Dr Adams’ current research focuses on engaging Classics with disability studies, looking at the experience of Deaf or blind/partially sighted people in museums and galleries. In 2018 she established the Museum Access Network for Sensory Impairments, London (MANSIL), with the ambition of changing attitudes towards disabled people and their potential to contribute to the cultural sector.

She received a Major Project Award from the Faculty of Arts & Humanities in 2022 – 2023 with the aim of extending the work of MANSIL. This stage of the project focused on how using British Sign Language (BSL) frames art and culture differently from linear, spoken language. BSL videos were produced about the Minoan Snake Goddesses and the Parthenon Galleries in the British Museum. Focus groups were run to assess how the contents of this project could benefit hearing and sighted museum visitors.

Major Project Award and the Many Lives of a Snake Goddess (MLSG).

Dr Adams is currently collaborating with colleagues from the University of Bristol and Trinity College Dublin in the Many Lives of a Snake Goddess (MLSG) project to reconsider how these figurines have been reconstructed and re-imagined since their rediscovery.

The so-called ‘Snake Goddesses’ are two statuettes from Minoan (Bronze Age) Crete, found at Knossos, and now in the Heraklion Archaeological Museum on Crete. Plaster replicas of the two statuettes from the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, were used in the project. The MLSG project aims to create new artworks and writings which, for example, explore different styles of English creative writing from description, through interpretation, to imagination.

Outcomes and Impacts

The Award allowed the project to continue and expand, through the commission of professional contributions from the point of view of sensory impairments, including (but not limited to) audio descriptions, videos with BSL interpretations of Professor Ruth Padel’s (Professor Emerita at King’s College London) poems about the statuettes, and recorded commentaries.

“The main importance of this Award has been to inform the next stages [of the MLSG project] – this is not a one-off, short-term endeavour.” Dr Ellen Adams.

The project will continue, and next stages are being devised based on learning from the project so far. Rich feedback provided by the focus groups showed how access activities might benefit wider audiences. New connections were forged, and perspectives gained, on for example, the potential role of audio description for teaching visual studies, and applying BSL methods used in theatre plays to museums.

Top Tips for Impact:

1. Be flexible and don’t underestimate how long things take when other parties are involved.
2. Seek support from the Faculty.
3. Get on top of the ethical implications of certain types of impact work.

To find out more about the project, its outcomes and impacts please read the case study report.