Listening to Visual Art

How Montclair State University's George Segal Gallery is using audio description to make art more accessible

Nov 28, 2022

I had always believed that the fine arts were not meant for people like me. As someone with a low vision disability, I was largely disinterested in visiting museums, galleries or other exhibitions. I felt that I couldn't fully appreciate paintings or sculptures and even reading the adjacent information placards was often inaccessible. Call me uncultured, but I didn't think it made any sense for me to spend time pretending to enjoy art.

But, following a trip to New York's MOMA earlier this year, my opinion began to change. I was unaware that some galleries were starting to use audio description to bring works of art to life for people with low or no vision. I recall sitting in front of an enormous Jackson Pollock piece and finding myself immersed in the details and background information that was available via the online audio tour. I feel if more institutions provide this service, it will not only bring down barriers for people with visual impairments, but could provide a whole new way to look at art for even those with perfect sight.

One of Lens15’s missions is to make all media more accessible and that includes producing as well as spreading the word about audio description. In my latest Lens Into NJ column for TAPinto, I wrote about the importance of this disembodied voice that can be heard in between bits of dialogue in many movies and television series. But, for this edition of the newsletter, I wanted to go beyond film and TV and highlight some of the work that's being done in the Garden State to make fine art more accessible.

The George Segal Gallery at Montclair State University might be the only art institution on a college campus in NJ that includes audio description as part of its exhibitions. Full disclosure; I’m an adjunct professor at MSU and helped connect the gallery with the School of Communication and Media as well as my colleague, Maria Jose Garcia Vizcaino, who has been doing groundbreaking work with AD. (I profiled her course on Spanish language description for the public radio program The World in 2019.) Since that initial introduction, these entities have continued to collaborate and AD will be made available for a current exhibition at the gallery as well as an upcoming one next year.

I spoke with Alyssa Leslie Villaseñor, the Engagement and Outreach Coordinator at Montclair State University Galleries, to learn more about how AD was produced for the first time as part of last spring’s “Black Wall Street: A Case for Reparations” exhibition by Ajamu Kojo as well as hear how she is taking steps to ensure that art is more inclusive.

Below is an edited transcript of our conversation. You can read it or listen to it via the embedded audio player.

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Jason Strother

Prior to starting here at Montclair State, what was your exposure to accessible art?

Alyssa Leslie Villaseñor

Honestly, I would say very little to none. I myself wasn't aware that visual art could be made accessible. In my personal life I know folks who have limited vision or vision impairment. But I also didn't have much exposure to the arts myself. I've always been a books and literature kind of person. So I am aware of audiobooks and podcasts and things like that, where once I kind of moved to the visual arts, and didn't realize the the lack of accessibility there was because of my privilege.

Jason Strother

So the first time that audio description was made available for an exhibition at the Segal Gallery was in the spring following our chat. Tell me about that exhibition. What did it feature and how was audio description implemented?

Alyssa Leslie Villaseñor

Yeah, so that exhibition is called Ajamu Kojo's "Black Wall Street: A Case for Reparations" that actually looks at the Tulsa race massacre and those victims and reimagines their legacies. So this was a series of paintings, and the audio descriptions were paired with each painting. Alongside that exhibition, we did a Matterport capture, which is a virtual walkthrough of the space that lives on our website. And that's another place that audio descriptions can be found. So even if you can't physically enter the gallery, you can go on the website and click through it and hear the audio descriptions with the paintings.

Jason Strother

How did the coordination work between the gallery and the students who created the description?

Alyssa Leslie Villaseñor

Initially, the students reached out to me from Maria Jose's class letting them know they're working on this project. And then a few of the students actually came to the gallery. One was able to speak to the artist directly and, according to that student, being able to have a conversation with the artist, and learn about the artists intention, and what message they were trying to portray, really helped them develop the audio description. And then in this past summer, we had students here over the summer, review the audio descriptions before doing a final recording with the radio station on campus, WMSC. So we took the drafts from the students from Maria Jose's class, and using our knowledge of the exhibition, refined them and then recorded them and they're all done.

Jason Strother

What did that do for you, as someone who doesn't have a disability to be able to look at these pieces of art and also hear them described? Like did it bring to life anything that you didn't expect?

Alyssa Leslie Villaseñor

Yeah, I think when I first read the audio descriptions from the students, I learned so much about the works again, and this is after an entire semester, months of looking at them and talking about them, doing programs with them. I was able to find new details I hadn't seen. The students also, at the end of the description, ask a question, and it challenged me to think about the art in a different way as well. Then also I realized the power of language to communicate what's in front of us visually, and how important it is to select those words and how even certain words have different connotations, and how that can change an entire perception of things. I realized kind of the power to be able to write an audio description and thinking about who's at the receiving end? And how do I experience this?

Jason Strother

Alyssa, I understand that you have taken some steps to become more familiar with creating audio description. Can you tell me about your training you've undertaken?

Alyssa Leslie Villaseñor

Yeah. So this past August, I completed the audio description institute hosted by Joel Schneider. And I thought it was extremely resourceful. I actually learned how to write audio description, not only for the visual arts, but for film and television. And it was definitely a new experience. Because I think with the visual arts, there's a lot more time and space to write the information. But with film and television, there's just the gaps in between.

Jason Strother

It's a very different style.

Alyssa Leslie Villaseñor

Exactly. But I really enjoyed that experience. And I still refer to those materials and resources and disseminate them among the department.

Jason Strother

Great. So even though that workshop was more oriented to creating description for film and TV, you could have some takeaways for fine art.

Alyssa Leslie Villaseñor

We present a number of kinds of artworks here. So for the spring, there'll be a two channel video installation. So again, using the techniques from the film and television tactics, but also just being concise and precise.

Jason Strother

Is there anything else about accessibility here at the Segal Gallery that I should know about?

Alyssa Leslie Villaseñor

Well, I think that we're always just trying to become more accessible and inclusive. And we did create a student accessibility support role in the gallery specifically for students who have taken at least one disability studies course at the university or have an experience that they can communicate to us in the application. So that's definitely one of the steps that we're taking moving forward. But we're always thinking about how to make this spacen a better space for everyone.

Lens15 Media reports on the 10 year anniversary of Hurricane Sandy

Superstorm Sandy should've been a turning point for inclusive disaster management, but many disability advocates in New Jersey and beyond say there is still room for improvement. Lens15 Media produced a series of videos that looks at how officials in NJ and across the region failed this population during that disaster and how climate change continues to put these individuals at greater risk. These are the audio described versions.

I was interviewed about this series by Montclair State University's News Lab along with a great report by student Erick Rivera concerning accessibility on campus.