of one or more boats,
and among them, participant number two noted the difference in size between certain
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boats, using specific terms like ‘pont,’ ‘canoe,’ or ‘dory’ to describe them. Moreover, half
of those surveyed recognized the shape of the moon, with one participant noting that ‘this
circle up here could be the moon or the sun’ (Participant 4, second interview, October
2021). Based on the title of the painting and using deductive logic concerning the boats,
three of the participants correctly pinpointed the texture of water or waves. Some
components proved more difficult to recognize including the port structure, the houses,
the water texture, the proximity of each of the painting’s elements to one another, and the
boat shapes alternating between a side view and front view. Some participants ultimately
justified this confusion by the lack of audio description and the absence of a sound
environment which could help to convey the harbor atmosphere. While the artist’s
depiction of this environment appears to be imprinted with a sense of tranquility, some
interviewees shared different understandings of what a harbor should look and sound
like.
Data gathered from the tactile exploration of the texture samples and two
prototypes provided a clear overview of the participants' appraisal of the textures. After
coding this data with NVivo, the topic of the tactile textures was organized into three sub-
categories: importance of colours, general comments, and specific comments. Figure 22
indicates that participants noted that the importance of colours was highly dependent on
vision levels, including the ability to perceive details, colours, or contrast. When asked if
several textures could have the same colour—such as it is the case with the water, cloud
and rain textures, all of which were tinted the same blue colour—one participant said
such a decision would be acceptable if explained beforehand. Others debated the
importance of having colours that reflect the colours used in the original painting, over
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the importance of having a texture that conveys content tactilely like when using diagonal
lines to represent falling rain. Some of the more general comments addressed the
participants' individual preferences, which included the following points: the material is
easy to clean, ‘I don’t like irregularity,’ ‘I like uniformity,’ ‘I like the rubbery material,’
‘I prefer more rigid textures,’ and ‘I like when shapes are different.’
More importantly, no consensus was reached regarding the ideal balance between
the subtleties of some textures and the parts of other textures that are sticking out. As for
the more specific comments about textures, they also reflect a lack of consensus: one
participant indicated that they disliked a certain texture while another said they liked it as
is. The water texture, for instance, was appreciated by some participants who thought it
was calming and said it felt like waves but disliked by others who would have preferred
more tactile contrast for the waves, more space between them, or the use of a more rigid
material—like the one used for the red and black textures.
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Figure 22
summarizing the discussions on the tactile texture
Another topic touched upon was the question of the accessibility of the prototypes
if they are displayed in a museum. Over half those surveyed suggested a preference for
having these prototypes presented in the same room as the original artworks, or as part of
a permanent exhibit. Similarly, three of the participants indicated that the prototypes
should be always made available, while the remainder of the group preferred not to
express an opinion on this issue. Others also expressed concerns about the height of such
an installation, suggesting that an adjustable height would prove useful and indicating
that it should not be displayed on a wall, which would reduce its level of accessibility.
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The last theme addressed some of the challenges associated with these two tactile
prototypes. Among these, a great deal of attention was paid to the issue of fidelity
towards the original work: do tactile translations provide comparable content and do they
convey a similar mood to those derived from the original versions? When asked about the
size of the prototypes versus the size of the original work, more than half of the
participants commented that while the prototypes were a good size to ensure clarity, the
difference in ratio to the size of the original works needs to be explained prior to the
tactile exploration. With regards to the wooden guidelines that separate the elements of
each painting, more than half of the participants instinctively recognized them as
guidelines, referring to them with terms like ‘boundaries,’ ‘border,’ and ‘raised guides.’
While there was an agreement on the fact that these wooden guidelines constitute a good
idea, some interviewees emphasized the importance of explaining their role beforehand.
Five participants agreed that the wooden guidelines were acceptable as such, while one
interviewee thought that they could be more textured, another said they could be finer,
and another suggested reducing their numbers to focus on key elements only.
Commenting on the sample textures, one of the participants alluded to the notion of
consistency as present in the case of braille for example:
One thing I wondered, too, is if it got to a place where representation was

consistent, you know what I mean? It could even be like this means sky, or this
means water, this means... (Participant 1, second interview, November 2021)
Although this discussion opened the door to questions about the possibility of tactile
paint translations becoming normalized, no additional thoughts were shared on this
matter during this second round of individual interviews.
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After meeting separately with participants in two small groups, data from these co-design
sessions was coded in NVivo. The conversations that came out of this round of
interviews were structured around three main themes: access to paintings, tactile
prototypes, and audio component. While these themes were intricately linked to the
questions, the responses that ensued served to underline important considerations.
Initially, the theme of access to paintings in museums culminated in a series of
discussions that focused on two related topics, namely barriers to access and ways to
increase access to paintings for visitors with visual impairments (see Figure 23 below).
Respondents all shared the view that visual arts are currently inaccessible to the blind.
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Figure 23
NVivo data visualization based on the co-design session summarizing the discussions on the topic
of access to paintings
This lack of access to the visual arts results in a decline of interest in paintings among
visitors with visual impairments. These discussions highlighted the need to consider the
challenges of interpreting a painting for others (a museum tour guide or docent, for
example), a task that is inevitably influenced by the personal background of the person
describing the work including their knowledge and interests. A tour guide’s interests may
not necessarily align with those of visitors, which can lead to biased descriptions. Some
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participants stated that not everyone is skilled at providing a good audio description, a
remark that extended to their relatives and friends who sometimes accompany them on
museum visits. The participants noted that verbal communication remains the primary
method by which information is communicated, which leaves little room for other ways
of explaining the paintings. Commenting on this topic, one participant recalled a
particulalry positive and helpful experience at the Ottawa Art Gallery where staff drew
some elements on her back to help her visualize the artworks. The last issue the group
discussed was that of equality and equity. Is it realistic, they pondered, to think about
equality in a space that is based on sight? Answers from respondents reflected great
concern that their presence might interfere with the majority of sighted visitors, either for
fear of blocking their view, or taking too much time or space. Regarding potential ways
to address the question of (in)equality in the museum, opinions differed as to whether
initiatives for visitors with visual impairments should be installed in a separate room or
incorporated within the collections.
Further discussion revealed important elements to consider in order to improve
access to visual arts in museums for visitors with visual impairments. Participants were
unanimous in the view that verbal description is an art in itself, and a skill that many
people do not possess. If some of them argued that a passionate guide can make a great
difference, others indicated that having shared interests with that guide can contribute to
making the visit more appealing. It was also suggested that while touch does take more
time, it remains an important manner to access artistic media, whether it is through the
use of small models, braille books, or tactile representations, all of which would benefit
the blind and low vision community if integrated more fully within museums.
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Participants voiced a need for greater autonomy when visiting the museum, whether
through a guided tour tailored to their needs, or through other options that would allow
them to interpret certain works on their own using a multi-sensorial approach.
The second theme that was covered during this co-design session concerned the
tactile prototypes, which had been tested by participants during the previous round of
individual interviews. I provided them with a summary of each of the two paintings, and
refreshed their memories by sharing some of their comments that were made during the
tactile exploration sessions. Afterwards, participants made more general comments about
their appreciation of the prototypes, such as the number of textures, or the difficulty in
differentiating between certain elements. Another interviewee also raised concerns that
shapes or textures alone are not sufficient to help them visualize the paintings. This view
was echoed by other informants who suggested that more audio description would be
needed, or maybe perhaps, an audio and/or braille legend. Some more positive comments
were made about the prototypes, with some participants recalling that they appreciated
the use of different materials and textures, and that they appreciated the wooden outlines.
One interviewee explained how the outlines had the potential to make paintings more
interesting to interpret, but also more appealing in general:
Like in both of them, the different feeling shapes and the different feeling
textures and an understanding that there can be so much in one picture… Just
being able to run my hands over it and think there's so much in this picture.
Like the port, so many different boat shapes and even in the other one the
nature, there's so much going on in here. Because I always thought of paintings
as kind of boring, I couldn't interpret them. So it's like, wow, there's a lot going
on. That's really interesting. Participant 1, co-design session, February 2022)
Overall, conversations surrounding the tactile prototypes highlighted the fact that tactile
exploration is an act that requires more time than is needed to look at a painting.
Therefore, it might be advisable to avoid presenting too many tactile translations in a
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given gallery space at one time. Limiting the number of tactile models available would
ensure that the experience is not overwhelming and remains enjoyable for visitors with
visual impairments.
Figure 24 below illustrates the final theme to be examined during this co-design
session, namely the audio component that would be created to accompany the two tactile
prototypes. Topics covered under this category ranged from audio description to music,
words with sound, sound only, and the fidelity of the overall experience. When
discussing the notion of audio description, opinions differed as to whether the audio
component should provide users with general descriptions—such as the size of the
paintings and the content depicted in them—or if it should rather give instructions on
how to use the prototypes. Furthermore, some participants claimed that audio description
could be used to validate their tactile experience, while others expressed some
uncertainty about the amount of audio description needed raising concerns about its
length, which they thought should be succinct. This conversation led to the question of
the place of music in such an initiative. A variety of perspectives were expressed on this
topic, some of which were favorable to the potential applications of music without lyrics
as a means of conveying ambience or mood, representing colours, or introducing each
painting. Others felt that music is a medium that makes things more appealing for people
with visual impairments, a statement that was complicated by another participant who
thought that music is vague. When presented with the option of having a descriptive
word, such as ‘rain,’ followed by the associated sound, in this case with an audio track of
rainfall, the majority of interviewees ruled it out, saying they “[d]on’t need that” or that it
was “[t]oo much information.” The last option, that of sound alone, was by far the one
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THE RESULTS
most favored by the group. For some participants, sound alone should suffice for certain
things, especially if relevant sounds are used—like the sound of rain to depict rain in the
painting—and if they are embedded in the tactile prototypes which would allow the audio
and tactile cues to be simultaneous. Some, however, were hesitant about the effectiveness
of using sound alone, and proposed other ideas such as having an audio legend or a
braille legend to compensate for the abstract nature of sound. When surveyed about the
ideal length of each sound, respondents offered a variety of answers, ranging from 3 to 5
seconds up to 30 seconds. One participant felt that the sound should last for as long as
they touched the tactile model, noting that it takes more time to distinguish between the
sound of falling rain and a running faucet.
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Figure 24
NVivo data visualization based on the co-design session
summarizing the discussions under the theme of the audio component
Although participants recognized the importance of conveying intensity, no
agreement was reached as to whether this should be expressed through volume. While
discussing intensity, participants suggested that volume could depend on colour intensity
or on what dominates in the painting, such as the volcano in Carmichael’s work. Others
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THE RESULTS
thought that different volumes could be used to foster the users’ interest, while another
participant proposed that different noise levels should be used for different paintings.
And yet, the topic of volume also gave rise to a more animated discussion about how
important it would be to standardize such an approach, such as offering a consistent mid-
level volume level. Two participants suggested that one way to accommodate different
hearing levels would be to have a control button that allowed the user to manually adjust
the sounds levels. An adjustable volume control would be helpful in spaces with
fluctuating noise levels such as museums, and this option could also be beneficial to
people with hearing impairments. Participants were mindful of the presence of different
communities in the museum including the sighted majority and people with hearing
impairment. One participant stressed the importance of each community having a similar
experience in gallery settings, albeit through different sensory means.
Third round of individual interviews – December 2021

