Art & Accessibility: A case study on collage for people with visual disabilities

Abstract

Art should be accessible to all, regardless of their conditions, in order to build a more inclusive society. In this context, collage is an art form that is not yet adapted for those who cannot see, such as people with visual impairments or blind people. Indeed, there are Techniques to Support Artistic Development (TADA), already used in other art forms, that can help in this adaptation. The use of these techniques provides a substantial improvement in the response quality of the person with disabilities when in contact with artistic Works. Thus, with the help of TADA, a manual collage was created from a digital collage, in order to make it accessible to blind and / or visually impaired people. Our goal is to consider the means and resources necessary for this specific audience to achieve a correct identification of the representations (forms) present in the collage, as well as the message that is intended to be conveyed. So, in this article, we present the process of creating the digital and manual collage, describing the TADA created and used; and, specifying the reliefs, textures and sounds and other elements considered the most effective for the interpretation of the piece by the target audience. Subsequently, tests were carried out with the target audience (blind and visually impaired people), in order to perceive and assess the accessibility of the collage. From the results obtained, it was found that the applied TADA (reliefs, textures and sounds) in the preparation of this collage proved to be viable for its interpretation and its various elements, through the target audience. Thus, it was concluded that this approach can be a promising path to follow for the future of accessibility in art.