One of the most impressive initiatives I discovered in England is a consortium of 16 museums in London who cater to the deaf and hearing impaired community called MAGIC (Museums and Galleries in the Capital). Some of the museums that participate on the MAGIC website are the British Museum, the Courtauld Institute of Art Gallery, the National Gallery, the Royal Academy of the Arts, Tate Britain, Tate Modern, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and more. This organization has a website that posts all the events that each museum provides for the Deaf community in London, and it allows visitors of the website to provide feedback about these museums’ programming. MAGIC also has videos in BSL (British Sign Language) that explain information about the website. The events posted on this website consist of lectures and/or tours that either may be interpreted or conducted by a person who is Deaf. Some museums out of the 16 seem to provide more accommodations than the others; these museums do not all provide the same accommodations. This website is a wonderful way of consolidating information so that Deaf visitors can find programs for multiple museums at once. After my search for a consortium of equal caliber in the United States, I walked away empty-handed. In the United States, a Deaf person must navigate art museum websites individually, contact them through TTY (a teletypewriter which is a telephone system connected to a keyboard), a rely service (a third-party operator service which allows people who are deaf/hard of hearing to make calls through TTY or via webcams and video phones to those who do not have TTY’s, webcams, or video phones), or through e-mail to discover whether a museum can provide accommodations such as an interpreter for a person who is Deaf weeks in advance of the person's visit.
Maybe this can happen in the United States...
Upon searching through museum websites in the United States, I have found that a few major art museums in New York City, other than the MET, have developed exemplary programming for members of the Deaf community. These museums include the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Whitney Museum of American Art, Guggenheim New York and The Frick Collection. With so many museums that offer regular programming for individuals who are Deaf, the city of New York comes closest to possibly creating a website that is equivalent to the MAGIC website in England. Perhaps the New York State Council on the Arts can partner with local Deaf organizations and New York museums to create a central website for Deaf programming.
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