The final round of individual interviews followed a similar structure to the second
interview, the main difference being that this time respondents were asked to test the
multi-sensory prototypes. Given that these meetings were primarily hands-on, open-
ended questions were used with a greater degree of flexibility to allow participants to
share their insights. Interview transcripts were coded based on the four key themes that
emerged from the questions: audio guide, digital soundboard, tactile component, and
multi-sensory experience. Several prominent subthemes emerged including verbal
description, voice, music, instructions, and duration.
The audio guide was played prior to the multi-sensory testing of the prototypes.
The first part of the audio guide included a verbal description of each painting, which was
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favorably received by participants who found the descriptions useful for explaining the
artworks and the contexts of their production. Four participants felt that the audio guide
helped them get a sense of each painting as a whole, and they appreciated that it was
separated in three sections: description, music, instructions. One participant indicated that
it would be nice to be able to pause between each of these segments to give people time
to process what they have just heard. While all respondents had a positive reaction to the
verbal description, one respondent suggested that it could sound less like a textbook.
Others in the group echoed this sentiment when discussing the choice of using a synthetic
voice instead of a human voice. All the participants expressed familiarity with synthetic
voices and argued that they did not mind them, nor the standard speed used, particularly
since it might be cheaper and easier to implement. They commented that if it was a
matter of having either a synthetic voice or no voice at all, they would prefer to have the
synthetic voice but perhaps a “cooler one” such as Amazon’s virtual assistant technology
Alexa. Using a human voice for the verbal description was proposed to make the
description feel less rigid, and to foster a more artistic experience. Other advantages of
using a human voice include its potential to convey emotions, the fact that it is easier to
understand for people unfamiliar with synthetic voices, and its potential to reinforce the
feeling of being part of a social activity.
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THE RESULTS
Figure 25
NVivo data visualization based on the third individual interview
illustrating discussions on the audio guide
When discussing the musical excerpt paired with Franklin Carmichael’s In the
Nickel Belt, a majority of interviewees thought it was a good choice for this type of
painting as it depicted a somber but peaceful mood. This track is titled Orchestral Music
(rather calm) and it was created by user borralbi (https://freesound.org/people/borralbi/)
on Freesound.org, a free of royalty rights website. Upon listening to it, one participant
stated that the music did not add anything for them, and that no music could better depict
the emotions of a landscape than the sounds of nature. Another participant noted how the
chosen musical example successfully communicated the majesty of the scene depicted by
Carmichael. Different opinions emerged after listening to the musical excerpt chosen for
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Duncan de Kergommeaux’s work Outport Icon #2. The latter is titled A Story of the Sea,
created by user code_box on Freesound. Indeed, several respondents chuckled upon
hearing it, and two of them said it made them think of someone walking. The reaction of
the group was a positive one, and they reported liking the music for the following
reasons: this track felt lighthearted with a little undercurrent of sadness, and it was
reminiscent of bright colours and a busy scene. They raised several questions about the
provenance of these two musical segments: participants were curious to know how long it
took to find them and how these choices were made. They were curious to know if I was
looking at each painting while listening to different music and different audio excerpts,
and how it made me feel. To this question, I explained to them that I did indeed look at
each painting, one at a time, while listening to soundtracks in the hope of finding one
would convey the mood of each work. Regarding the instruction component of the audio
guide, the group found it quite useful as it explained features such as the double tap
option. Participants agreed that the duration of the audio guide was suitable as is and not
too long.
During this session, participants were invited to explore the tactile components
while I activated, via the digital soundmap on the Samsung tablet, the sounds
corresponding to the parts of the tactile prototype they touched. The first multi-sensory
prototype to be tested was that of the Carmichael painting (see Figure 26 below), which
featured four different sounds representing valleys, smoke and wind, rain, and clouds,
respectively. The sound used to represent the valleys was layered and incorporated forest
sounds with birds, rain falling on leaves and wind. Some of the participants enjoyed it
and were able to recognize this sound; others were confused by the layering of sounds.
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THE RESULTS
Some participants asked for clarification regarding the location of the big mountain or
volcano, as well as the origin of the smoke. Participants suggested that the large mountain
should be identified by a different sound and by the term ‘big mountain’ for the double
tap option. Participants expressed various opinions after hearing the sound selected for
the smoke column. These ranged from remarks about the large amount of smoke to the
fact that the smoke seemed so thick that it obscured the rain behind it and even brought
speculations about the wind direction. If most of the participants successfully identified
the wind sound, concerns about the effectiveness in representing smoke were raised.
Participants suggested using a different sound, possibly a recording of fire or a fire
engine, a volcano eruption, or even a droplet of water falling on clothing iron. The sound
of rain was positively received by the group who found that it made a significant
difference in helping them locate the different elements.
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Figure 26
illustrating discussions on the sounds used for Carmichael
Three out of five interviewees indicated that the sound of the clouds was fine as is
and suggested that hearing the rain in the distance was a good way to depict rain clouds.
For others, this sound was more of a challenge to identify, and while the double-tap
option was helpful, it did not clarify whether these were rain clouds or normal clouds,
which raised the question of what sound ought to be used to represent clouds when no
rain is present. One participant suggested that the sound could be modified to incorporate
rumbling thunder, which would contribute to making the sound more recognizable. On
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THE RESULTS
average, the double-tap option was used more frequently for the smoke, wind sounds, and
clouds than for the valleys or the rain.
After testing the multi-sensory translation of Carmichael’s work, each participant
experienced the augmented version of de Kergommeaux’s Outport Icon #2 which
included six different sounds to represent the following elements: water, docks, boats,
houses, sky, and moon. Feedback from these interviews revealed the strengths and
weaknesses of the second digital sounding board (see Figure 27 below). As in the case of
the rain sound in the previous prototype, respondents were quick to identify the sound of
water, which they similarly appreciated. Opinions differed, however, regarding the sound
of the docks: three participants appreciated the creaking and walking sounds, while a
majority found the sound too subtle. It was suggested that this issue could be solved by
double-tapping to hear the word "docks" or by tweaking the sound to make it more
pronounced with added people and creaking noises.
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Figure 27
illustrating discussions on the sounds used for de Kergommeaux
Further discussion showed a need for additional information in the audio guide that might
provide more explanation about the docks, their exact location in the painting, and the
direction each of them is facing. During this phase of testing, the sound of the boats was
the most problematic due to technical problems with the digital soundmap that caused
this particular sound to not behave as it was supposed to. As a result, participants
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suggested a variety of potential modifications to this sound including making the motor
noise louder, removing the bird noise, adding a horn sound, adding the noise of sails
flapping in the wind, or the sound of paddles hitting the water. Another point made by
one interviewee was that the double tap option should include more words to differentiate
each boat, perhaps using ‘black boat’ or ‘boat 1’ instead of the generic term ‘boats’ to
refer to all of them.
Several questions were raised when discussing the boats, including the type of
boats represented (sailboats or motorboats?), their respective size, and their capacity to
carry fish and people. Similarly, the sound used to depict the two houses proved to be
challenging for participants, as only a minority thought it was a fun way to portray
someone cooking, with noises of cutting, running water, and a microwave beeping. The
choice of this recording was questioned by one of the interviewees who wondered why
the same sound was used for the two houses pictured in the painting. Others found the
sound confusing and argued that the sound of the knives did not resemble cooking knives
but was rather reminiscent of somebody drywalling or perhaps even of horror movies.
When discussing potential alternatives to better depict these houses, four participants
wondered if they were houses or buildings like a lighthouse, what they were used for, and
if there were people in them. One of the participants was puzzled by the absence of doors
and windows and asked if this was a common thing in paintings.
Given the confusion that arose after hearing the house sound, it was suggested
that it be replaced with one of the following: construction noises, ASMR sounds of a
house, someone opening the door and asking if anybody is home, or somebody climbing
stairs and opening/closing a door. The last two sounds were received more positively by
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the group, starting with the sky sound incorporating crickets to represent the night.
Although one participant indicated a preference for seagulls instead of crickets, others
endorsed the initial choice and requested that the double tap option be more accurate with
the term ‘night sky.’
As for the sound of the moon being Neil Armstrong's famous quote, the group
thought that it was a hilarious choice and their personal favorite since everyone knew the
reference and they could identify the moon immediately. Playing the track for the moon
led to discussions on the difficulty of selecting sounds for objects that are silent. One
question remained unanswered after testing this second multi-sensory prototype: why is
the moon black? Does it depict a lunar eclipse or is it merely a case of artistic license that
is in keeping with the abstract visual vocabulary of the painting as a whole?
In addition to sharing specific remarks on each sound, participants made general
comments about the digital soundboard and how it helped them gain an understanding of
the paintings and visualize the perspective. In all cases, informants stated that they liked
how the sounds were interconnected, as in the Carmichael prototype, and that it would be
interesting to have a progression in the sounds. This would entail spacing out the layering
of the different sounds to have, for example, the sound of the forest first and then, a few
seconds later, a fade in of the rain followed by wind. The group also shared positive
feedback on the double tap option, which they found very useful in clarifying certain
sounds and making it easier to navigate in the painting. The fact that the double tap
option can only be accessed through a specific hand gesture was appreciated by the
participants, who were pleased to be in control of this function. As for the ideal duration
of the sounds, opinions varied as to whether it would be better for the sounds to be
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emitted continuously as long as the hand touches the prototype, or if users should be able
to deactivate them as needed.
Prior to testing the first multi-sensory prototype, two interviewees asked if the
tactile components had been modified since the last time they tested them. They had not
been altered. Besides restating their appreciation for the wooden guidelines, participants
were unanimous in the view that adding audio helped to clear up the confusion between
certain textures. For instance, in the case of the multi-sensory translation of Carmichael’s
work, one informant argued that the audio transformed her perception of the rain texture,
which now felt like sheets of rain coming down. Another participant also reported that
she liked the softness of the yellow texture used in de Kergommeaux’s prototype, while
most of the group found the textures of the boats and their differences in shapes to be
confusing. It was difficult for the participants to figure out how many boats there were,
but also to get a grasp of the scale of some elements like the docks when compared to the
water. Nevertheless, only a few suggestions were made to improve textures, notably the
idea of using something with a soft felt like cotton for the clouds and having a rougher
texture to depict the intensity of the rain falling as well as for the docks.
A recurrent theme in the interviews was that of the multi-sensory nature of this
experience, which is illustrated in Figure 28 below. In their accounts of their experience,
five participants agreed that having both an audio and tactile component made their
experience of the paintings more lively. More specifically, they stressed that the
combined use of touch and hearing is pivotal in creating a richer experience for them:
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with the addition of the digital soundmap, this multi-sensory experience opened their
imagination and generated a mental images.
Figure 28
illustrating discussions on the multi-sensory experience
There were other positive comments about the quality of the sounds and the interactivity
of these prototypes. Several participants noted that this approach has the potential to
benefit other users in addition to blind gallery patrons, including children. In the case of
the Carmichael prototype, participants were impressed with the layering of sounds, which
they felt was consistent with the content of this atmospheric picture: raindrops could be
heard in the sounds from the clouds and valleys, and not just in the sound used for the
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THE RESULTS
rain texture. Another participant, however, felt this multi-sensory experience did not aid
in her comprehension of the different layers of valleys in the same texture.
With the second prototype translating de Kergommeaux’s work, some
respondents observed that while the sounds were useful in understanding the content,
they were not as interconnected as with the previous prototype. It was suggested that an
increased number of elements in a painting necessitates more of an explanation to convey
the meaning of the whole. These comments revealed a common interest among the group
in having access to more options, such as the audio guide or double tap and possibly
additional ones such as braille. Furthermore, as was the case during the previous co-
design session, the theme of equality emerged once again with participants agreeing that
these multi-sensory prototypes would make museums more interesting places for them.
Some also stated that they would definitely return to the museum if such objects were on
display, as that would enable them to experience the museum more independently and
create space for a shared social experience between sighted and visually impaired
visitors.
These views surfaced mainly in relation to a recurrent question asked by three of
the participants after discussing the audio component: do these multi-sensory translations
provide a comparable experience to that of looking at the original paintings? There were
also some related concerns, including questions about what would happen if someone
was to test these prototypes prior to losing their sight or if visual artists had tested these
before. If so, participants wondered if artists would be comfortable having their art
translated in this way for accessibility and inclusion purposes or whether they would
prefer not to. These questions, however, were quickly followed by very positive reactions
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highlighting the quality of the prototypes, with some participants comparing them to
unique works of art, which in turn made them feel like they were experiencing something
special. Together, the results gathered during this last round of individual interviews
provide important insights on the contribution of multimodality to the appreciation and
understanding of paintings for people with visual impairments.
Multi-sensory prototypes
Textures, materials, and scale
Given the lack of agreement on the participants' prefered textures and materials, I
decided to reuse three of the textures developed during my master’s project, namely the
white (Fig. 29, texture 6 below), red (Fig. 29, texture 9) and black (Fig. 29, texture 10)
textures. For the other textures, I worked in close collaboration with Robert Gagnon, the
owner of Lezar3D, to develop textures that would be reminiscent of what they were
depicting. Inspired by similar studies on ways to convey colour and narrative content
through tactile elements (Cavazos Quero, Iranzo Bartolomé, and Cho 2021) and tactile
colour pictograms (Cho et al. 2021), I decided to use curved lines to represent the waves
of the water (Fig. 29, texture 2, below). Rain, on the other hand, was depicted by straight
lines to represent rain pouring heavily (Fig. 29, texture 1).
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Figure 29
Texture samples
A decision was made to have two different sizes of the same texture (Fig. 29, textures 4
and 5, above) to reflect the different intensities present in the cloudy and stormy sky
compared to the slightly clearer sky found on each side of the rain. While some
participants identified these textures as clouds, few were able to feel the difference in size
between textures 4 and 5. This is an instance where the differences between the two
textures were too subtle to be detected by touch. Texture 7 was developed to have a
sensation similar to the touch of grass, and texture 3 had a brick pattern to recall the
structural elements of the second painting, namely the dock and main building. In the
case of the texture 8, however, it was not possible to refer to a similar texture as it was
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representing turquoise, which could be found on one of the boats as well as two of the
smaller houses.
Figure 30
Assembled prototype translating Carmichael’s painting
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Figure 31
Assembled prototype translating de Kergommeaux’s painting
Three different materials were used in the production of these tactile translations
(excluding glue). These included medium-density fibreboard (MDF) for the wooden
outlines and two types of rubber: one more flexible silicone (20A, 30A) used in most
textures, and a rigid industrial rubber compound (urethane flexible PMC) for the black
and red textures. For each of the prototypes, the outer frame has of width of 2 centimeters
and the inner outlines are 1 centimeter wide. These tactile translations were scaled down
in relation to the size of the original works. For instance, the original work by
Carmichael’s has dimensions of 122.2 centimeters by 102.2 centimeters, and the painting
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by Duncan de Kergommeaux has a size of 106.7 centimeters by 106.7 centimeters. In
both cases, content was scaled down to reach a height of 60 centimeters, maintaining the
aspect ratio of each painting. Most importantly, this format does not exceed the width of
both arms and is easily accessible with both hands, which is instrumental in the formation
of a mental representation in the participants' minds. They noted that had the prototypes
been bigger, they would have found it more difficult to grasp their contents through
tactile exploration.
Four broad themes emerged in response to questions addressing multi-sensory
representations of paintings: previous tactile experience, the nature of the audio
component, textures, and scale.
Previous Tactile Experience

