The project Museo Facile
“Museo Facile” is a pilot project regarding communication and cultural accessibility, promoted in 2012 by the University of Cassino and Southern Lazio (idea and scientific manager: Ivana Bruno, associate professor of Museology, art criticism and restoration), in collaboration with the Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali (MIBAC), Center for Educational Services of the Museum and the Territory (SED).
The project aims to promote and implement cultural access to museums thanks to an integrated communication system which is dynamic and understandable to a diversified audiences, with particular attention to people with disabilities.
This system—combining traditional tools and new technologies (virtual, 3D reconstructions, QR-Code, etc.)—sees to the design and implementation of communication and multimedia contents based on principles of clarity, readability, graphic consistency and accessibility, and in keeping with national standards, as well as the European Union’s goals in the cultural sector.
The project’s methodology assumes interdisciplinary comparison and participatory planning. Through this modus operandi, the deliverables that make up Museo Facile’s tools have been created, redesigned and rethought starting from elementary interpretive materials for visitors (labels, information panels, gallery cards, signs, etc.) which keep in line with tradition while presenting important innovations in components like text, support, graphics. These materials gain in functionality and communicative effectiveness. Particular attention was paid to the text and to language simplification, as well as the study of their graphic design and structure which were informed by principles of Universal Design.
Specific materials were integrated into the apparatus—in particular tactile panels and other typhlodidactic materials, videos in Italian Sign Language (LIS)—also favor an accessible and direct approach to museum collections for visitors with visual and auditory disabilities in order to facilitate integration and active participation of different audiences.
The institutions that collaborate in the project are the MIBAC Museum of Lazio, the University of Diversely Skilled Research and Innovation of the University of Cassino, the Federazione Nazionale delle Istituzioni Pro Ciechi and the Istituto Statale per Sordi di Roma. University students are also actively involved through practical training experiences are proposed and work forced integration projects with higher education institutions. The Museum Hendrik Christian Andersen of Rome (MIBAC, Polo Museale del Lazio) hosted initial experiments with new communication devices placed there in 2014.
In 2016 a similar communication system was created for the medieval art section of the Museum of the Abbey of Montecassino (MIBAC, Polo Museale of Lazio), following participation in a national competition organized by the Ministero dell’istruzione, dell’università e della ricerca.
Recently the project has been revived for Luoghi del Contemporaneo a Cassino in Cassino, a museum spread across the Cassinate area, realized within the initiative “Itinerario dei luoghi del Contemporaneo a Cassino. Da Sol Lewitt a Mimmo Paladino”, funded by the Regione Lazio (October 2017).
“Museo Facile” is currently being applied to the Collezione Civica Giuseppe Albano, exhibited in the Museo Romanazzi Carducci, Putignano (Bari) (October 2018).
https://www.unicas.it/siti/laboratori/museo-facile.aspx
www.sed.beniculturali.it/index.php?it/335/museo-facile
Bibliography
Museo Facile. Progetto sperimentale di comunicazione e accessibilità culturale, ed. Ivana Bruno, “Studi e ricerche del Dipartimento di Lettere e Filosofia”, 12, Università degli studi di Cassino e del Lazio Meridionale, Dipartimento di Lettere e Filosofia, Cassino 2015
I luoghi del contemporaneo. Museo Facile. Medioevo/Contemporaneo, ed. Ivana Bruno, Giulia Orofino, “Studi e ricerche del Dipartimento di Lettere e Filosofia”, n. 19, Cassino, Università degli Studi di Cassino e del Lazio Meridionale 2017
