Author(s):
Martins, Cláudia Susana Nunes 
Date: 2014
Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10198/10668
Origin: Biblioteca Digital do IPB
Subject(s): Audiovisual Translation; Art museums; Audio description; Inclusive art; Audio guides
Description
Museums are highly visual places (De Coster, 2007), where enjoying art, whether alone or in groups, and interpreting its clear and ambivalent signs depend almost exclusively on people’s sight. Therefore, the mediation between art and visitors has been expressed in different forms of communication, namely the labels of the exhibited objects, wall texts, room guides, various pamphlets and brochures, guided visits and audio guides. Whereas these forms may not pose any apparent obstacle to sighted people, the same does not occur with audiences with sensory impairments, be it visual or in terms of hearing. Written-based communication appears as a barrier to the blind and visually-impaired and orally-based communication presents itself as an obstacle to the deaf and hard-of-hearing. In our presentation, we shall focus on the blind and visually-impaired audiences and specifically on the forms of communication that are offered to them within Portuguese museums, bearing in mind that, for these audiences to overcome the absence of sight, communication must be strongly descriptive, that is depend on the guiding criteria of audio description, one of the modes of Audiovisual Translation. Consequently, the issue we intend to question is whether Portuguese museums provide accessible communication for the blind and visually-impaired and enable art to become truly inclusive, which we will attempt to answer on basis of excerpts taken from Portuguese audio guides.
