A world in darkness : development of an exhibition for the visually challenged people
Author :Mondal, Abdullah
Keywords :Blind--Education
Exhibitions for the blind.
Issue Date :2015-07
Publisher :National Council of Science Museums, Kolkata
Description :Museums and Science Centres are important places of learning and development of mutual understanding among people. All these institutions of informal education are working with definite goal for enrichment of knowledge and promotion of harmony between communities and different sections of the society. Despite of their earnest efforts, deficiency in attending to the need of the underprivileged sections is quite evident. For instance, development of a full-fledged gallery or an exhibition, addressing to the need of the visually challenged group, is scarcely taken up by the museums and science centres, unless they are established for this purpose. This particular section of our society thus hardly finds any museum or a science centre a noteworthy place of their visit. The paper describes the development, design challenges and display of an exhibition entitled "A World in Darkness' at Birla Industrial & Technological Museum, Kolkata, primarily for the visually impaired people. No museum or science centre so far in India was found to develop such an exhibition.
Development of this exhibition containing exhibits on celestial sphere, constellations, solar system, earth and its atmosphere and so on needed intricacy in making them comprehensive to those whose visual windows to the outside World are closed forever. A lot of hurdles had to overcome in designing and developing the exhibition to address the need of such a group. The conventional method of making raised physical features to interact with the exhibits was not only done, supports were given through touch sensitive voice-over arrangements and write up in Braille. In addition, arrangements were made to raise or lower the temperature of some of the objects, helping the visitors feel the temperature differences and figure out the learning process.
Description :Includes bibliographical references.
Source :National Council of Science Museums
Type :Article
Received From :National Council of Science Museums
DC Field
Value
dc.contributor.author
Mondal, Abdullah
dc.date.accessioned
2017-06-19T05:22:17Z
dc.date.available
2017-06-19T05:22:17Z
dc.description
Includes bibliographical references.
dc.date.issued
2015-07
dc.description.abstract
Museums and Science Centres are important places of learning and development of mutual understanding among people. All these institutions of informal education are working with definite goal for enrichment of knowledge and promotion of harmony between communities and different sections of the society. Despite of their earnest efforts, deficiency in attending to the need of the underprivileged sections is quite evident. For instance, development of a full-fledged gallery or an exhibition, addressing to the need of the visually challenged group, is scarcely taken up by the museums and science centres, unless they are established for this purpose. This particular section of our society thus hardly finds any museum or a science centre a noteworthy place of their visit. The paper describes the development, design challenges and display of an exhibition entitled "A World in Darkness' at Birla Industrial & Technological Museum, Kolkata, primarily for the visually impaired people. No museum or science centre so far in India was found to develop such an exhibition.
Development of this exhibition containing exhibits on celestial sphere, constellations, solar system, earth and its atmosphere and so on needed intricacy in making them comprehensive to those whose visual windows to the outside World are closed forever. A lot of hurdles had to overcome in designing and developing the exhibition to address the need of such a group. The conventional method of making raised physical features to interact with the exhibits was not only done, supports were given through touch sensitive voice-over arrangements and write up in Braille. In addition, arrangements were made to raise or lower the temperature of some of the objects, helping the visitors feel the temperature differences and figure out the learning process.
Government of India
