News Behind the Scenes

The Heckscher Museum has again expanded its visitor offerings to ensure even more accessibility for all Museum guests.

The Museum has chosen select images from The Body Politic: Long Island Biennial 2024 and created both written and verbal descriptions to assist visitors.  The descriptions are available through the Bloomberg Connects App. New, updated labels in the gallery will have an accessibility icon and are going up in the galleries shortly. Among the Biennial artwork now in audio description format is Lettuce by Madeline Daversa, Mark Van Wagner’s Stone Wall, Glen Hansen’s World Trade Center, Adam Straus’ Sunflower and Ruint Earth, and Not All Who are Different are Broken by Teresa Cromwell.

In addition, tactile kits filled with the materials used in artwork on view are now available to visitors in the galleries. Biennial artist Mark Van Wagner is the first to participate through his works Stone Wall and Two.  While you can’t touch Van Wagner’s evocative sculptures, a tactile kit features the materials used in the sculpture – both flat and 3D examples of pigment and sand on a recycled box. This gives visitors a chance to be even more connected with the artwork in the Museum.  Visitors can simply ask the front desk for the kits.

“I’m delighted to hear how my ‘sandbox sample-tactile kits’ are moving forward the art conversation/interaction with your visually impaired visitors as well as the children,” said Van Wagner. “This means so much to me and I am extremely grateful to [Heckscher Museum] for making the effort and expanding your outreach to a larger community of art enthusiasts. I have listened to the audio file and tried to imagine myself without sight and was so honored by the way you described my piece Stone Wall.”

This latest announcement is part of The Heckscher Museum’s continued effort to make art accessible to all, by updating, creating and promoting accessibility throughout the Museum in all facets.  Thanks to the Accessibility Advisory Group for their help and expertise in facilitating important Museum goals, the Museum Docent Volunteers for their work in drafting the verbal descriptions.

ASL, Braille, Spanish language translation, and other accessibility efforts are made possible by a generous grant from the New York State Council on the Arts with support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.