Only one interviewee had previous experience with this form of tactile
representation, while others were familiar with raised line drawings, tactile maps, raised
letters, and the uses of tracing paper.
The Nature of the Audio Component

When discussing the idea of an audio component, some interviewees argued that
music could be used to convey emotions or even express different textures, while another
participant pondered which should come first: touch or sound.
Texture
Several recommendations and issues emerged about texture choice including the
importance of combining tactile exploration with audio description, the use of one texture
per colour, choosing textures that align with each colour. In addition, one participant
mentioned the idea of temperature changes.
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Scale
Most of the participants agreed with my initial hypothesis about scaling the tactile
representations up or down such that a person could have the entire model within reach of
their two hands while remaining in one position. Interviewees agreed on the need to
strike a balance between the scale of the original work and the need to make its content
accessible within arms’ width.
Interestingly, participants’ opinions differed as to what type of tactile
representation they would prefer to explore through touch:
[…] a wide variety of textures, depending on what the model was whether they
had to be hard. In other words, they have texture of wood or some other surface
or whether they need to be more pliable through the use of fabrics or textile or
pliable plastic. (Participant 3, first interview, July 2021)
Maybe even if it was nature, I know you could take some sand and put some sand
or some parts, a little bit […]. (Participant 6, first interview, July 2021)
Participants also voiced some preferences as to what the content of the accompanying
audio descriptions should include, highlighting the importance of conveying not only
narratives but also the “feeling of the art,” sharing the “features and the stories behind
paintings,” and describing the “texture and use of colour balance, and things that artists
like to talk about.”
This first round of discussions gave participants the opportunity to select the two
paintings that they would like to have translated into multi-sensory prototypes. To help
them in their decision, I provided them with a detailed verbal description of the 5
paintings. Following the completion of these interviews, the votes showed that 4 out of 6
participants chose Franklin Carmichael’s In the Nickel Belt for the representational
category, while the same 4 out of 6 participants opted for Duncan De Kergommeaux’s
painting (Outport Icon #2) for the abstract category.
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Two important and unexpected insights that emerged from this round of data
collection was the challenge of describing abstract art to individuals who are visually
impaired, and the difficulties in helping them make sense of artworks that do not follow a
clear or logical narrative. These findings will be analyzed further in the second section of
this chapter dealing with the coding process in NVivo.
Audio components: verbal descriptions, music, instructions, and sounds
Based on the results of the co-design session and the analysis of interview transcriptions,
it was decided to develop not one, but two audio components. The first one comprised a
verbal description, a music interlude, and verbal instructions on how to explore the
prototypes. This component was customized for both artworks, and each audio was
played to participants before they experienced the multi-sensory prototypes. Given the
fact that participants were clear on the importance of the audio descriptions being
concise, I ensured that the descriptive components were less than five minutes. The
verbal descriptions also provide the painting’s title, artist’s name, year of creation,
description of the depicted scene or narrative (including the choice of colours and overall
mood), and its context of production/artistic style. Verbal descriptions were created from
texts that I wrote40 and imported into Balabolka, a free text-to-speech program that runs
on Windows. Once uploaded, the software gives the option for the text to be read in a
wide range of available voices and allows users to save audio files.
40
The customized verbal description for Carmichael’s painting was also inspired by an online article titled
OAG’s Franklin Carmichael in Group of Seven stamp series, which was written by Dan Donovan in 2020.
Of particular interest were Donovan’s insights on the environmental critique made by Carmichael
throughout his work.
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THE RESULTS
The verbal descriptions were followed by brief musical interludes which, in turn,
were followed by verbal instructions on how to use the multi-sensory prototypes and
what to expect. Each of these sections—the verbal descriptions, musical interlude, and
instructions—were separated sonically by a bell sound, also downloaded from
Freesound.41 These customized audio guides can be accessed by clicking on the
following link: https://peinturesaccessibles.com/customized-audio-guides.
The second component consists of the webapp developed by Henry Lowengard.
Although it was initially created to be accessed through the touch screen of an android
tablet, it can also be accessed through a computer. For the testing phase, I used a
Samsung Galaxy Tablet S7. This digital soundboard includes 10 different sounds that
were keyed to the different paintings42 and were triggered by me while participants
explored the tactile components.
41
Titled Bell, Candle Damper, the bell sound was created by InspectorJ (www.jshaw.co.uk).
42
Carmichael’s painting uses sounds 1 to 4 while Duncan de Kergommeaux uses sounds 5 to 10.
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As shown in Figures 33 and 34 below, this component features the following
sounds (in order):
Franklin Carmichael Duncan de Kergommeaux

