Expanding Accessibility in Museums: A Conversation with Christena Gunther

Christena Gunther, founder and president of Cultural Access Collaborative (formerly Chicago Cultural Accessibility Consortium), sat down with me to delve into what creating accessibility and inclusivity within museums and cultural institutions can look like. With a background in museums, a passion for accessibility, and experience supporting cultural institutions creating inclusive spaces, Christena shared some key points that museums and cultural institutions should keep in mind to create more accessible spaces and experiences.

[The interview excerpts below have been edited for length and clarity.]

1. Language matters

Words have weight, and when identities, law, and nuance are involved, it is important to ensure that we are choosing the right words that align with our efforts and values. 

Claire: People I've talked to who are disabled themselves talk about this difference between access as an ADA checklist versus inclusion, meaning disabled people are truly welcomed, and thought of. What are your thoughts on that?

Christena: It's the word “access” versus “inclusion.” To me at least, and maybe other people would disagree, I think access and inclusion sometimes are words we say together that shouldn't be substitutes for each other. I think the dirty word is compliance. Compliance is definitely not what we're after. The term “ADA compliance,” or when we say “ADA programs” or “ADA bathrooms”— that's where I think a lot of [lack of true inclusiveness] is being communicated to people with that terminology. We still see a lot of “handicapped” stuff which is always surprising..

2. Expand design to include more choice in museum experiences

Disability looks different for everyone, and learning looks different for everyone. By providing multiple choices for how visitors can engage with content, museums can become more accessible and reach more people.

Claire: What are design choices that can be made in museum spaces to increase accessibility?

Christena: It's really interesting to think about inclusive design, versus a program that's been designed for thinking about all audiences, versus a program that is designed for a specific group of disabled folks. I think sometimes one is seen as better than the other when in fact both are really important to have. [In doing so] we're offering choice and that is what universal design is: to have the option of “you can be like everybody else and we are prepared to welcome you and we want you to be here,” or to have a safe space where “this is for you, this is for people like you, you don't have to feel like you need to be anybody else other than who you are.”  

3. There are more funding opportunities for accessibility work than museums realize

Should museums be making accessibility efforts because they have a responsibility to? Yes! But we all know funds can be hard to allocate for these efforts. However, Christena makes the point that funding opportunities exist for accessibility programming and efforts.

Claire: When you're working with museums and other cultural programming, what do you think is the biggest roadblock for them becoming inclusive and accessible?

Christena: It comes down to money … budget and resources are usually the logistical barrier… I don't think for the most part people are intentionally being exclusionary or discriminating, but they are. Often it's because of burnout and feeling overwhelmed. We have really burned out administrators that are sorely underpaid and not taken care of in a lot of different ways, who are then expected to do this [accessibility work] too. Getting started is really hard. The deeper you get into accessibility, the more you realize that there's so much. It needs to be somebody's full-time job, because there is a lot and it's super complicated and nuanced. Once you've got the physical accessibility down, then there's a whole other world you've gotta figure out. 

However, Christena shared her experiences working at two large museums and how the funding that was given to the accessibility efforts made monumental impacts—and was a great way to continue to have support from funders.

Christena: There are a lot of ways to capitalize on it, but a lot of [museums’] advancement and development teams don't think of disability as diversity. They don't realize how important this is and how you can spin it for funders too. So by switching the lens in which we view accessibility measures to be efforts that can bring in more diversity and support, museums may be able to gather resources to build these efforts. They’ll have all of these different pieces working together, which is why you need full-time staff dedicated to doing it, plus volunteers, plus the educators that you'd hire and all of that. It's a huge operation, but it also can translate to money for the museum. That's not the main reason why you're doing it, of course, but it also can be revenue generating if you’re thinking about it in certain contexts.

4. Staff buy-in and training are essential to successfully support accessibility in museums

Having a successful accessibility program means having multiple people on staff who are on board, ensuring that everyone is trained and feels prepared in doing this work. 

Claire: What do you find to be most successful in accessibility programs?

Christena: [Successful accessibility programs in museums] have a lot of dedicated programming, which they’re paying educators to teach and paying staff and coordinating volunteers to execute. But then on top of that, there’s also a big push to work within the education and programming departments to make sure that the general programming is also accessible. That means a lot of training for the teaching volunteers or those educators that are leading those programs. We have helped them to be prepared for what might happen, who might come, and to not be surprised that there's disabled people on our tour—we should be expecting that. 

5. User experts are an excellent way to evaluate accessibility

There is a saying “nothing for us without us,” which greatly applies to this work. Disabled people are the experts on their own lived experiences, disability, and needs. Working with disabled people to evaluate a space or program (and compensating them properly) is a great way to work within the community to improve accessibility! 

Claire: How can museum evaluators and audience researchers best support those who are advocating for greater accessibility in museums?

Christena: The Institute for Human-Centered Design, they do some evaluation and I think their model would be an interesting model to look into. They’re specifically looking at it from a disability lens, and they make it a point to pay for disabled people to be user experts. They have disabled people go through a space, or through focus groups or surveys, and they get feedback directly from [disabled people] about where the challenges are…I think having people with different disabilities go through the space can yield a lot of really important information that can be often overlooked. And then they very consciously are paying them for their time as well. 

About Christena: Christena Gunther is founder and president of Cultural Access Collaborative (formerly Chicago Cultural Accessibility Consortium). You can reach her at cgunther@culturalaccesscollab.org.