Celebrating Learning Disability Awareness Week, we’ve launched a new accessible WW1 online exhibition today.
Magpie Dance’s highly emotional and revealing First World War project investigating the stories of people with learning disabilities and journeys to the front line makes its online debut with the launch of the Hidden Impact digital exhibition.
Marking the armistice centenary, the project undertaken by Magpie Dance, My Life, My Choice and Ruskin College, Oxford with funding from Heritage Lottery Fund and Arts Council England has revealed the astonishing contribution of people with learning disabilities to the First World War, our heritage and today’s society.
The research came as hospital records classified for 100 years were released. Participants of Magpie Dance used WW1 as the artistic theme to their learning and choreography for the academic year delivering a stunning and poignant flagship performance in December 2018. They developed an exhibition portraying the research findings and their interpretations. This has successfully travelled through local libraries and now online.
The accessible online exhibition features VR technology – you can even drive a tank! Choose to go through the guided tour where you just hit play and it let it take you around. Or you can move around yourself, zooming to make it larger and clicking on interactive artefacts.
All posters and long text have audio, all videos and some photos have sound. If you download the WW1 ActiveLens app (instructions on how to do this and how to use it are provided in the exhibition) you can view some photos in augmented reality, hear what they have to say or listen to music.
Comment on the exhibition itself and let us know what you think!
Erica Moshman, Hidden Impact Project Manager said: “The Hidden Impact digital exhibition is a wonderful way for a diverse audience to view this project in its entirety, including dance performance, research, exploration, and response. Viewers can experience the enormous amount of work put into this project over the last year and the incredible creativity and dedication of the Magpie dancers. We hope that this project has helped to spark further research and to help reveal the impact that people with learning disabilities had in World War I, as well as how people with learning disabilities have redefined who they are today”.
Now it’s your turn to experience the contribution of people with learning disabilities to the First World War. Access the online exhibition here: https://www.artsteps.com/view/5c7fd4e2561da904db418f76