1- Wind 5- Night sky, owl and crickets
2- Distant thunder with 6- Neil Armstrong’s “One small step for man…”
light rain 7- Small boats
3- Rain pouring 8- Kitchen sound
4- Forest sounds 9- Docks
with birds, rain and 10- Calm water
wind
These sounds were selected from a collaborative repository of Creative Commons
licensed audio samples (https://freesound.org) and their selection was guided by previous
comments from participants on the importance for sounds to be descriptive and easily
recognizable.
From a technical standpoint, the webapp was hosted on a domain that I bought on
GoDaddy, and which can be accessed with the following link:
http://accessiblepaintings.com/research.html. While creating the digital soundboard,
Henry Lowengard logged the technical issues and challenges that he encountered,
including tweaking the recordings such that the volume level of all the sounds was more
or less consistent, adjusting the aspect ratio of each image, and dealing with the fact that
the iPad uses touch to scroll and zoom, features that needed to be disabled for this study.
The webapp allowed users to touch a given section which would activate the associated
sound for as long as the user’s finger remains in contact with the touch screen. An
additional feature was the possibility of double clicking or double tapping on the tablet to
get a one- or two-word description of the selection.
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THE RESULTS
Figure 32
Image used as an indication for sound placement in Carmichael’s work.
186
Figure 33
Image used as an indication for sound placement in de Kergommeaux’s work
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THE RESULTS
Conclusion
As shown in the figure below, the findings of the present study are consistent with
those of previous studies on multimodality (N. S. Levent, Pascual-Leone, and Lacey
2014; Eardley et al. 2016; Christidou and Pierroux 2019; Brown 2018; Cluett 2014; Ursi
2020; Taylor 2013; C. Park and Alderman 2018; Lucas and Romice 2008; Piga and
Salerno 2017); colour perception (Jabbar, Lee, and Cho 2021; Pal 2015; Tactile Studio
2020b; Cavazos Quero, Iranzo Bartolomé, and Cho 2021; Cho et al. 2021; Dresslar 1894;
Millar and Al-Attar 2002; Howes 2005; Welsch 2008); co-design, disability, and
museums (Hesseldahl, McGinley, and Monk 2018; Rothberg and Reich 2014; Rieger,
Herssens, and Strickfaden 2020; Vermeersch et al. 2017; Milligan, Nieuwenhuijsen, and
Grawi 2014; Steen 2013; Cachia 2018); the importance of making paintings more
accessible to foster inclusion in the museum (Candlin 2003b; Coffee 2008; Lauwrens
2012b; Lisney et al. 2013; Deffner et al. 2015; Stewart 2015); and the importance of
blind visitors having a similar experience as sighted visitors (Juricevic 2009; Newman
and McLean 2003; Sandell, Dodd, and Garland-Thomson 2013; Renel 2019; Cole and
Lott 2019).
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Figure 34
Findings from this study in relation to previous work
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THE RESULTS
The present study builds on previous research in these interrelated fields to
develop a multi-sensory solution that provides a step forward in improving access to the
visual arts for museum visitors with vision loss. As shown in Figure 35 below, some of
the central themes that emerged from this study overlap across the different rounds of
interviews, providing important insights on the design and functionality of the prototypes.
Figure 35
Thematic analysis, overview of the four rounds of interviews made in Visme
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CHAPTER 6
Discussion
Research is the opportunity to learn with and from the Other; we challenge the
assumption that researchers only have something to give or take from
participants.
(Esposito and Evans-Winters 2021, 13)
Summary of data findings
The findings from this exploratory study provide some initial answers to the research
question regarding the extent to which multi-sensory paintings can generate new
knowledge on the experience of the complementary modalities of touch and sound when
people with visual impairments interpret colours in paintings. Taken together, these
findings suggest that multi-sensory translations of paintings have the potential to help
visitors with visual impairments better understand the narrative and composition of the
original artworks, in addition to fostering an increased interest in visual art that is
otherwise considerably less accessible to them. These findings build on and intersect with
previous research that explored access to visual arts for people with visual impairments,
ocularcentrism, museum studies and the senses, cognitive psychology, sensory studies
and anthropology of the senses, tactile perception and haptics, as well as translation
studies.
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THE DISCUSSION
First individual interviews: Accessible doesn’t mean inclusive
The first individual interviews led to interesting discussions regarding the different ways
people with visual impairments feel excluded from museums. While some of the
participants had had positive experiences in museums, they commented that museums
remained mostly inaccessible despite some commendable efforts in improving
accessibility in recent years. Participants shared suggestions on how museums could
improve artwork accessibility for the blind and low vision community, commenting on
the potential contributions and limitations that touch and verbal descriptions could bring.
This round of interviews also highlighted the fact that participants were mostly unfamiliar
with tactile representations and were unaware of the different textures that could be
produced using 3D printing technology and silicone.
Second individual interviews: Importance of getting a comparable feel
The second round of individual interviews was mostly hands-on, with participants testing
the texture samples and the two tactile prototypes. The most striking finding to emerge
from these interviews is that co-design can be particularly challenging when participants
share different views on specific elements of a project, such as the textures. A possible
explanation may stem from the fact that no silicone textures were tested prior to this
meeting. Participants commented that the textures they found confusing could have been
clarified by associating them with sound. Participants were generally enthusiastic and
interested in the tactile prototypes, enquiring about the technical aspects of their
construction. While exploring the tactile prototypes, two of the participants wondered if
their experience was comparable to that of looking at the original paintings. They pointed
192
out that the act of choosing what to translate into a multi-sensory prototype could result
in a distortion of the original painting’s content, feel, mood, or the artist’s intentions.
Co-design session: Audio must be paired with tactile cues
The co-design session offered crucial insights into the inaccessibility of visual arts to
visitors with visual impairments. These results echo those of the first interview regarding
accessibility, more specifically on how audio must supplement tactile information to
make it more broadly accessible to visitors. In that sense, findings were consistent with
previous discussions held during the second round of individual interviews during which
participants expressed strong interest in an audio component, although they were unsure
of what form it could take.
The issue of equality between sighted and blind visitors was addressed in a more
forthcoming manner during the group session in which participants wondered if it is
realistic to be discussing equality in a space that privileges the sense of sight. As
Participant 1 put it, people who are visually impaired want to have a similar experience as
sighted people:
You don't want all these words. You want the feeling of it. So, if that's what
sighted people get from looking, that's what I would want: some sort of collage
of sound to give me the feeling they get. (Participant 1, co-design session,
February 2022)
This was a surprising finding: according to participants, more than one audio component
would be required to ensure adequate access to information through the use of sounds,
verbal descriptions, and music. Based on this candid request and the feedback of the other
participants, I decided to include an additional audio component to the project: a brief
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THE DISCUSSION
description of each work, followed by a musical interlude that captures the mood of the
painting, and then instructions on how to use the prototypes.
As one of the objectives of this research was to co-create an interactive audio
component as a complement to the tactile prototypes, findings from this session were
consistent with the literature on the multimodal nature of sensory perception (C. Park and
Alderman 2018; Eardley et al. 2016; Ursi 2021; Walk and Pick 1981; Millar 1981).
Participants acknowledged the importance of including simultaneous audio and tactile
cues as a way to increase the amount of information available to them across their senses.
Third individual interviews: Multimodality, equality and inclusiveness
The participants in this research were adamant that the multi-sensory prototypes
successfully enhanced their understanding and appreciation of the two paintings
translated for this project. This key finding is consistent with the literature (C. Park and
Alderman 2018; Eardley et al. 2016; Ursi 2021; Walk and Pick 1981; Millar 1981)
pertaining to the multimodal nature of sensory perception, which conceptualizes
perception as multi-layered and experienced by more than one sense at the same time.
Furthermore, the participants' fear of blocking the view or taking up too much space or
time is evidence that they not only doubt their own place in cultural institutions, but also
challenge the very principles of the art museum, which are predicated on the primacy of
vision as the vehicle for accessing artworks.
The results of this study suggest that there is a strong correlation between the use
of multi-sensory translations by visitors with visual impairment and their sense of
inclusion within the museum. The insight about the lack of art-related cultural training
afforded to the blind and visually impaired is of crucial importance as it demonstrates
194
another barrier in relation to the accessibility of paintings, which can directly affect the
participants’ understanding of their form and content.
From translating to interpreting: generating new knowledge
While previous studies have noted that a good quality translation is one which replicates
similar effects in another language, very little of the literature focuses on the issue of
crossmodal translation. As stated by Eco (2007) and Dusi (2015), such translations are
known as intersemiotic translations, transmutations, or transpositions, highlighting their
multimodal nature wherein content (e.g. form, narrative, composition, colour) is
transposed to another format and made available through a different sensorial modality.
Findings made in this doctoral research have the potential to fill a gap in the literature
which addresses sight translations (Čeňková 2010; Cross 2016) such as audio description
(Taylor, 2013) and translating visual arts into tactile objects (Juricevic, 2009). The
literature on multimodal translation has barely touched on the potential of multi-sensory
representations of paintings developed through a participatory approach in dialogue with
individuals with visual impairments.
The importance of translating
This study supports Marc De Launay’s (2006) findings on the importance of translating
when it is “justified by the need to remediate the lack of understanding of one specific
language” (De Launay 2006, 30–31). Findings collected during the interviews confirmed
that participants considered it important to have access to paintings. However, the
importance of gaining access to a translation was not motivated by the need to remedy a
lack of understanding of a particular language, but rather to compensate for the absence
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THE DISCUSSION
of vision. Through the co-creation of multi-sensory prototypes representing two
paintings, participants drew on their senses of touch and hearing to access translated
contents of originals that heretofore were only accessible through vision. The importance
of translating these paintings and making them accessible through two complementary
senses takes on another dimension, namely remediating any shortfall in terms of access to
these contents.
The act of translating as a social practice

