More than 300 million people in the world are color blind, making it far more common than many people realize. Additionally, 98% of people with the condition have red-green colorblindness, making it by far the most common variation of the condition. As a result, many color blind people are unable to see art in the way that its creator originally intended, which can rob a piece of its original meaning and prevent them from fully being able to enjoy the work. Fortunately, a museum in Portland recently rolled out a new program designed to combat this.
The Portland Art Museum will now loan out red-green colorblindness glasses to patrons who request them, allowing them to see art in a way that would have previously been impossible. With this program, the Portland Art Museum has become the first art museum in history to offer colorblindness glasses to visotors.
The museum was able to purchase five pairs of EnChroma colorblindness glasses thanks to a grant through The French American Museum Exchange, which aims to help blind and low vision museum patrons interact with art. The glasses contain a light filter that heightens the difference between reds and greens, and while it doesn’t completely negate colorblindness, it does make it possible for people with red-green colorblindness to see a larger variety of hues. These glasses normally retail for approximately $200 and $400, making the Portland Art Museum’s rental program even more unique.
“A lot of my job is curation and art analysis and looking at art constantly, every day,” says Jason Lee, a Kress Interpretive Fellow at the art museum and one of the first people to try out the glasses. “I think a lot of people experience art in completely different ways, and that’s one of the beautiful and powerful things about it. It’s exciting because I think that I’ll get the opportunity to revisit some of my favorite works.”
The museum has both child and adult sizes, as well as options that can fit over prescription eyeglasses. For more information, consult the museum’s accessibility page.
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h/t: [The Oregonian]
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