Accessible and inclusive culture – Financing of institutions’ programmes

The Ministry provides funds for work and functioning, as well as for implementation of programmes of cultural institutions in RS. Within its responsibility, cultural institutions are the most important entities in the context of implementation of the cultural policy in Republika Srpska. Taking into consideration that one of the defined priorities is accessible and inclusive culture, some of the institutions promptly initiated certain activites and some very interesting projects.

In that regard, the Museum of Contemporary Art of RS prepared a specialised exhibition entitled ‘Space, form, touch’, which is the first exhibition in the region entirely adjusted to blind people and people with low vision. It is an original project of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Republika Srpska, implemented with professional assistance provided by the Typhlological Museum from Zagreb. The exhibition includes drawings, graphics, paintings and sculptures from the MCARS collection, and it is dedicated to the art group ‘Space-Form’, established in 1975. The group started working in Banja Luka in 1970s, introducing abstraction in the art of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The exhibition was created with the aim of representing abstract works of art, as valuable cultural heritage safeguarded by the MCARS, in a new way, in accordance with contemporary museological standards, particularly to make them accessible to blind people and people with low vision. Such a form of inclusive presentation of museum items is enabled through their special adjustments, prepared specifically for this exhibition, which include reduced-size tactile replicas of works, adaptations made with sound and smell, as well as the original items accessible for touch. All the exhibited works are accompanied by descriptive legends written in Braille, as well as audio recordings with biographical data on each of the authors, interpreting their artistic concept for certain works.