During the Fair various pro-social innovations from numerous countries, branches and disciplines were presented. Audiodescription, developed by the team of scientists from UL, i.e. verbal descriptions of works of art, the use of which increases the chances of visually impaired people to access cultural assets, was one of them. Thanks to audiodescription blind or visually impaired people may get familiar with e.g. paintings from museum space. Audiodescription is performed for the needs of several museums, including: the Museum of Art in Lodz, Museum of the City of Lodz or Museum of the Factory.
– We would like museums to design and then apply modern working methods. We would like them to work in the mode of the open museum concept - also for the needs of the disabled - explains prof. Aneta Pawłowska.
Apart from the humanists from the UL Faculty of Philosophy and History as well as the Faculty of Philology also researchers and students from the UL Faculty of Physics and Applied Informatics are engaged in the project. University of Lodz Centre for Technology Transfer provides support in terms of commercialisation of research. The Team strives for improving well-being of visually impaired people through supporting their independence in, among others, contact with visual arts, but also in navigating the historic city space.
Such actions show in a practical way how to make art - in museums and not only – more accessible to people with various disabilities. Simultaneously they support social integration in the area of culture.
Members of the team are:
- dr hab. prof. UL Aneta Pawłowska (Institute of History of Art, UL – the manager)
- dr Anna Wendorff (Faculty of Philology, UL)
- dr inż. Artur Hłobaż (Faculty of Physics and Applied Informatics, UL)
- dr Julia Sowińska-Heim (Institute of History of Art, UL)
- dr Kinga Sygizman (Faculty of Philology, UL)
- mgr Adam Drozdowski (Institute of History of Art, UL)
In 2017 the team of prof. Pawłowska received LUMEN Award.
University of Lodz is one of the biggest universities in Poland. Its mission is to educate top-class scientists and specialists in numerous fields of humanities, social sciences, natural and exact sciences as well as health sciences. UniLodz cooperates with business, both at the staff level by providing qualified employees as well as at the scientific level, by offering its know-how to enterprises from various areas of economy. University of Lodz is an academic institution open to the world – the number of its international students is constantly growing, while its Polish students, thanks to Exchange programmes, get to know Europe, Asia and travel overseas. The University is a part of Lodz, it operates for and with the community of Lodz by getting involved in many socio-cultural projects.
Source: prof. Aneta Pawłowska, Bartosz Kałużny, Faculty of Philosophy and History, UL
Edit: Promotion Centre, UL