Cultural Accessibility at the MCA Chicago

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This meetup will provide an opportunity to learn more about accessibility initiatives at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.

The presentation will focus on two areas at the MCA where accessibility work is underway:

• the performance program

• the museum’s website

Yolanda Cesta Cursach, Associate Director of Performance Programs and a member of the Chicago Cultural Accessibility Steering Committee will speak about accessibility programs for the museum’s performance programs; Anna Chiaretta Lavatelli and Susan Chun, from the museum’s Design, Publishing, and New Media division, along with Sina Bahram, the museum’s accessibility consultant, will discuss the program to enhance access to visual art on the museum’s website (mcachicago.org (http://mcachicago.org/)), and demonstrate a newly-launched software tool, Coyote, that empowers the staff of the MCA to develop visual descriptions of art and images for blind and visually impaired website visitors. The presenters will demonstrate the software and talk about how descriptions are served to screen readers. They will also discuss the process of describing and about the ways that an institutional values shift enabled a cross-museum collaboration to create accessible content for the web.

Presenters

• Sina Bahram - President, Prime Access Consulting, Inc.

• Yolanda Cesta Cursach – Associate Director of Performance Programs, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago

• Anna Chiaretta Lavatelli - Director of Digital Media, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago

• Susan Chun - Chief Content Officer, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago

Doors open at 6:30, the event starts at 7:00.

Entrance
Our meeting is in the Kanter Family Foundation Meeting Center. Use theater lobby entrance, via the street-level doors at the corner of Pearson & Mies van der Rohe (behind Watertower Place). The Kanter Meeting Center is located adjacent to the theater lobby.

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Parking
Discounted parking ($12 for up to 6 hours) is available for the MCA garage, at 220 E.Chicago Ave. Parking vouchers will be distributed at the program.

Public Transportation
The MCA is located four blocks east of the Chicago El stop on the CTA Red Line. Three CTA bus routes stop in front of the building (#3 King Drive, #10 Museum, and #66 Chicago Ave.) and several Michigan Ave. bus routes have stops 3 blocks west of the building.

Please note that as the Museum is open 10 am–5 pm on Thursday, you will not be able to visit the galleries during this event. Also be aware that there is a performance in the Edlis Neeson Theater at 7:30. After entering the lobby, you will want to walk past ticketing and ushers to the Kanter Meeting Center at the far end of the lobby.