The Critical Visitor

Intersectional Approaches for Rethinking and Retooling Accessibility and Inclusivity in Heritage Spaces

DAS Research was a consortium member and hosted the Archival Interactions Workshops and the Symposium Archival Interactions: Performing Intersectional Counter-Archives.

The Critical Visitor explores the potential for heritage institutions to promote inclusion and accessibility for groups and voices usually marginalized from cultural spaces, today's 'critical visitors'. It is part of the NWO Smart Culture programme and builds on the new national 'Cultural Diversity Code'.

This project approaches the work from an intersectional perspective, asking questions of inclusivity and accessibility. The Critical Visitor is a consortium of fifteen Dutch cultural partners from the heritage sector, ranging from architecture, the arts, media studies, social histories to ethnography.

The Critical Visitor aims to empower heritage institutions to engage with working practices (selection, collection, preservation, display, interaction) that challenges structural oppression within the heritage sector. Through the method of triangulating 'theory-ethics-practice', the Critical Visitor will innovate the field of critical heritage studies and propose a palette of inclusive practices that fulfill today’s ethical standards set by governmental bodies and critical voices in heritage spaces. The policy-driven, scholarly, artistic output of enhanced tools and concepts will establish a new benchmark in museological theory and practice.

Read more about The Critical Visitor's other programs here.

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