Dear MCG,
I am delighted to announce that the nominees for this year's Jodi Awards have been shortlisted ...
An impressive selection of museum and cultural providers have been shortlisted for the Jodi Awards (www.jodiawards.org.uk) - now in their tenth year. Each year the Awards highlight excellence in widening participation for disabled people in museums, galleries, exhibitions, libraries, archives and other heritage sites.
“The nominees this year have been very strong,” says Trustee Marcus Weisen, “We have shortlisted seven organisations for awards in four categories and we are looking forward to further exploration of each project.”
The categories reward excellence in digital heritage projects which actively involve disabled users; innovation in projects which have developed technical solutions for increasing access; and legacy and impact in projects which ensure on-going access for disabled people. A fourth International Award will be granted to the best website outside the UK.
Projects shortlisted for the Accessible Planning and User Involvement Award include a historic trail in Duxford, explaining Duxford’s time as an RAF airfield from 1918-1961 through the stories of people who worked and lived on the site; an audio trail in London giving rich, vivid descriptions of 40 city landmarks; and a live Twitterfeed performance about UK benefits system changes and their impact on disabled people.
Projects shortlisted for other categories include a multi-sensory Sound Canvas that enables audiences to access and experience art in an innovative way; a ground breaking web project exploring the relationship between disabled people and the historic environment; and, from France, a digital library that provides collections of accessible books to blind and partially sighted people for free, and a French sign language dictionary with interactive capabilities.
This year’s nominations featured an exciting mix of established organisations alongside newer names. “We are delighted by the levels of talent and innovation witnessed in this crop of nominees” says Marcus Weisen. “If these projects are reflective of the standard of excellence for disabled participation in the heritage sector today then the future is very bright indeed.”
The shortlisted projects will be subject to rigorous user testing by disabled people; each site-based project will be visited by a specialist assessor and Internet based projects will be put through manual and automated tests by teams at York University and AbilityNet. The final decisions will be made by a panel of judges drawn from the heritage sector.
The Awards will be presented in association with the Museums Association at the MA Annual Conference, in Liverpool, on Monday 11 November 2013.
http://www.museumsassociation.org/conference/museums-association-conference-and-exhibition-2013-liverpool-monday
For more information about the Jodi Awards 2013 visit : www.jodiawards.org.uk
LIST OF NOMINEES FOR EACH AWARD CATEGORY
Accessibility and Planning & User Involvement
o Imperial War Museums - Historic Duxford
o Roaring Girl Productions – Bedding Out
o VocalEyes – London Beyond Sight
Innovation
o Imperial War Museums - Historic Duxford
o English Heritage – Disability in Time and Place
o Roaring Girl Productions – Bedding Out
o Sandwell Arts Trust – Sound Canvas
Legacy and Impact
o Imperial War Museums - Historic Duxford
o English Heritage – Disability in Time and Place
o Roaring Girl Productions – Bedding Out
o VocalEyes – London Beyond Sight
International (Best website)
o Association Valentin Hauy – Éole
o Signe de Sens – Elix
INFORMATION ON SHORTLISTED PROJECTS
Imperial War Museums - Historic Duxford
(Accessibility and Planning & User Involvement; Innovation; Legacy and Impact)
Historic Duxford is a historic site trail and exhibition for families. It explains Duxford’s time as an RAF airfield from 1918-1961, through the stories of people who worked and lived on the site. The Historic Duxford trail consists of eight points which enable disabled and non-disabled people to engage with the site together, through archive photographs and through audio, powered by a wind-up device. This makes audio descriptions, veterans’ reminiscences and soundscapes available in their relevant location. Complementing the trail is the multisensory, hands-on Historic Duxford exhibition with a bespoke audio tour for visually impaired visitors, and BSL interpretation.
VocalEyes – London Beyond Sight
(Accessibility and Planning & User Involvement; Legacy and Impact)
London Beyond Sight provides rich vivid descriptions of 40 London landmarks, making them accessible to blind and partially sighted people. Chosen by significant Londoners, VocalEyes describers worked with each person to create the evocative description which the Londoner brought to life with their narration. The recordings and the texts are freely available on all platforms on our bespoke website www.vocaleyes.co.uk/londonbeyondsight. Information about the Londoner and the landmark, together with access notes, is included on each page. Written specifically for blind/partially sighted people, it is also accessible to people with hearing loss and deaf people, as it is available as text.
Roaring Girl Productions – Bedding Out
(Accessibility and Planning & User Involvement; Innovation; Legacy and Impact)
Bedding Out was a performance about UK benefits system changes and their impact on disabled people. In performing her ‘bed-life’ in a gallery for 48 hours, artist-activist Liz Crow showed what many people see as contradiction, or fraud, is the complexity of real life. At an earlier performance, several people were delighted the work made them visible but were too ill to attend in person, so the work was reinvented with social media at its core. A continuous high quality livestream and facilitated Twitterfeed enabled virtual participation on a huge and international scale (almost 10,000 participants in over 50 countries).
Sandwell Arts Trust – Sound canvas
(Innovation)
Sound Canvas is a multi-sensory installation that enables audiences to access and experience art in an innovative way – using sensors and digital technology. It’s made up of 4 wooden cabinets, each with 2 sensors and 2 light boxes, which are triggered by body movement. The cabinets light up and make sounds (currently people laughing) at various intervals – depending on how close the visitor is to the sensors. This movement-based interaction is particularly good at engaging disabled visitors. Sound Canvas is designed to change over time and new sounds – from visitors - will be added, to provide constantly new experiences.
http://www.thepublic.com/exhibitions/sound-canvas
English Heritage – Disability in Time and Place
(Innovation; Legacy and Impact)
The Disability in Time and Place is a ground breaking web project exploring the relationship between disabled people and the historic environment using research, buildings information, archive photography and testimony from disabled people. It is fully translated into BSL and aims to help disabled people and others interested in disability history learn how much historic buildings can tell us about disabled people’s daily lives and society’s attitudes to them.
www.english-heritage.org.uk/disabilityhistory
Association Valentin Hauy – Éole
(International)
Éole is a digital library that provides collections of accessible books to print impaired people for free. Targeted audiences are visually impaired, physically and mentally handicapped people. Éole was designed to be completely accessible and very user-friendly, so to include poorly computer-literate users. Éole is a consistent set of services operating around a website: accessible collections, cultural and book promoting contents, communication tools to propel contents, reference and help-desk, support services offering extended mentoring to novice users, and finally professional networking program to reach new audiences. Since Éole launched 3 months ago, more than 1200 patrons downloaded 15000+ books.
Signe de Sens – Elix
(International)
Elix (www.elix-lsf.fr) is a free website designed by the French non-profit organization Signes de Sens. The main function of Elix is the French/French sign language (now FSL) dictionary. As in any other sign language lexicon, you can find the sign corresponding to the written
word but Elix also furnishes the written definition and even the definition translated in a
French sign language video! It’s more than a lexicon, it’s a dictionary. Everyone can
participate to the dictionary, by adding their sign videos. Elix is also available on a mobile application for iPhone and Androïd.
Ross Parry
Chair of Trustees
Jodi Mattes Trust
_____________________
Dr Ross Parry
College Academic Director (Arts, Humanities and Law)
Senior Lecturer (School of Museum Studies)
University of Leicester
Museum Studies Building, 19 University Road, Leicester, LE1 7RF, UK
t: 0116 252 3963 e: [log in to unmask]
w: http://www.le.ac.uk/ms/contactus/rossparry.html
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