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and artists have worked on the project for All aboard! project”, Jessica Stjernström shorter or longer periods. claims. “The project differed markedly That All aboard! was realized at the from other proposals since there was Vasa Museum was no mere accident. an evident focus on achieving concrete Among the staff there are Torbjörn Ågren, results.” head of the museum education depart- “The project manager was able to page 6 ment, Malin Fajersson, head of communi- give a clear picture of what the project cations and the director of the museum, would really be like when everything was Cultural intensive care Robert Olsson who all embraced the project ready, such as riding an elevator designed from the start. They had been working in a like a diving bell”, Jessic Stjernström ex- Carina Ostenfeldt had really intended similar direction and the new project made plains. to become a nurse anaesthetist. But a the tools and keys available for realizing “The room was to be for ALL children road accident changed everything. The their ideas in the form of actual activities. – not just FOR children but WITH children; consequences of the spinal injury that All aboard! – the salutogenic museum and that is very different. There were to has its own logo – a person driving their be no separate solutions and all children she suffered got in the way of these wheelchair forwards at full speed. The were to be able to do the same things”, plans and, instead, she found herself logo easily leads people to believe that Jessica Stjernström. at a hospital in the role of patient. this is a room for people with disabilities, Invitations to take part in the project Carina Ostenfeldt explains: But Carin Ostenfeldt is quick to explain: committee were sent to various societies, “We really wanted to play a little with organizations and government bodies. “My own experience of a long process of the international sign and make it more The goals and methodology of the project rehabilitation has certainly played a part active. The angle is the same as that of were established right at the start so that in developing the concept of ‘All aboard! the figures that decorate the warship the committee’s task was to be more of – the salutogenic museum’. But I have Vasa but this is also the angle of people a sounding-board. been primarily motivated by a concern driving their wheelchairs at full speed in a “I feel more like a participant in a for human rights and for what motivates wheelchair marathon race. Quite simply, creative reference group than in a steer- people; not the way back but the way the sign indicates activity.” ing committee”, claims Kent Holmström forward. One cannot regain what one has All aboard! – the salutogenic museum who is head of hospital play therapy at the lost in functionality but has to find a new has been organized according to educa- Astrid Lindgren Children’s Hospital. approach.” tional principles through the socio-cultural Accessibility is at the core of the pro- Issues of accessibility became very perspective on learning and developing ject and this was a particularly important concrete after the accident because when and with a fundamental salutogenic per- argument for Handisam, the Swedish she left the hospital after ten months of spective. Agency for Disability Policy Coordination. treatment it was winter with its snow- “There is a particularly happy light in Handisam joined the project at an early covered roads. the glade where the humanities and med- stage. “It was impossible to drive a car up icine meet and something new is opened “Removing obstacles’ is one of the the hill to the house where I was living be- up. The answers may not be crystal clear requirements of our guidelines for ac- cause of the snow. We had to get a snow but the questions that are posed open the cessibility, and government bodies are scooter so that I could get into the house. way for new possibilities and contexts.” required to have premises, information One often has to look for original solutions One example of just such a new con- and operations that are accessible to and to think anew in order to solve the text is the collaboration between the All everyone. The Vasa Museum now has a problems of accessibility; using one’s crea- aboard! project and the Astrid Lindgren pioneering project which is an excellent tivity instead of looking for readymade Children’s Hospital in which the museum model”, notes Mikael Wahldén, senior solutions as well, in my case, as a group can be used as an active ingredient in a adviser from Handisam. of creative and energetic friends.” rehabilitation programme for children and He also points out that finding solu- She gave up nursing and began an young people with the so-called Vipers. tions that work for everyone is a central arts degree at Karlstad University College “A range of opportunities for training aspect of disability policy measures. with cultural studies backed up with edu- have been built in to the All aboard! room. Separate solutions are only permissible cation and psychology. Since graduating Children can be taking part in an educa- when all other alternatives have proved she has worked as a newspaper, radio tional programme and be training physi- unworkable. and TV journalist, but has concentrated on cal functions at the same time. One can “But it is unusual for organizations to producing exhibitions on a freelance basis see the entire project as a sort of cultural have such a total grasp of the issue right as well as on commission from national intensive care – definitely life supporting from the start”, says Mikael Wahldén. art society Konstfrämjandet and Swedish but with a different substance in the cen- This project goes much further than Travelling Exhibitions. For the last four tral vein catheter…” merely widening door openings. Acces- years she has been managing and de- sibility is not just a matter of being able to veloping the concept of All aboard! – the