The project

BEAM UP is a project born to help museums to move from the production of services for the blind to the production of services done together with the blind in the field of contemporary art.   

The project foresees the activation of three local mixed working groups, in Italy, Croatia and Ireland, composed of museum professionals, the blind and visual disability experts. Working together for two and a half years they will study the design, planning, organisation and realisation of accessibility actions. They are starting from a bottom up approach that will hopefully provide visually impaired people with more effective solutions, because they will be developed with the direct participation of the final users. 

Local practices will be compared, help and advice will be given, and scientifically validated by an international group of experts. 

BEAM UP priorities are the promotion of proactive audience development and the improvement of skills and competences of the cultural operators all over Europe. Beam Up is the follow-up of the previous project VIBE, Voyage Inside a Blind Experience, co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme that ended in 2019. BEAM UP has the same partnership.

VIBE wanted to create the first model of a contemporary art temporary exhibition accessible both to seeing and visually impaired people. 

www.vibe-euproject.com

The idea was born from an ongoing collaboration between the project leader Atlante (IT), a young company specialized in cultural services and expertise for museums and cultural organisations, Fondazione Istituto dei Ciechi di Milano (IT), a worldwide point of reference for research in the field of pedagogical services and IT, which promotes independence, self-reliance, professional and cultural training of blind people, The Glucksman (IE), a contemporary art gallery in the historic grounds of University College Cork and Muzej suvremene umjetnosti Zagreb (HR), a lively place of creation, representation, interpretation and preservation of all forms of contemporary art. 

The project is co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union 2014-2020.