Accessible tours come to Salford Museums

Salford Community Leisure are proud to announce that they have recently launched British Sign language and Audio Described tours at Salford Museum & Art Gallery and Ordsall Hall.

The work has been completed as part of a project named, ‘Unlocking the Collection: Accessible Interpretation’ which was funded by Arts Council England.

SCL want to ensure their venues are accessible to everyone and this project has been a positive step in ensuring inclusivity for Blind, visually impaired and Deaf BSL museum visitors.

Focus groups played an important part in the project so that the tours were suitable for the users needs. The museum team leading the project also worked closely with partners Thomas Pocklington Trust, Greater Manchester Sight Loss Council, Henshaws and Mind’s Eye Audio Description for the audio described tours and Manchester Deaf Centre’s Wellbeing Group, Deaf presenter Wayne Sharples, interpreter Mark Hetherington and film maker Georgiana Ghetiu for the BSL tours.

Deaf BSL users, visually impaired and blind visitors can access the tours using the Smartify app and the tours can easily be found through QR codes on signs throughout the museums or on their websites.

There are two digital tours in BSL and two digital audio described tours for both sites which can be used as a tour while walking around the museum, but can also be experienced from the comfort of your own home.

One recent visitor said:

“The audio tour enabled me to navigate around the venue with limited support. I had an in-depth explanation of which artefacts and paintings I was looking at with a detail backstory to enhance the contact.”

Councillor Hannah Robinson-Smith, Lead Member for Culture and Connected Communities said:

“The completion of this project is the start of Salford Community Leisure and Salford Museums continued commitment to making improvements to ensuring collections are accessible to as many people as possible.”