Using Participatory Action Research (PAR) methodology, this study enabled participants
to share their input on the design itself, such that they not only became co-designers, but
also co-translators for this project. If the act of translating is usually performed by a
single individual, the practice of co-translation has a long history within the field of
translation studies dating back centuries with group translations of major works, such as
the bible (Liang and Xu 2015). Known as ‘collaborative translation’ this practice
encompasses different forms of collaboration: two (or more) translators working together,
the editor working in close collaboration with the translator, crowdsourced translation,
online translation, literary translation, or community translation (Liang and Xu 2015).
The idea of community translation is in line with a sociological perspective of translation,
which understands translation as a practice that is first and foremost social, relying on
translators as ‘social actors’ or ‘social agents’ (Wolf 2010). Although participants in this
study may not have been fully aware of their social responsibility as co-translators, being
experts of their own experience made them well qualified to consider the historical and
cultural conditions specific to their community. Moreover, findings revealed that all of
the participants desired to be more independent during museum visits. In keeping with
the disability rights movement’s slogan “Nothing About Us Without Us” (Charlton
196
2004), achieving this goal must be done in an inclusive manner by giving the
community’s input a central role in the process. In other words, the act of co-translating
artistic works formerly accessible only through vision into multi-sensory formats, is a
form of social translation and transmission of cultural knowledge by and for the low-
vision and blind community.
Wearing multiple hats: participants, co-designers or co-translators

The findings related to the participatory design approach of this study provide new
insights into the role of the user in a co-design process. While the current literature
mainly focuses on the user's role as a co-designer (Magkafa, Newbutt, and Palmer Mark
2021; Stelzle, Jannack, and Rainer Noennig 2017), there is a recent surge in co-design
literature on the multi-level involvement of the user as a participant, co-designer, and/or
co-translator (Magkafa, Newbutt, and Palmer Mark 2021; Hadley and Rieger 2021;
Stelzle, Jannack, and Rainer Noennig 2017; Zamenopoulos and Alexiou 2018). Other
trends include work on the role of individuals in networks of agency (Vannini 2009), as
well as in user participation in oral history studies (Stead, Gosseye, and Plaat 2019). In a
2013 study, for instance, Steen considers the involvement of users or customers as
participants in the design process, with limited appreciation of their contribution as co-
designers (Steen 2013). More recent research conducted by Vermeersch in 2017, aimed
to foster an inclusive and “equal co-design process with experience experts,” whose
recognized expertise results from their lived experience as individuals with disabilities
(Vermeersch et al. 2017). This recent trend is consistent with the methodological
approach taken in this doctoral project in that it shifts the ‘expert perspective’ from the
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THE DISCUSSION
trained researcher to the previously disempowered user (E. B.-N. Sanders and Stappers
2008; Fuks et al. 2012).
Although this research acknowledges the role of the participants as experts of
their own experience, it also raises questions about the different levels of engagement in
co-design because of the co-dependency relation with the sighted researcher. In
reviewing the literature, very little was found on the correlation between possible biases
related to the authority of the researcher—particularly one who is sighted—and the
hierarchy among co-designers on the cultivation of an equal and “collective creativity”
(Steen 2013, 16). Participants—or co-designers—in this study were expected to share
experiences, co-design questions, test, debate, evaluate, and provide feedback. The
researcher’s role as observer and/or facilitator included the following tasks: designing the
methodology, selecting the shortlist of selected artworks for them to choose from,
choosing sounds, collecting, analysing, and synthesising information, shaping and
facilitating the research process.
The power dynamics and politics at play in the process of co-designing with
people with disabilities were identified in a study by Das et al. (2020), which sounded a
cautionary note for the current research. Although participants were referred to as
‘participants’ and ‘co-designers’ in this thesis, Das et al. asks whether their “participants
want to be called designers at all and how analyzing people with disabilities as inspiration
for design can reify power differentials” (Das, Borgos-Rodriguez, and Piper 2020, 2). In
other words, researchers must be careful to use such titles in a way that empowers people
with disabilities instead of undermining their agency and autonomy.
198
Whose decision is this?

After the first round of individual interviews, I was confronted with a problem: there was
a lack of consensus about what type of materials or textures to use. This situation can be
explained, in part, by the fact that the participants had not been provided with texture
samples at that point; for the most part, they only referred to materials with which they
were already familiar such as velvet or sand. This begs the question: which design
decisions fall to the researcher and which to the participants (see Fig. 35 below)? While
participants did not agree on textures or materials, they did come to an agreement
regarding the paintings to be translated. I went with the paintings chosen by the
participants but, when it came to selecting the textures, I made the decision to move
forward with the first iteration of the design. This decision was based on the premise that
the first tactile exploration by participants would provide better insights as to which
texture worked best. Material choice was also informed by practical considerations such
as durability, solidity, good adhesion to glue, ease of cleaning, and affordability.
Furthermore, in the absence of clear direction from the participants, I decided to reuse
three of the textures that were developed during my master’s project, namely the red,
white, and black textures. For the other textures, I did more research on similar studies on
tactile prototyping and tactile colour pictogram to improve access (Cho et al. 2021), and
the appreciation of visual artworks by people with visual impairments (Cavazos Quero,
Iranzo Bartolomé, and Cho 2021). The study by Cho et al. (2021) was noteworthy in that
the CELESTIAL tactile colour pattern uses “curved lines, depicting the waves of the sea,
to represent the colo[u]r blue” (Cho et al. 2021, 109). The association between the colour,
texture, and element being depicted (in this case water) was at the core of my
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THE DISCUSSION
conversations with Robert Gagnon. What if, we asked, the textures were representative of
what was depicted in the painting?
This study builds on another key finding of my Master’s thesis project: for a
painted work to be understood by people with visual impairments, it is necessary to
clearly delineate the artwork’s outlines and colours. My findings in this regard are
consistent with those of Swedish researcher Yvonne Eriksson who showed that it is
possible to translate a visual image into a tactile one provided that you modify it to ensure
it can be read through touch only (Eriksson 1998, 79–82). She also notes that all the
pictorial constituents can be transposed, up to a certain level, into a tactile image, with the
exception of the nuances of light, perspective, and the chromatic palette (Eriksson 1998,
80).
Outlines help the user to decipher the shapes, size, and location of the elements
depicted, while the use of a simplified colour palette, situated within these outlines, can
facilitate the mental reconstruction of the artwork. The idea of employing raised outlines
is also common in tactile reading, as in raised-lines drawings in braille books. In keeping
with Eriksson’s work and the findings from my MA thesis, I decided to segment the
prototypes in this project in a manner akin to a simplified paint-by-numbers painting.
200
Figure 36
Research design: Overview of co-design process
The process of interpreting
Prior studies have stressed the importance and necessity of translating objects that can
traditionally be accessed through one single sensory modality—primarily vision or
hearing—into formats that can be interpreted through multiple senses, or multi-sensorial
modalities (Christidou and Pierroux 2019; C. Park and Alderman 2018; Taylor 2013;
Cross 2016; Joy and Sherry 2003). Consistent with the literature, this research found that
participants who explored paintings through the senses of touch and hearing felt
empowered by the possibility of interpreting visual content independently through an
additional sensory channel. This sense of agency was reflected in their growing
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THE DISCUSSION
enthusiasm at each round of interviews, as well as a renewed interest in painting, which
became less ‘boring’ to them through hands-on experience.
Findings from this research also address a gap in previous studies on collaborative
and multimodal research with the low-vision and blind community by providing further
insight into the different steps of interpretation in such project. Figure 37 below illustrates
the three key phases of the interpretation process: first, the researcher proposes an initial
interpretation in the form of tactile prototypes; second, participants explore the multi-
sensory prototypes; and third, a mental image of the painting emerges in the participants’
minds.
Figure 37
Different levels of interpretation at play in this doctoral project
This study is in accord with earlier observations (Schifferstein and Desmet 2007),
which showed that not having access to the sense of sight resulted in the largest loss of
202
functional information43 while increasing task difficulty and duration. Responses from
participants in this study underlined the importance of having a knowledge of cultural
codes present in visual arts—perspective, iconography, semiotics, etc.—and that of
having access to a good audio description. In addition, the sense of touch makes a
substantial contribution to the interpretation and understanding of paintings by non-
sighted individuals. Participants’ desire for more tactile models in museums is in line
with findings of previous studies on the correlation between vision loss and an increased
use of touch as a way to compensate for visual impairments (Kennedy 1993; Morton A.
Heller 1997; Eriksson 1998; Hatwell, Streri, and Gentaz 2003; Morton A. Heller and
Ballesteros 2005; Morton A. Heller 2014).
Making sense of abstraction: paving the way for new possibilities for
colour perception
Participants found it more difficult to understand the composition and meaning of
Duncan de Kergommeaux’s painting, compared to the one by Franklin Carmichael. This
highlights the considerable difficulty of making sense of abstract paintings without sight
(even if they include some representational elements). It also suggests that understanding
abstract art is deeply tied to interpretation. It was hypothesized that participants with
visual impairments could benefit from experiencing de Kergommeaux’s painting through
touch and audio. The results of this study showed that neither touch nor hearing alone are
sufficient in helping people with visual impairments make sense of abstraction. Even as a
sighted researcher with a background in art history, I found it more challenging to
43
This study’s main limitation as a point of comparison with the current one lies in the fact that authors
were referring to sighted people with blindfolds who normally depend on their sense of sight and have not
developed sophisticated sensory alternatives.
203
THE DISCUSSION
provide participants with a clear description of Outport Icon #2 than In the Nickel Belt.
Although de Kergommeaux still depicted recognizable objects such as boats, houses,
docks, and the moon, the painting’s perspective was confusing. For example, the fact that
the boats were illustrated from different angles—front and side—added to the
participants’ confusion. To put it differently, these findings show that in addition to
possible cultural biases from the researcher and participants, the difficulty of describing
and understanding abstract art might be exacerbated by each layer of interpretation.
Furthermore, the question of “why was the moon black?” highlights some of the
challenges associated with communicating the pictorial elements of a work of modern art
with abstracted imagery through multi-sensory means.
These findings may be somewhat limited by the fact that Duncan de
Kergommeaux’s painting is not completely abstract, but contains some representational
elements and a loose sense of narrative. Further research would be needed to measure the
potential of multimodal translations of abstract paintings to be successfully decoded,
understood, and appreciated by people with visual impairments, specifically when there
is no clear narrative or object of reference. This research suggests that sonification has
tremendous potential for enhancing non-visual translations of abstract paintings. Future
studies on this topic are therefore recommended.
Audio components: prioritizing recognizable sounds over sonification
Importance of using sounds that are easily recognizable

