On April 7th of this year, my Museum Education class visited the Metropolitan museum. We met with Marie Clapot from the education department to discuss museum access. The type of access Marie discussed was for people who suffered from Dementia. She went over how in her program the Dementia patients would come to the museum with their care partners.
Marie mentioned how there were several different programs in the Dementia access. One program centers around touch. Curators set aside certain works of art that can be physically handled and they are used in this particular program. Another type of program is where they use sights and sounds. Here they observe artworks and certain scents are pumped into the area, so as to spark their memory and help them identify certain objects in the artwork. Other programs feature art workshops and gallery tours.
I can say that the session with Marie Clapot was very informative. She was very knowledgable and seemed intensely enthusiastic about the programs. Marie described how she is proud that these access programs are taking hold in her native France. I enjoyed listening to her describe in detail all the background work that goes into these programs. Mair was personable and very professional, something you don’t see too often in antsy line of work.
