Good, inclusive design thinking can change the world.
For Mumbai-based heritage architect Siddhant Shah, helping cultural organisations become more accessible to the differently-abled was the way to do this.
An accessibility consultant, Shah has been doing some excellent work with his organisation ‘Access For All’ to bridge the gap between heritage and disability by creating new definitions of physical, intellectual and social accessibility.
It started back in NMIMS Balwant Sheth School of Architecture, when Shah his friends and he decided to participate in a competition by UNESCO and Archaeological Survey of India to make heritage sites in India disabled-friendly.
We won that competition and had to create a prototype which was actually tested by people who were disabled. The on-site was Sanchi Stupa in Bhopal – that was the first time I actually guided the visually impaired and described what they were touching to them.
How His Mother Losing Partial Vision Inspired Him
This was 2014, during which two major events took place in his life: getting a scholarship to pursue a Masters in Heritage Management from the Athens University of Economics and Business – and his mother losing partial vision.
I spent two years there and started visiting museums with facilities like tactile reproductions for people with special needs. Greece also has a ‘Tactile Museum for the Blind’ and I closely interacted with the officials of the Tactile Museum to understand sizes, colours, materials. Also, my mother’s example became my benchmark for everything – to see how she would respond. That’s when I decided to take up this problem in India.
Siddhanth soon got yet another scholarship to carry out research on the subject in his home country – India.
However, the host organisations and museums he approached seemed rather reluctant, despite his foresight.
Initially, they thought it would cost them something but I assured them that I had research funding to cover costs. Another issue was that they weren’t getting any people with disabilities in the museum – which was the whole point as it should be accessible to everyone!
Things finally worked out, and he came on board as a consultant for Anubhav, a tactile gallery housed in the National Museum (Delhi).
I was observing, giving them design ideas and making sure the right resources were available. I also wrote a descriptive script for them, which was converted into an audio guide. So there are Braille captions, tactile reproductions, large-script font and the audio description.
An Art That Can be ‘Seen’ and ‘Felt’
His next two-year-long stint was as an access consultant for Jaipur City Palace’s Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II (MSMS II) Museum.
I was inspired by mehendi because you can feel it and ‘see’ it. I started converting miniature paintings into tactile art, and even created a model of Jaipur that you can touch and feel. But the biggest achievement was creating India’s first ‘Open Braille guidebook’ with a large script font and tactile plates. The book has Braille on the left for the visually impaired and large-scale font on the right for people with partial vision to make it comprehensive.
This experience also gave him the opportunity to design a similar brochure for Karachi's State Bank Museum.
Since then, enough and more meaningful opportunities have come Siddhant’s way. He has been working with the DAG Modern (Delhi Art Gallery) and designed India’s first art programme for the visually impaired – called Abhas.
He also converts Indian modern masters’ works into tactile reproductions, works on Braille books, and runs outreach programmes across India for visually impaired kids and those with other disabilities.
Access For All has even been creating workshops and blindfolded programmes for people who aren’t blind but should experience that perspective. The organisation is also doing audits for monuments, museums, restaurants and hotels to see how disabled-friendly they are.
But what’s his ideal future for India?
I believe our culture is very inclusive. Everything is a shared process. Like when we make rangoli, everybody comes together and does their bit. We’ve kind of forgotten that. That’s why my organisation is called Access For All. You can’t provide access to everybody, but you can at least provide it to as many people as you can.
(Rohini Kejriwal is a freelance writer and curator from Bangalore. She is always up for a good story, travel, impromptu adventures, strong coffee and the company of plants. A self-proclaimed beauty-hunter, she runs a daily newsletter and DIY zine comprising of art, poetry and music called The Alipore Post. She tweets @woohoochild.)
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