One key finding of this study was that when asked about which types of sounds they
would like to hear, all of the participants indicated a strong preference for sounds that
could be easily recognizable and that would represent the specific content of each
204
painting. Consequently, the hypothesis regarding sonification as a way to perceptualize
colours could not be explored further. Nevertheless, the use of recognizable sounds
combined with other forms of auditory feedback was efficient in conveying both content
and emotions.
Ideal length of audio descriptions

Previous studies reported that blind and low-vision communities, inside and outside a co-
creation process, were critical of excessive amounts of curatorial interpretation (Hadley
and Rieger 2021, 198). These findings are corroborated by the current study, as
participants questioned the tendency of making audio descriptions too long:
So, I would say two or three things. I know you asked about audio, but I will
include this because this would be helpful to me at least. If it was a long audio
description, I think it would kind of confuse me. So, for me, I guess as far as audio
goes, I would give it at least a minute, maybe two at most. (Participant 6, co-
design session, February 2022)
A comparison of the results of this project with those of other studies (Remael, Reviers,
and Vercauteren 2015; Taylor 2013) calls into question the effectiveness of relying
exclusively on verbal description as a mean of translating visual information. In the
current study, participants expressed a preference for both verbal description and sounds
that are easily recognizable and convey a clear meaning of what was depicted. For this
reason, the proposed sonification component was not pursued further.
Making museums more welcoming
Art museums and galleries remain fairly inaccessible to the blind and low-vision
community. This is due to a variety of factors including an insufficient number of
benches, the inaccessibility of their websites, and a lack of training of their staff, as well
as the fact that paintings, and indeed most works of art, are still intended to be
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THE DISCUSSION
experienced through sight. This study revealed that several factors are necessary to
successfully communicate the form and content of paintings to non-sighted audiences. A
multi-sensory translation of a painting may need to involve touch (through tactile
devices) and hearing (through sounds, short audio descriptions, and music).44 Taken
together, these elements can communicate a painting's content, context, and emotional
impact more successfully. This study shed light on the potential of adding different layers
of sounds at different times to enhance the tactile experience in communicating the
painting’s content.
The participants’ desire to interpret artworks on their own was complicated by
their lack of cultural training in understanding historical codes or symbols in paintings.
Translations in the realm of the visual arts require that the translator considers the icons,
indices, symbols, and signs in a given work (Peirce 1988). It follows that when
translating a work of art into a new sensory modality, the person’s familiarity with those
elements will necessarily impact their translation and experience of the work. This is in
line with Barthes’ study on the rhetoric of the image (1988), in which he claimed that the
language of the image is not limited to its formal elements, but is also composed of
codes, signs, and of the ‘surprise’ of their meaning (Barthes 1988). Future research could
examine how people with visual impairments experience the ‘surprise’ of the meaning of
these cultural codes through different sensory modalities and at their own pace.
44
Although they were not explored in the present study, smell and taste may enhance multi-sensory
representations and experiences of art even further.
206
Measuring success: What makes a ‘good’ translation of a painting?
The quality of a given translation is generally measured by its ability to produce a text
comparable to the original work, preserving its initial meaning across different languages
and cultures (Halliday 2013). Whereas De Launay was mostly interested in translations
from one language to another, this doctoral research raised the question of equivalence
not in the context of an intralingual translation, but rather in the context of translation
between sensory modalities. If prior studies argued that a good literary translation must
first and foremost be authentic (Bassnett 2003), very little was found in the literature
regarding how to gauge the quality of a translation when moving from one medium and
sensory modality to another.
Discussions with participants during the second individual interview led to
interesting questions about the validity of these prototypes when it comes to conveying
comparable feel, mood, and content as the original artworks they are translating. To
illustrate this, one of the participants asked me if I appreciated Carmichael’s work as
reflected in the tactile prototype to the same extent as when I look at the original painting.
Such reflections echoed previous concerns mentioned in the literature review within the
field of translation studies about the concept of fidelity and the way it is used to measure
both the authenticity of a translation and its quality as a good interpretation.
In fact, findings from the second individual interviews raised the question of how
to determine the success of this project, and more specifically, what criteria must be met
to generate a ‘good’ or valid multi-sensory translation of a painting.
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THE DISCUSSION
An examination of the data accumulated during the three individual interviews and the
co-design sessions suggests that the validity or quality of multi-sensorial translations can
be assessed through the following criteria:
- awareness and mitigation of the potential for biases;

- simultaneous audio and tactile cues;
- prioritizing easily recognizable sounds;
- options to access additional information (audio description)
- foster agency and autonomy among visitors with visual impairments.
While these findings are promising, there is room for further progress in determining
what elements can contribute to making paintings more accessible through multi-sensory
translations.
Limitations
One of the limitations of this study was the small sample of participants, which consisted
of 6 individuals for the first two interviews, a number that dropped to 5 for the following
two meetings for reasons beyond my control. In retrospect, it also seems that providing
participants with texture samples as early as the first interview could have been helpful in
prompting them to bring forward even more creative ideas.
Since this research focuses on painted artworks specifically, the scope of the
project focused exclusively on art museums and art galleries, thus not addressing science
museums or other types of cultural institutions. Aside from the fact that science
museums’ collections generally include few (or no) paintings, I decided to exclude them
from this study to narrow the scope and to explore the potential of multi-sensory
perception to form a bridge between different groups, thus promoting social inclusion
(Kisida, Bowen, and Greene 2016, 171–74; Fancourt et al. 2019, 9–24).
208
While doing the first tactile explorations, I noticed that part of the participants’
confusion also derived from the lack of audio guidance, which ultimately meant they did
not know what they were touching or what they were looking for. This was particularly
apparent with the perspective present in Carmichael’s work, In the Nickel Belt. Another
limitation arose from the co-design session: timing is crucial in maintaining the
participants’ familiarity with, and understanding of, the project and its physical aspects.
In this case, too much time elapsed between the second interview, in which participants
tested the tactile prototypes, and the co-design session. As a result, the participants'
feedback regarding their tactile explorations was less specific than anticipated.
In his article titled “Mission and Low Vision: A Visually Impaired Museologist's
Perspective on Inclusivity” (2013), Joseph Wapner, the Coordinating Editor at Art
Beyond Sight reflects on his visit to the Seattle Art Museum. Being a blind visitor,
Wapner acknowledged the social implications of inclusive art galleries: “Here the sense
that I was simultaneously having an independent moment of engagement while
experiencing being part of a group of visitors viewing the work in a similar fashion way
was powerfully gratifying” (Wapner 2013).
The challenges of co-designing in the absence of a consensus
Given that this research used qualitative methodology with a small sample size, another
potential limitation could be the absence of consensus with regards to the choice of
textures for the tactile prototypes. While the literature on co-design does not really
address consensus, it does discuss the research facilitator’s role in great detail. Just as
participants bring their expertise (their knowledge and lived experience of being exposed
to visual art and also being visually impaired), the researcher brings their expertise,
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THE DISCUSSION
which may include being able to design or understand the competing trade-offs in making
something that is outside of the realm of the participants’ expertise. Thus, the researcher
is responsible for making informed decisions based on the data they are collecting,
including considering whether or not consensus (or even a majority view) is needed to
proceed.
At different points, the lack of consensus among the participants prompted me to
reflect on the interview process and methodology. The virtual nature of the first interview
and the lack of texture samples provided to participants during that same interview may
have contributed to this outcome. As participants expressed interest in textures with
which they were already familiar—such as grass, sand, and velvet— I believe that
providing texture samples at the outset (e.g. those from my master’s project) could have
prompted relevant discussions on the potential of silicone as a material. This reflection
was echoed by Participant 1 during our first interview who commented: “I can’t know
what I don’t know.”
Conclusion
Summary of findings
This research proved to be in line with recent studies that seek to rethink museums,
making them sites of anti-ocularcentrism and decolonization. A review of the existing
literature showed that, to date, very few multi-sensory solutions have been proposed in
response to the lack of access to the visual arts for this community. Although one of the
main objectives of this project was to develop multi-sensory translations of paintings to
convey their colours and composition, the participants were primarily interested in the
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content depicted rather than the colours. For example, the fact that three different textures
were used to represent the colour blue did not seem to pose a problem for the
participants. Furthermore, they stressed the importance of the sounds used to represent
what was depicted in the painting, suggesting that multi-sensory representations of
paintings involving both tactile surfaces and sounds have the potential to make art and art
galleries more broadly accessible to the visually impaired.
Findings in this study demonstrated the importance of consulting with
marginalized communities when rethinking access for them to ensure their views and
experiences are understood so that we avoid making assumptions, speaking, or acting in
their place. Including persons with disabilities as co-designers not only complies with the
disability rights movement's demand that persons with disabilities be included
meaningfully in initiatives that concern them, but also results in richer and more robust
research and, ultimately, in better and more inclusive museums and galleries.
Another important finding that stems from this research is that people with visual
impairments benefit from the use of more than one modality to better comprehend the
form, content, and emotions conveyed by a painting. However, this does not mean that
each modality has to transmit the same information; indeed, there seemed to be a
preference among the participants to avoid cross-modal redundancies.
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CHAPTER 7
Conclusion
The need for new standards / a new language
This research project was designed to evaluate how the co-creation of augmented
prototypes could contribute to the understanding of paintings by individuals with visual
impairments. Through a disability studies lens and a Participatory Action Research
(PAR) approach, six participants with different visual impairments were invited to
partake in the co-design process, testing of two multi-sensory prototypes that translated
one painting by Franklin Carmichael and another by Duncan de Kergommeaux.
This research confirmed that the co-creation of multi-sensory translations of
visual artworks involving touch (through tactile components) and hearing (through
sounds, music and brief audio descriptions), can effectively communicate the form and
content of paintings to non-sighted audiences. Taken together, these elements convey the
paintings’ contexts and emotional impact more easily. The project thus confirms the
hypothesis that multi-sensory approaches have a positive impact on the experience,
comprehension, and appreciation of visual art by the low-vision and blind community.
The use of musical excerpts chosen to depict the mood of each painting was well
received by most of the participants who felt that it helped them get a grasp of the overall
ambience or atmosphere emanating from the paintings.
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Contribution
This study raises questions about how the message (i.e., the form and content of a
selected painting) changes when the medium (i.e. painting) is translated into multi-
sensory representations of the original. Although one participant argued that the
prototypes felt like real artworks due to their high quality, the fact that the rest of the
group did not express an opinion on this subject suggests that they might best be thought
of as complementary paratexts related to the original works. Ultimately, whether such
models should be considered sensory tools, mediation tools, artworks, paratexts, or
assistive technologies, remains of secondary importance to the access they provide for the
low-vision and blind community.
While different theories have been put forth regarding intersemiotic translation
from one medium to another, the current study has revealed a gap when it comes to
translating a work of visual art both sonically and tactilely. Few studies have examined
the potential of assistive technologies in multi-sensory exhibitions in relation to how
visitors experience them. For these reasons, this work contributes to the literature on
accessibility and inclusion within museums as well as sensory design. In fact, the study's
findings have the potential to contribute to a social rethinking of what inclusive access to
the visual arts really means for people with sensory impairments, while contributing to
the fields of museum studies, disability studies, sensory studies, translation studies, and
cognitive psychology. Multi-sensory translation offers a way to move beyond the
limitations of vision, improving sensorial access, emotional access, and intellectual
access to the physical spaces of museums as well as the collections and exhibitions they
host.
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Future challenges: viability of multi-sensory tools in the post-COVID-19

