Museums Throw Open Their Doors to the Disabled in Venezuela

CARACAS, May 16 (IPS) – “We drew a fat woman with little dots. I like learning to draw. Maybe I’ll be an artist later on,” Lisette, a 15-year-old mentally disabled girl who goes every Friday from her school in the south of the Venezuelan capital to the Alejandro Otero Museum, told IPS.

Following a pilot project carried out in 2006, the Venezuelan Culture Ministry has launched a programme, “Creating Without Limits”, to draw in people who are blind, deaf, or suffer from mental or neurological disabilities to take part in the creative and artistic enjoyment that museums have to offer.

Luanda Barrios, from the state Institute of the Arts of Images and Space (IAIME), told IPS that “in this first phase, the programme is aimed at young disabled people so that they can interact and come to grips with the plastic arts.”

Later “we hope to get the young people interested in contemplating the works, and eventually in exploring creativity,” said Barrios. Last year, pilot projects involved children from two private and two public schools in Caracas, and this year the programme will be extended to the entire country.

Forty-eight schools — two from each region of Venezuela — will participate, each with some 20 children and adolescents taking part in the workshops, which will be designed and taught in museums, “adapted to the needs and particular characteristics of each area and group, and to the potential that each museum has to offer,” Barrios said.

Serge Planas, a 35-year-old plastic artist, who will be running a workshop in Caracas, told IPS that “studies last year with children from ANAPACE (the National Association against Cerebral Palsy) showed they could create artwork, modelling in clay, painting and making group murals.”

“The courses are supplemented with workshops on self-knowledge, mobility, and group activities, which are the most challenging because the children have different degrees and types of disability, but are well worth the effort,” Planas said.

People with disabilities “should not be discriminated against, even unconsciously, as so often happens. Art in general, and plastic arts in particular, are an important tool for building inclusiveness with disabled people,” Planas said.

Barrios said that the programmes will start with guided visits, before going on to the workshops. Part of the arrangement is to have artists present, together with the museum guides, which should make for a richer and more stimulating interaction with the young disabled people.

Practical arrangements are beginning to be worked out. Lisette, for example, is brought to the museum by her sister, who also takes part in the workshops.

“A new, shared space is being created and developed, in an experience that enriches everyone — artists, museum curators, school staff, disabled people and the general public,” Barrios said.

The project coordinator described its two-pronged positive approach. The first is to motivate communities so that they make sure they include activities tailored for disabled people within their plans for work, leisure and crafts.

The second is to revitalise museums so that they are more active in their communities and serve them better, especially people with disabilities.

In Venezuela, 1.5 million people out of the total population of 27 million live with some form of disability, according to the National Council of Disabled Persons. (END/2007)