A local community expands its effort to support the marginalised

Ella Clarke and Mathilda Richardson

With dementia-friendly discussions and British Sign Language talks, the Dulwich Picture Gallery is trying to reach parts of the community it hasn’t thus far.

This year, Dulwich Picture Gallery has extended its three-year inclusivity initiative to staff training. Gallery staff are now able to respond to visitors with dementia, children and adults with special needs.

Gallery supervisor Beth Fraser made it clear that a community-focussed approach is vital to the institution’s ethos. The Covid-19 lockdown was a turning point, she said, as it gave her and other senior members of staff the time to review their inclusivity measures, or lack thereof.

The result was a new push to create an inclusive gallery that reflects the world around us.

Staff are now trained on how to fully engage with all kinds of visitors, taught how to communicate appropriately and to calmly respond to concerns about special needs, such as confusion caused by dementia.

One of the first to volunteer to deliver blind and deaf inclusive talks at the Gallery was Dulwich resident Angela. She began hosting the talks out of an interest in inclusivity sparked by her husband’s struggles with blindness and hearing loss.

Angela centres the talks around the larger paintings in the gallery as part of her accommodations for the blind and visually impaired. She describes the painting and what it says, giving the audience a fully immersive experience. One of her favourite paintings for the inclusive talks is the mid-17th century Peter Lely’s ‘Nymphs by a fountain’. Fraser says it provides great content for a visually impaired audience, with its sweeping narrative and dramatic context.

Three years on, how has the inclusivity drive done?

Fraser says she has noticed an increase in connectedness in the people who attend the talks. She adds that the effort to extend inclusivity across the whole Gallery means the offer of large-print guides on all the paintings. Free audio guides are also on offer, featuring descriptions from experts.