The Orlando Museum of Art’s low-vision event series underscored the importance of expanding accessibility programs so that no one is excluded from the full experience of art. Courtesy Orlando Museum of Art and eSight by Gentex Corporation

For at least a decade, if not longer, museums that once acted primarily as stewards of art and artifacts have been tackling thorny challenges related to accessibility. We know how to hoard our treasures; how to share them equitably is something we’re still puzzling out. Economic accessibility is probably the easiest hurdle, even if free admission for all—the obvious and much-debated solution—isn’t the cure-all people assume it to be. But engaging audiences beyond those that museums have, rightly or wrongly, traditionally been designed for is much more difficult.

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At least 2.2 billion people globally live with vision impairment, according to the World Health Organization. Approximately 6 million Americans have some degree of vision loss; 1 million have legal blindness. And the visual arts are just that: visual. Sitting at my desk, glasses perched on my nose and wondering if my relatively mild myopia qualifies me as one of the 6 million, I’m embarrassed to admit that I had never considered what an art museum might offer someone on the spectrum of blindness.

As it turns out, institutions have devised many ways to engage visitors with vision impairment and vision loss. Across museums, there are touch-friendly tours that facilitate the tactile exploration of selected works, 3D-printed models of artifacts for handling, increased-illumination days, apps that connect low-vision and blind visitors with people who describe art in real time, audio tours designed specifically for those with vision loss and sensory events that incorporate non-visual elements such as sound or scent into exhibitions. During verbal imaging tours, a visitor can explore the museum with a docent who provides detailed descriptions of artworks and context through conversation.

The Art Institute of Chicago has a dedicated space for non-visual art appreciation, the Elizabeth Morse Touch Gallery, though it includes only a handful of sculptures. In 2021, the Casselberry Sculpture House in Florida staged an entire exhibition, “ReVision,” geared toward people with visual impairment, that invited others to don blindfolds and interact with the art as it was designed to be experienced. “Sight isn’t the only........

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