Accessing Handsworth Songs
About this Project
235 words
This website (also available as a book) documents a project to make Black Audio Film Collective’s ‘Handsworth Songs’ more, and differently, accessible. It developed as a year-long collaboration, co-led by LUX and Sarah Hayden, as part of a research project called Voices in the Gallery. Together, we commissioned Elaine Lillian Joseph to write and perform augmented audio description for the film, and invited the Care-fuffle Working Group to develop creative captions. Audio-description and caption-users advised on the translations of sounds and images as they evolved.
The book and website make the captions and audio description available as texts that can be read or heard. We hope that they will permit a new kind of engagement with these creative forms of cross-modal translation.
The site can be navigated by screenreader, keyboard or mouse and has custom accessibility functions accessed via the settings icon or by pressing ctrl + y. To access the different sections of this website, click the menu button in the top right corner.
Graphic design is by Daly & Lyon, and web development is by An Endless Supply. Both formats have been designed with access to the fore, and both print and digital forms of this publication developed through consultation with UKAAF: the UK Association for Accessible Formats.
A document describing the decisions and challenges we faced creating both the print and digital version of the publication has been designed with the same accessibility features as the publication’s website and can be accessed at:
notesonthedesign.slowemergencysiren.org.uk
We are keen to receive feedback on all aspects of the design via our contact form at:
voicesinthegallery.com/contact
An audio-documentary about the process has been made by Hannah Kemp-Welch. This is available (with creative captions and text transcript by Care-fuffle) via the LUX website.