Wakefield Museums and Castles

Cornfields at Walton (Walton Colliery), 1980 - creative audio description

This section details specific access information for the Cynthia Kenny: a city framed exhibition space.

Moving around Cynthia Kenny: a city framed

The Cynthia Kenny exhibition is fully level access. It is wheelchair and pushchair accessible.

The exhibition is in the special exhibition gallery. When a special exhibition is running, the double doors to that gallery will be propped open. Please note that the door between the Front Room and the special exhibition gallery is currently closed. This is to protect the artworks on display in the Cynthia Kenny exhibition from light over-exposure.

Seating: There are portable stools at the entrance to the Cynthia Kenny special exhibition gallery. These can be used anywhere in the museum. There is a seating block in the centre of the Cynthia Kenny exhibition designed to look like blocks of grass, brick and concrete. These are at slightly different heights. You can sit on these.

You can download a sensory map of the Cynthia Kenny exhibition.

Lighting levels

There are low lighting levels in the Cynthia Kenny exhibition gallery. This is to protect the artworks on display from light over-exposure. There is an additional lighting strip in the display case. This is at waist height, or around face height if you are in a wheelchair or short-statured.

Audio elements and subtitling

The Cynthia Kenny exhibition includes a soundscape inspired by the paintings on display. It lasts for around 15 minutes. The soundscape plays on the hour and half past the hour. After it finishes there is around 15 minutes before it starts again. The soundscape never gets overly loud but the volume does differ throughout. At one point a couple of minutes in there is construction drilling and high-pitched noises. There is occasionally the sound of people speaking and general hubbub (but you can’t make out any of the words). There is also traffic noise, buzzing, birds tweeting, cathedral bells ringing and music. The sounds often overlap each other.

There is also a large audio-visual screen in the Cynthia Kenny exhibition. This will play a video featuring people talking about Cynthia when the raised button is pressed. The button is on the bottom left of the outer frame of the screen. The video is subtitled in English. The audio plays through headphones, which are attached to the screen. For the first 20 seconds of the video there is ambient music overlaying footage of Cynthia’s paintings. The speaking starts with Mabel’s (Cynthia’s friend) interview. It lasts around 6 minutes. A faint bit of the audio bleeds into the main gallery from the headphones when it is playing.

There is another smaller digital screen in the far corner of the Cynthia Kenny exhibition. This plays a slideshow with no audio. It is not touch-screen and plays automatically.

Audio description guide

There is an audio description guide to accompany the Cynthia Kenny exhibition. The guide is accessed using one of the two RNIB PenFriend devices, headphones and booklet packs at the entrance to the exhibition. It features creative audio description of some of the paintings. You can access each clip by tapping your PenFriend on the orange stickers on the raised RNIB PenFriend small square panels. These panels are at the bottom right below the related artwork or information panel.

There is also a transcription of the audio description guide. This is available on a hook on the open door to the exhibition space.

Braille

There is a braille transcription booklet of the Cynthia Kenny exhibition. This is kept on a hook on the open door to the exhibition space. The hook is about waist-height (or face-height if you are in a wheelchair or short-statured). It is kept with three other booklets (audio description transcription, Urdu and Polish transcriptions). It has braille on the front cover to help you identify it.

Hands-on elements

In the gallery there is an interactive ‘build your own cityscape’ feature. This includes building blocks and an open frame to create your own scene. There are also sketching tools and clipboards.

Makaton

There are Makaton signs around the exhibition. These can help you to communicate about what is on display.

There are also discussion prompts in orange paint palette symbols on the walls. These can help you to think and communicate about the paintings in a multisensory way.

Polish translation – tłumaczenie na język polski

We have a Polish translation of the Cynthia Kenny: a city framed exhibition.

It is on a hook on the door outside the exhibition. You can pick it up and take it around the gallery with you.

Urdu translation - اردو میں ترجمہ

We have an Urdu translation of the Cynthia Kenny: a city framed exhibition.

It is on a hook on the door outside the exhibition. You can pick it up and take it around the gallery with you.

Full access information for Wakefield Museum