Despite my lifelong interest in the visual arts, I grew up without the luxury of attending art museums and receiving proper art education in the public schools I attended. After completing my BFA in Art Education, I was still curious about education in the realm of art museums, which is why I decided to attend graduate school and study museum education. In graduate school, I also began to study American Sign Language (ASL) since I had been curious about this language after growing up with a Deaf person in my community. Consequently, I combined my interest in both the Deaf community and art museum education as the focus of my thesis, while in graduate school. Now that I have completed my thesis, I would like to share my research with museum professionals and members of the Deaf community to improve the accommodations that museums provide for people who are Deaf.
An Important Note: I realize that when discussing the issues a certain group of people face, it may seem like they are being isolated and objectified, but I would like to express to the reader that this is not my intent. My intention of my thesis and research is to create awareness about the needs of people who are Deaf within the setting of art museums. Also, my purpose was not to put down any museum, but to critically analyze what art museums are missing when considering programming for people who are Deaf, and to distinguish which accommodations are effective.
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