Nynke Feenstra, Researcher and Museums' Accessibility Advisor, Leiden University, the Netherlands

2. Use Your Senses: overcoming the
accessibility paradox
Nynke Feenstra, MA.
Researcher and freelance museums’ accessibility advisor
Leiden University, the Netherlands

3. Accessibility paradox
• Accessibility is not labelling people as ‘blind’, ‘Deaf’,
or ‘not disabled’.
• But to become accessible museums have to set apart
the blind/Deaf to look at the special needs of a
particular group.

4. Accessibility paradox
• Museums can embed intellectual accessibility in their
collection presentation through a multisensory
presentation of art and hereby overcome the
accessibility paradox.

5. Embodied cognition
• All (museum) experience is embodied and in essence
multisensory.
• Embodied cognition:
• Bottom-up variables: external sensory input.
• Top-down variables: previous knowledge, understanding, internal
predictions and expectations.

6. Gareth Moore | A Burning Bag as a
Smoke-Grey Lotus
Picture: Gerrit Schreurs, courtesy Stroom Den Haag

7. Gareth Moore | A Burning Bag as a
Smoke-Grey Lotus
Picture: A.M. Minnaard, courtesy Stroom Den Haag

8. Gareth Moore | A Burning Bag as a
Smoke-Grey Lotus
Picture: A.M. Minnaard, courtesy Stroom Den Haag

9. Touch
• Rehabilitation of touch in museums since the 1970s.
• Several bodily sensations:
• Proprioception
• Vestibular sense
• Visceral sensations

10. Smell
• Activate unconscious effects, trigger emotions, and recall
memories.
• Perception of scent is not universal.
• Individual ‘smelling history’
• There are scents that trigger the same effect in most perceivers
(e.g. lavender, vanilla).

11. Taste
• The most ‘close’ sense.
• Taste experiences depend on the context of your body
and the senses:
• Disposition to eat (e.g. hungry, thirsty, stuffed etc.)
• Cultural factors: religion (e.g. refusal pork meat), ethics (e.g.
human meat), education, experience, tradition.

12. A multisensory presentation of art
• Sequence of sensory stimulation (Carol Bowlby):
• Smell: most primitive, strongly attached to emotions.
• Movement: to improve alertness.
• Touch/Vision/Hearing: complex, require more time for
interpretation.
• Taste: perceived as rewarding.

13. A multisensory presentation of art
• Smell: to immerse, attract, recall memories, arouse a
mood, inform about a particular culture.
• Touch (movement): proprioceptive assignment,
examination artistic materials/tools.
• Vision/Hearing: traditional experience.
• Taste: represent a detail, culture, religion, tradition.

14. A multisensory presentation of art
• More intimate experience
• A deeper memory
• Choose (a) sensation(s)
• Reduces dominance of sight and hearing
• Open space that fits a visitor’s expectations

15. A multisensory presentation of art
• Opportunity for curators to build a multi-layered story
with different sorts of information (e.g. art historical,
emotional, and cultural).
• Establishes intellectual accessibility on every hour and
day that a museum is open to the public.
• Creates an inclusive museum where blind and Deaf
visitors are a group of impaired visitors.

16. Sources
• Aglioti, Salvatore Maria, Bufalari, Ilaria, and Candidi, Matteo. “Multisensory Mental Simulation and
Aesthetic Perception.” In The Multisensory Museum: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives on Touch, Sound,
Smell, Memory, and Space, edited by Nina Levent and Alvaro Pascual-Leone, 301-317. Lanham: Rowman
& Littlefield, 2014.
• Bacci, Francesca, and Pavani, Francesco. “First Hand,” Not “First Eye” Knowledge.” In The Multisensory
Museum: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives on Touch, Sound, Smell, Memory, and Space, edited by Nina
Levent and Alvaro Pascual-Leone, 17-28. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014.
• Cruz, Joana, Marques, Alda, Barbosa, Ana, Figueiredo, Daniela, and Sousa, Liliana X. “Making Sense(s) in
Dementia: A Multisensory and Motor-Based Group Activity Program.” In American Journal of
Alzheimer’s Disease & Other Dementias 28 (2013): 137-146. doi: 10.1177/1533317512473194.
• Levent, N. and Pascual-Leone, A. “Introduction.” In The Multisensory Museum: Cross Disciplinary
Perspectives on Touch, Sound, Smell, Memory, and Space, edited by Nina Levent and Alvaro Pascual-
Leone, xiii-xxvi. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014.
• Rosen, Rusell. “Sensory Orientations and Sensory Design in the American DeafWorld.” The Senses &
Society 3 (2007): 366-373.

17. Sources
• Stevenson, Richard J. “The Forgotten Sense: Using Olfaction in a Museum Context: A Neuroscience
Perspective.” In The Multisensory Museum: Cross Disciplinary Perspectives on Touch, Sound, Smell,
Memory, and Space, edited by Nina Levent and Alvaro Pascual-Leone, 151-165. Lanham: Rowman &
Littlefield, 2014
• Stroom Den Haag. “Gareth Moore: A Burning Bag as a Smoke-Grey Lotus.” Stroom Den Haag (2014).
(Exhibition brochure).
• Zisch, Fiona, Gage, Stephen, and Spiers, Hugo. “Navigating the Museum.” In The Multisensory Museum:
Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives on Touch, Sound, Smell, Memory, and Space, edited by Nina Levent and
Alvaro Pascual-Leone, 215-237. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014.