world
Two years after the global outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the new health and
safety measures introduced during this period could have long-lasting consequences on
cultural institutions. Upon reopening between numerous closures, museums have paused
all hands-on activities and tactile exhibits as a means of preventing the spread of the
virus. At the time of this writing, it is difficult to know if touching non-sanitized surfaces
will ever be considered a safe experience again. To ensure the long-term viability of
multi-sensory tools in the post-COVID era, museums integrating touch into visitor’s
museum experience should prioritize easy-to-clean materials and implement regular
cleaning routines to ensure the safety of all visitors. In addition, more work should be
done to explore the roles that sound and sonification can play in making museums more
broadly accessible. This dissertation provides some initial steps in that direction.
Further research opportunities
There is ample room for further research in this field. For example, it would be fruitful to
investigate the movements and gestures used by participants when exploring multi-
sensory prototypes and to assess if specific gestures could be related to colours. Another
avenue to pursue would be to co-create enhanced audio descriptions with the help of
people with visual impairments and to examine the role of directional sound in improving
their understanding of depth and perspective used in paintings.
Applying insights gleaned from the field of phenomenology to this research leads
me to wonder if the creation of multi-sensory prototypes alters the meaning of the
original works of art. Does the status of the original works change when multi-sensory
214
prototypes reproduce some of their pictorial elements, but through a different medium?
This question is worthy of further investigation, particularly in relation to formalism as a
means of ‘reading’ art and as a way to question if there exists such things as ‘formal
readings’ of sounds. Furthermore, this type of research could serve to identify parallels
between terms used in painting (line, shape, colour, intensity, etc.), music/sound (melody,
harmony, rhythm etc.), and touch (soft, rough, mellow, etc.).
Future work in this area would benefit from input from the field of neuroscience,
particularly when assessing the degree to which a non-sighted person’s experience of a
multi-sensory representation of a painting is comparable to that of a sighted person
viewing the original. For example, it would be interesting to see if the same brain areas
are stimulated when a sighted person looks at a painting, compared to a person with a
visual impairment exploring a multi-sensory translation of the same work.
It is my hope that this study helps to lay a foundation for the development of
multi-sensorial mediation tools that will minimize accessibility barriers not only for the
blind and low- vision community, but also other communities with sensory impairments,
thereby enhancing aesthetic and affective experiences for all visitors while being more
inclusive of marginalized populations.
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Appendices
Appendix A
Master’s thesis project in images
Digital model for the first prototype, made with Adobe 3ds Max, a 3D modeling
software. Source: Patricia Bérubé
216
Digital model for the second prototype, made with Adobe 3ds Max. Source: Patricia
Bérubé
Overview of the proposed tactile translation device. Image generated with Adobe 3ds
Max. Source: Patricia Bérubé
217
Making the prototypes
Choice of materials and textures. Source: Patricia Bérubé
Moulding of an element for the second prototype. Source: Patricia Bérubé
Demoulding. Source: Patricia Bérubé
218
Demoulding. Source: Patricia Bérubé
Assembling. Source: Robert Gagnon
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Assembling. Source: Robert Gagnon
Tactile prototypes – Final result
Tactile prototypes recreating the painting Prisme d’Yeux

220
Second prototype – Reading colours

Superposition of the two prototypes

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First prototype – Reading the narrative

222
First version of the legend (3D printed)

Second version of the legend (with real braille indicating the name of each colour in
French)
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THE APPENDICES
The exhibition at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts 2018-2019
Patricia Bérubé poses by her master's thesis in art history at the Montreal Museum of
Fine Arts in Montreal on Oct. 23, 2018 © CHRISTINNE MUSCHI.
Bérubé's 3D version of an Alfred Pellan painting allows blind people to experience the
work and appreciate it © CHRISTINNE MUSCHI.
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Appendix B
Ethics certificate
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226
Appendix C
Certification of institutional ethics clearance
227
THE APPENDICES
228
Appendix D
Interview questions (guide)
SESSION 1 – INDIVIDUAL INTERVIEW
Objective: Gather ideas before making the first version of the tactile prototype
Estimated duration: 60 minutes
Date: July 2021
At the beginning of this first session, the Principal Investigator will thank participants for
taking part in this study. Following this, the PI will introduce herself and provide an
overview of the project and the objectives (2 prototypes).
The PI will then ask for the participant’s consent to participate in this research (audio or
written, depending on the participant’s preference).
Can you tell me more about you?
Can you tell me briefly about your visual impairment? How did it start and what is the
medical term used to describe it?
Did this happen gradually or suddenly?
What impact does this visual impairment have on your life?
Did you used to visit museums before? Has that changed after your sight decreased?
When you visited museums before, what were you interested in the most? Did your
interests change with the onset of your visual impairment?
Do you think visitors from the low-vision and blind community are included in museums
these days?
What could be done to ensure that art museums are more accessible?
Have you ever touched a tactile representation of a painting or a raised-line drawing
which represents a painting’s narrative?
If so, what did you think of it?
As you may already know, the objective of this study is to create a multi-sensory
prototype to translate a painting’s narrative, as well as its colours. To do so, a first tactile
prototype will be created based on your feedback to the following questions.
If you were asked to find a way to translate the colours of a painting, what type of
solutions would you propose?
How important is it to reproduce the scale of the original painting? If this is not
important, what would be the ideal size?
Would it be relevant for museums to provide tactile translations of paintings, or does it
seem like an inappropriate solution? Why?
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If you were asked to develop such a tactile prototype, how would you proceed to select
which materials and textures to use? How would you differentiate between different
colours?
What type of textures would you like to be touching? What type would you prefer not to
touch?
I will now briefly present to you three options for the more figurative painting and two
for a more abstract. I would like for you to tell me which one you would prefer for each
of the two categories.
Is there anything you would like to add?
The PI will thank the participants for their time and feedback. End of the first session.
Objective: Test the first version of the tactile prototype

Date: October-November 2021
Prior to the second round of interviews, each participant will receive a small tactile
prototype which will be sent to them by mail, and they will be asked to provide some
feedback on their experience.
The PI welcomes the participant and confirms their consent for being audio and video
recorded during this study.
What do you know about the painting in this project (provide title of artwork, date of
realization and artist's name)?
What do you think of the compulsory wearing of gloves at the museum when handling
artworks? Did you experience it personally? If so, do you recall the name of the museum
or gallery, and what type of artwork were you handling?
What would be the best approach to explain a painting in detail to you?
Can you read braille? Should initiatives like this be accompanied by a braille legend? If so,
in what language(s)?
We will now proceed to a tactile test to evaluate the first prototype that has been made and
that represents the chosen painting. I invite you to situate the prototype in such a way that
it is on the table in front of you and is visible through the camera of your computer.
Can you describe to me, in as much detail as possible, what you feel when you run your
fingers and hands over the prototype?
230
When exploring something with both hands, do you usually start with the middle or make
your way from the edges inwards?
Can you recognize specific shapes?
How many different textures can you recognize? Are the differences too subtle or too
obvious?
Which texture do you prefer and why? Is there a texture that you don’t like? If so, could
you please explain why it is the case?
What do you think of the idea of associating a texture with a specific colour?
Should certain colours have a higher texture? If so, why?
If you could make any modification(s) to this tactile prototype, what would they be? Could
you explain why you would or would not change this prototype?
If museums were to use this type of technology to make paintings more accessible to
visitors with visual impairments, where should they install them?
Should tactile prototypes like this one be available at all times in the museum, or should
they be accessible only upon request?
The PI will thank the participants for their time and feedback.
End of the second session.
SESSION 3 – FOCUS GROUP: CO-DESIGN
Objective: Co-design session to propose improvements for a multi-sensory version

