PORTLAND MUSEUM PROVIDES NEW WAY FOR COLOURBLIND VISITORS TO SEE THE ART

Colour blindness affects more than 300 million people worldwide, making it far more common than most people realise. Furthermore, red-green colourblindness accounts for 98% of cases of the condition, making it by far the most prevalent kind. Because of this, a lot of people who are colour blind are unable to appreciate art in the way that the creator intended, which can take away from the piece's original meaning and limit their ability to fully appreciate it. Thankfully, a Portland museum just launched a brand-new initiative meant to address this.

Red-green colourblindness glasses are now available for loan from the Portland Art Museum to visitors, enabling them to view art in a way that was not previously possible. The Portland Art Museum is the first museum in Oregon to provide colourblindness glasses to its patrons thanks to this program. It now stands alongside hundreds of other museums across the globe, such as the Galerie d'Italia, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the National Gallery of Art, the Corning Museum of Glass, the George O'Keeffe Museum, and the Centre Pompidou.

The French American Museum Exchange provided funding so the museum could buy five pairs of EnChroma colourblindness glasses. The purpose of the program is to improve how blind and low-vision museum visitors interact with the art. Red-green colourblind people can see a wider range of colours thanks to the glasses' light filter, which intensifies the contrast between red and green. However, it doesn't cure colour blindness entirely. The Portland Art Museum's rental program is even more special considering that these glasses typically retail for between $200 and $400. 

One of the first people to test out the glasses is Jason Lee, a Kress Interpretive Fellow at the art museum, who says, "A lot of my job is curation and art analysis and looking at art constantly, every day." "I believe that one of the most beautiful and potent things about art is how diverse it can be to many individuals. I'm excited because I believe I'll have the chance to re-examine some of my favourite pieces.