After months of private isolation and careful ‘care’ I believe that, with the reopening of cultural places, we will have to pay attention to one theme above all: accessibility.

A museum – a theatre, a cinema, or even a library – should , first and foremost, be an empathetic, pleasant, welcoming place; a place that by its very nature is called to remove its own barriers (sensory, physical, cognitive but also cultural, emotional and economic), rather than creating new ones.

However, under the current circumstances and just beyond the emergency, even allowing visitors to feel comfortable and be an integral part of a cultural experience seems to have become a very complex operation (or at least more than usual).

The audience is experiencing a moment of deep trauma, and this should not be minimized – as it too often happens – since we are, indeed, still in the middle of a deeply harrowing experience. Accordingly, at least for what concerns the fields of art and culture, a return to any resemblance of ‘normality’ and relevance will require dealing with this trauma, and not avoiding it; integrating it and not relegating it or underestimating its impacts (even in the long term), seeing it as an unfortunate “parenthesis” far away in space and time.

Yet, while most cultural organizations now pay proper attention to crisis management and their own survival by looking at reopening and if, on the regulatory side, the technical guidelines for reopening are available, the task of designing each preparation procedure – besides health protocols – is essentially left to personal initiative and individual sensitivities. Notwithstanding with this, unfortunately, there is no previous literature on what we are experiencing, all the more so in the fields of art and culture. So how can we start structuring ad-hoc strategies for culture?

By communicating and offering: Security – creating spaces where people feel culturally, emotionally and physically secure, while transmitting the awareness of a person’s discomfort or discomfort;
Reliability and transparency – providing as complete and accurate information as possible, in constant good faith;
Help and support – establishing and building new trust, a sense of security and hope while using past experiences, without rejecting them, to promote the recovery of the relationship between audiences, institutions, and between institutions and audience; acting as a facilitator with the aim to develop and share the experiences we have just lived ;
Collaboration and reciprocity: recognizing the relationship with the audience through a shared decision-making process. This means a process that can determine “what is best for the audience”, before even considering what is best for the institutions;
By honoring the dignity of the individual, which means not only talking, but also listening – because our previous knowledge of the audience has been turned upside down, including the central one, of risk tolerance: in this sense the audience’s opinion replaces any opinion that we may have and as such must be heard and understood;
By unraveling and overcoming cultural stereotypes and prejudices, to offer innovative, responsive services; to observe, analyze and adapt the therapeutic value of traditional cultural connections and to incorporate them into new policies and processes that build, promote and support the community, including needs, values and opportunities;

Finally, in this new era, it is of fundamental importance to be truly inclusive for all members of our community.

In short, we need to re-engage the audience and rekindle its active participation, so that the same audience will help support and grow a new “offer”, as this is the real priority.

Handling the “audience’s needs” should be our first goal now.