of the prototype
Date: February 2022
The third interview will adopt the format of an online co-design session during which the
objective will be to reach some sort of collaborative understanding or discussion about
suggestions for improvements on the tactile prototype. Depending on the levels of
participation, this session might evolve into a design fiction exploration, which would
invite participants to share their envision of their perfect museum experience.
The PI welcomes the participants and confirms their consent for being audio and video
recorded during this study. Participants will be reminded before the session to avoid
sharing the identity of the focus group members.
Data gathered from this co-design sessions will be compiled on Miro, a free digital
whiteboard which facilitates collaboration. Participants will be given the opportunity to
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add information themselves, or to tell the PI who will then add it to the digital whiteboard
on their behalf.
Round table discussion:
The PI will remind the objective of the session. How might we make this tactile prototype
better?
The PI will ask participants to share their experience of the last time they visited a museum.
• Could you describe what your perfect museum experience would look like?
• What is missing in museums with regards to accessing collections of painted
works?
• What role or importance does touch have for you when visiting a museum?
The PI will go over the results of a previous study conducted in 2016-2018 and will share
findings with the participants.
The PI will invite each participant to share their feedback (with the group) on what they
liked or disliked about the first prototype.
Sonification/audio component:
With regards to the tactile prototype that we discussed during our previous sessions, do
you think it could benefit from an audio component? Please explain why.
Do you think that audio descriptions of paintings are useful? If so, what do you prefer about
it? If not, why is that?
• What should museums focus on when wanting to make painting accessible to

audiences with visual impairments? Finding original ways to convey emotions, or
provide very clear descriptions of the form and content of painted artworks?
What type of audio component would you be most interested in?
Do you think a particular sound should be used to represent a specific colour? If so, what
would the sound-colour associations be?
What are your thoughts on the use of non-speech audio to describe or convey feelings about
a painting?
How important is it to you that non-speech sounds reproduce familiar sounds from the
environment?
If you were asked to select one sound per colour, how would you be making your
decisions? Based on what?
Would some colours call for louder sounds? Or should the volume levels be the same for
every colours? Why?
232
Debrief:
The entire group discusses what common themes emerged:
• What is the thing you care most about as we develop an improved version of this
tactile prototype?
o What was a challenge in reading the prototype?
o How did this feel for you as a participant?
• What improvements absolutely need to be made?
o Do these include the textures themselves?
o Do these include the size of the prototype?
o Do these include the contrast of the different parts of the prototype?
• Is it important that textures are visually tainted to represent the colour they are
associated with? If so, why? If not, why?
• Who do you think could benefit from tactile innovations like this within museums?
Is there anything else you would like to add?
The PI will thank the participants for their time and feedback.
End of the third session.
Objective: Test the improved multi-sensory prototype

Date: March 2022
This session will be held in person.
The PI welcomes the participant and confirms their consent for being audio recorded during
this study.
The PI explains the objectives of this session to the participant. Prior to each painting, the
PI will play a brief audio description, followed by a music interlude and some
instructions on how to use the prototypes.
Participants will be exploring the tactile components while the PI will manually activate
the audio feedback by simultaneously triggering sounds on specific sections of the digital
replica while the participant touches the corresponding sections on the tactile prototype
on their end (see Figure 1 below).
What did you think of experiencing Carmichael’s work like this?
What did you think of the audio/sounds? What did you like or dislike about them?
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How do you think the audio component is contributing to the overall experience of this
painting?
What changes would you do to make these prototypes better?
Do you think these types of multi-sensory prototypes should have a place in museums?
Is there anything else you would like to add?
Do you have any questions for me pertaining to your participation in this study?
The PI will thank the participants for their time and feedback. The PI will ask participant
if they would like to receive updates of the research project once it is completed.
End of the last session.
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Appendix E
Verbal descriptions of paintings
In the Nickel Belt (Carmichael)
This oil on canvas is titled In the Nickel Belt and it was painted in 1928 by Franklin
Carmichael.
The dimension of this work are of 122.2 per 102.2 cm which are equivalent to 48 per 40
inches and it belongs to the Firestone Collection of Canadian Art, housed at the Ottawa
Art Gallery.
In the Nickel Belt is considered one of Franklin Carmichael’s most important work, and it
is representative of the striking Canadian landscapes that were characteristic of the Group
of Seven, which he was one of the founding members.
Among hills of rock, a billow of rising smoke majestically dominates the skyline,
reflecting Carmichael’s reverence for the Northern Ontario landscape, alongside his
critique of environmental destruction through industry. Although painted almost 100
years ago, in the face of climate change the significance of his work continues to be
relevant for contemporary audiences.
The painting depicts several layers of valleys that extend from the bottom of the canvas
up to its middle. These valleys are predominantly verdant, with some of them showing
shades of gray that look like stone and some brown areas that could be soil. In the middle
of these valleys stands a bigger valley which could be understood as a green volcano
since a column of white smoke rises from its summit in a curve to the top of the canvas.
Around the smoke, far away in the background, large diagonals mark out an area where
the rain is pouring down. The rest of the upper section is divided between dark clouds at
the top and bottom of the skyline and a small cloud clearing at the far left.
While Carmichael managed to illustrate the great tension between the elements in this
work, the white smoke might either be the sign of a future eruption, or it could be linked
to the nickel industry. In fact, the title, In the Nickel Belt refers to a specific region
surrounding Sudbury, and which is rich in nickel ore.
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Outport Icon #2
This oil on canvas is titled Outport Icon #2 and it was painted in 2001-2002 by Duncan
de Kergommeaux.
The dimension of this work are of 106.7 per 106.7 cm which are equivalent to 42 per 42
inches and it belongs to the Firestone Collection of Canadian Art, housed at the Ottawa
Art Gallery.
Duncan de Kergommeaux is a first generation Canadian of Breton descent born in

northern BC in 1927. After moving to Ottawa in 1953, he has worked as a professor in
several institutions while maintaining a rigorous studio practice.
While his early work was informed by Piet Mondrian and Hans Hofmann, some of his art
created during the 1970s was later referred to as his ‘Grid Paintings’ which still carried
the influence of Abstract Expressionism. With most of his work is comprised of a
majority non-representational paintings, some compositions clearly draw from a
naturalistic tradition, with the exception of their flattened perspective and distilled forms.
Outport Icon #2 is more in line with this environmental type of work at the intersection of
abstraction and realism. This painting represents a harbor scene, which feels like
something out of a dream, given its flattened perspective. In the middle of the canvas,
there are four small boats could be compared to ponts and two buildings which seem to
be floating on the water. Some of the boats are in a side view, and others are in front
view, the latter are respectively, turquoise, pink, red and black. Similarly, two buildings
are standing there, one in different tints of turquoise, and the other in a very clear yellow,
as if it was lit from within. None of these buildings, nor any of the boats have windows or
doors. From the bottom to the top, the first two-third of the painting are occupied by dark
blue water, while the last third is a cloudy night sky which let’s guess a full moon on the
left side. The painting is also structured by a bright yellow line, which is reminiscent of
docks. This line starts at the bottom part of the water before going up, reaching the
horizon line on the right side of the canvas and then extending to the left, behind the
buildings and boats.
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Towards a more inclusive museum:

developing multi-sensory approaches to the visual arts for

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs in

This thesis investigates the contribution of multi-sensoriality to the understanding and

Keywords: Accessibility, Anti-ocularcentrism, Blindness, Co-design, Mediation, Multi-

To the participants involved in this study,

Whether wearing the hats of co-designers or co-translators,

But also changed my perspective and helped me become a better ally.

LITERATURE REVIEW PART ONE 31

LITERATURE REVIEW PART TWO 67

Table 1 Visual Model of Research Design………………………………………. p. 104

Table 2 Demographic data of participants………………………………….......... p. 107

Figure 31 Assembled prototype translating de Kergommeaux’s painting p. 180

Appendix A. Master’s thesis project in images …………………………………... p. 219

Appendix B. Ethics certificate …………………………………………………… p. 228

Appendix C. Certification of institutional ethics clearance ……………………… p. 230

Appendix D. Interview questions (guide)………….……………………………… p. 232

L’aveugle n’est pas un public particulier à traiter […]. Le développement de

(Caillet 1995, 93–95)

[Caillet 1995, my translation]

In 1986, Martin Jay, a renowned intellectual historian, coined the term

sense in exploring, categorizing, and comprehending external stimuli (Lauwrens 2012b,

28). In other words, vision-based observations and representations became central to a

are a good example of the institutionalization of ocularcentrism, which bears the

This study is anchored in an experiential co-design approach with a qualitative

appreciation of an artwork by individuals with visual impairments. This study proposes

This introductory chapter contextualizes my work by summarizing the research

conducted during my Master’s degree in art history and by providing historical

background regarding museums and accessibility. It also discusses legislative changes

had an important impact on museums’ accessibility policies. In Canada, the 2005

originality, as well as its limitations, and an overview of the following chapters.

their mediation practices and an increased awareness of democratic access (Shelton

The notion of ‘mediation’ originates from French museum practice in which it is

understood as a broader concept of ‘médiation culturelle’ or cultural mediation (Caillet

involved audience” through an interpretative process offered by the museum’s staff

groups were effectively considered a ‘non-public’ by cultural institutions. Based on the

number of visitors, thus prioritizing the general public. According to Exeko, an

information in artworks have long been hidden to them.

Corinne Welger-Barboza, a specialist in new information technologies and

(Welger-Barboza 2001, 284–90). Conversely, Jean-Marie Tobelem, a management

mediation is adapted to an idealized homogenous group. As a result, access for

underserved audiences is often symbolic. For Fiona Candlin, Professor of Museology in

the Department of History of Art at Birkbeck College University of London, visually

few innovative institutions have now embraced non-traditional mediation approaches

Following the increasing emphasis on accessibility in Canadian public institutions

(Government of Canada 2018), many museums have expanded their programming to

solutions to—accessibility barriers that limit access to marginalized audiences. Such

barriers include cultural, financial, emotional, educational, physical, and intellectual

major exhibition at the Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum (2018).

Despite an increasing number of innovative mediation practices aimed at

previously underrepresented audiences in art museums, access to colour remains elusive

importance of colours in understanding an artwork’s aesthetic dimensions and narrative,

or describe specific colours (Katz 1999, 167–69; Stekeler-Weithofer 2017). Furthermore,

someone who lost their sight later in life.

titled “Vers une muséographie numérique : l’impression 3D en tant que dispositif de

traduction tactile auprès de publics malvoyants et aveugles” [Towards a digital

to the problem of access to colour in painted works.2

artworks due to vision loss, my MA thesis asked if it would be possible to translate a

1. Exploring two prototypes through touch could help visually impaired

represented by different textures,3 and accompanied by a braille legend. Considering the

qualitative methodology that included individual semi-structured interviews and small

people with a visual impairment, whether reduced vision or complete blindness. By

taking this participatory (co-design) and inclusive approach, participants could be

the creation of the prototypes.