The Visual Made Verbal

According to official sources, approximately 55,000 blind or visually impaired live in Greece today, being in their majority excluded from cultural and social occasions.

Audio Description provides the means so as this population group can have full and equal participation in cultural life, as well as access to every cultural event. In brief, it allows people with vision disability to properly live as first-class citizens, having the ability to contribute to, participate in, or equally enjoy the artistic treasures this society offers. Through the use of inclusive, vibrant, and inventive words, Audio Description provides an adaptation of images into phrases: the visual turns verbal, aural, and oral. This way, the images of performing arts become accessible to the blind and the visually impaired.

Equal access presents an opportunity for augmenting and approaching a new audience that wishes to attend cultural events.

Audio Description offers blind audience members the freedom to attend an event without the need to rely on others to tell them “what’s going on.” For the last couple of years in Greece, different performances, films, and events were presented with Audio Description. The feedback provided by the Greek blind population in response to these events has shown that there is an important necessity for equal access and participation in cultural events.

The seminar is realized with the support of the Fulbright Greece, on the occasion Dr. Snyder’s visit as a Fulbright Specialist.

Co-Organized by: Liminal – Access to Culture and the Onassis Stegi in the framework of the program “Europe Beyond Access”.