Interview with Fabienne Gateau,
Curator of the Departmental Ceramics Museum
Since the formation and opening of the Departmental Ceramics Museum in 2007, has it always been sensitive to disability issues?
Indeed, and even before as the municipal museum already had strong links with a branch of the Rehabilitation Centre for the Visually Impaired located in Lezoux. Partnerships and experiences were in existence very early on. This is why the departmental museum has quite natu-rally continued on the same path, also broadening its approach as the aim was clearly to be accessible to everyone… and that goes beyond disability issues.
The museum is concerned about all types of disability and beyond: what exactly do you mean by that?
It was important for everyone, the elected representatives, technicians and museum team, that the establishment,
The museum in Lezoux is a museum where ‘periods rub shoulders’.
that resolutely intended to be accessi-ble, complied with the minimum quality standards of the Tourism and Disability Label. This required substantive prelimi-nary work regarding the physical adap-tation of the building and layout. However, from the outset we also focussed on peo-ple distanced from culture on a social level; and this type of approach, for example, led to us winning the Heritage for Everyone awards, shortly after the Accessibility Award.
Winning these awards in 2015 and 2016 encouraged you to continue your accessibility initiative…
Yes, exactly, and it has resulted in this state-commissioned art project. This may seem surprising for an archaeology
museum but the museum in Lezoux is a museum where ‘periods rub shoulders’: Antiquity, the contemporary period in the historical sense with the pottery factory, as well as the current period when art-ists in residence at the museum produce works that resonate with the collections.
The commissioned work ‘Le secret du monde’ (The Secret of the World) is aimed at the visually impaired. Why have you attached particular importance to this type of disability?
First of all for the ‘historical’ reasons mentioned above, and over the course of the museum’s actions to foster acces-sibility, discussions were conducted with the visually impaired. How can tools for mediation, description and tactile