The Art&Signs Curriculum is addressed to museum workers aimed at transferring them the necessary knowledge and skills in order to be able to welcome and accompany Deaf visitors in the museum by explaining the meaning of the artworks hosted in.
In order to achieve this goal, a set of educational and training materials are designed by the partnership covering the following topics:
- basic language skills of the National Sign Languages used in the partner countries (Slovakia, Italy, Cyprus, Netherlands, Romania and Spain)
- sectoral signs related to the art and culture
- knowledge about the Deaf culture
- skills, strategies and elements of non-verbal communication to be used with Deaf visitors.
The Curriculum is developed with the essential support of the Deaf people experienced in the field of art and culture who have been involved during the implementation of the training programme in each partner country. The cooperation between hearing and Deaf trainers is crucial in order to ensure the inclusion at social and professional level as well as to make Deaf people protagonist in the development of a training programme concerning their world
in terms of language and culture.
The main target groups who can benefit directly and indirectly from the implementation of the Art&Signs Curriculum are:
- Museum workers: curators, museum educators, museum docents,
front-office employees, museum guides - Deaf trainers, Deaf artists, trainers Sign Language users, VET
providers - Stakeholders: Deaf associations, museum institutions, organizations, public institutions and companies dealing with accessibility and social inclusion.
This training programme is innovative because it takes into account two different perspectives: the museum workers as the beneficiaries of the training and the Deaf community who will gain greater accessibility to culture places through an adequate training of museum staff. The educational model is highly transferable as it can be addressed to other VET contexts for upskilling workers and might be considered as an information source for museum institutions and Deaf community at European level.
