Dialing in Culture: Experience Museums Virtually with "Call for Culture"
Explore Museums Virtually from Home - "Museum Experiences at Home" - Delving into Artifacts Remotely
Ever wanted to explore museums from the comfort of your couch? Well, here's your chance! The virtual museum tour is about to commence. Today, 15 enthusiasts are logging in, ready for their guide, Corinna Fehrenbach. But she stands alone at the Museum of Applied Arts in Cologne (MAKK). She dons her headset, dials a number, and we're off!
"I'm standing here, ready in the large foyer of the museum, and the Cologne Cathedral is just two minutes away," she says with a cheerful tone, setting the stage for the design exhibition ahead. Fehrenbach kicks off a roughly one-hour virtual tour - an offering brought to you by the Hamburg project, "Call for Culture."
At the moment, over 100 German museums are part of this project, with the Hamburger Kunsthalle joining in on June 15th. Artworks by legendary artists such as Édouard Manet, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, and contemporary Belgian artist Berlinde De Bruyckere will be discussed.
Many museums offer on-site tours for the visually impaired. "Call for Culture" takes this a step further, catering to art & culture enthusiasts everywhere - from those who struggle with mobility or cannot afford a visit to those who prefer to avoid large gatherings.
The project, spearheaded by the Association of the Blind and Visually Impaired, several Hamburg museums, and an office for inclusion during the COVID-19 pandemic, was designed to bring culture right to people's homes. Now that the pandemic has passed, the project has thrived, with 111 cultural providers now offering or soon to offer a virtual tour.
The audio tours are free, funded by Aktion Mensch and the Hamburg Cultural Authority - approximately 105,000 Euros annually. However, this only covers half of the costs. "The rest must be provided as an own contribution, which is still a major challenge for us," says project manager Melanie Woelwer. She and her team are hopeful for more donations from private individuals, foundations, and companies.
Gertrud Feld from Saarbrücken is a proud donor. The 61-year-old, who has been blind since birth, has become a regular listener and fondly speaks of the helm around the Helmut-Schmidt-Haus in Hamburg, Museumsinsel in Berlin, and the Herzogin-Anna-Amalia-Bibliothek in Weimar, among others. "I'm really happy that I can hear and experience so much from home. I always discover something beautiful, new, and exciting that I didn't know before," she shares.
Guides are carefully trained for telephone tours since they must project the exhibition vividly without overwhelming the listener's mind. Corinna Fehrenbach emphasizes shapes, colors, textures, and comparisons with familiar everyday and art historical objects. She describes room brightness, the aroma, and other sensory details to bring the tour to life.
"Phone tours require me to be much more focused," says Fehrenbach. "The challenging part is that I don't get any feedback," she adds. Fehrenbach, who usually prefers understated communication, finds herself using both hands to tell the story, and speaking more expressively when on the phone.
Despite the lack of physical cues, blind Gertrude Feld finds the audio tour to be a great enrichment. It allows her to engage with culture while enjoying her coffee. "You always leave knowing more than when you came in."
- Hamburg
- Cologne
- Berlin
- Museum Island
- Cologne Cathedral
- Hamburger Kunsthalle
- Culturally-inclusive
- Accessibility
- COVID-19 Pandemic
- Virtual Engagement
- The 'Call for Culture' project, spearheaded in Hamburg during the COVID-19 pandemic, has expanded to include over 100 German museums, offering virtual tours for art enthusiasts, promoting a more culturally-inclusive and accessible lifestyle, from the comfort of homes in cities such as Hamburg, Cologne, and Berlin.
- As the audio tours provided by 'Call for Culture' continue to be free, funded by Aktion Mensch and the Hamburg Cultural Authority, project manager Melanie Woelwer emphasizes the need for additional donations from private individuals, foundations, and companies to cover the remaining costs, ensuring the project's success in bringing sustainable living opportunities for visually impaired individuals and a variety of art & culture enthusiasts, to enjoy lifestyle experiences in home-and-garden settings, while engaging with museum collections featuring artists like Édouard Manet, Berlinde De Bruyckere, and more.