Inga-Lill Hagberg Desbois get into the building but is also concerned salutogenic museum which is based on journalist and editor with proximity and being able to enjoy the a philosophy of accessibility. museum under the same conditions as There are four main pillars to the pro- others. ject: development of educational method- Including everyone without resort- ology, accessibility, interaction between page 8 ing to separate or special solutions is rehabilitation and the arts, and operational We dared to go Aboard! not an uncommon goal but it takes time development. to achieve even at the country’s leading “Educational methodology is con- Everyone included, all organizations for people with functional cerned both with development and learn- aboard! disabilities and for promoting children’s ing. The educational competence can be rights. used in several areas. ‘All aboard! – the Everyone is welcome – All aboard! “It really ought to be self-evident. salutogenic museum’ would not have means everyone. There are no individ- But thinking in this way is a challenge, developed into such a comprehensive ual solutions here but everyone uses even for those of us at RBU. It takes operation if we had not struck a vigorous the diving bell. That was something time to learn a different way of ‘think- spring. And, of course, it is al the more that attracted us, Jessica Stjernström ing’”, Jessica Stjernström candidly notes. exciting that the project is based at Save the Children Sweden also strug- Sweden’s best-known museum.” from RBU (Swedish Association for gles with the same issue, according to Carina maintains that it was thanks to Disabled Children and Youths in the Christina Wahlund Nilsson. She is re- the enthusiastic collaborators and financial County of Stockholm) explains. sponsible for educational matters and is support from the Swedish Inheritance critical: Fund that it was possible to realize the RBU joined the project right at the start. “Why is it that at Save the Children project. A total of some 100 people – in- “We said yes straight away when we have not yet achieved an approach cluding technicians, educators, designers we were asked about taking part in the that includes every child’s needs? After

132 all, we are an organization that is con- “The fact that the project has such a variants on the All aboard! theme in other cerned with children.” concrete focus and is not just words was places that do not need to cost a single A group of children, the expert com- a wake-up call and this has helped us to krona extra. It is all a question of how mittee, has been employed by the All look realistically at how we work and has one plans from the beginning”, Mikael aboard! project. These experts have pre- exceeded our expectations in this direc- Wahldén insists. sented their views and proposals as to how tion”, Robert Olsson explains. the educational room should be designed The Maritime Museums’ vision for Inga-Lill Hagberg Desbois and furnished. This is in accordance with 2015 posits reaching a state where “the journalist and editor the UN Declaration on the Rights of the operations are informed by a perspective Child which is an important aspect of the of total accessibility”. The approach in- project. One of the fundamental principles volves an accepted, holistic understanding of the declaration concerns the right of and includes access to information, the page 12 every child to express its views. physical environment and treatment by the A philosophy of access “In this project the UN declaration has staff. The idea of accessibility was present been carried out in practical terms and right from the star, that is from 1961 when its principles have been spread. I often the Vasa was salvaged after more than It is generally claimed, that what is mention All aboard! as a fine example and 300 years at the bottom of the sea. good for people with functional dis- a model when I am lecturing to groups”, abilities is good for everyone. But just Christina Wahlund Nilsson claims. “We think if this turns out to be untrue; How important is it for a museum joined the project because it showed to appeal to children? think if the reverse is true. That what such remarkable respect for children.” is good for everyone is also good for “It is extremely important and it is one of At the National Agency for Special people regardless. Just suppose that Needs Education and Schools they regard the requirements laid on the museum by the need is primarily an existential one. the project as a model and consider that the government. My personal view is that it has been carried out with a high degree if museums do not appeal to children they Issues of accessibility are often dealt with of awareness and is well thought-out. The will not survive in the long run”, claims in a lingering structure of philanthropy in project has proved an inspiration to the Robert Olsson. which gratitude and proficiency syndrome agency and has led to changes in their The expert committee has been an are corner stones. This often impedes methodology. important factor in the project. work to improve accessibility. One read- “I have become very aware of the “They are key people and that is not ily gets bogged down in technicalities child perspective and have been inspired just something I am saying”, claims Robert and the need to compensate which, in by it. We now intend to work more sys- Olsson, “and they have helped us to solve turn, leads to special inputs for particular tematically with consequential analyses various problems in a concrete manner and people with particular needs, sometimes from the child’s perspective than we do have been a great source of support.” even on particular occasions. But what today”, Åse Karle, head of the eastern The project committee is happy with happens if one leaves what does not region, maintains. the way the expert committee has col- work and, instead, looks at what really The fact that the project devoted laborated in designing and furnishing the does work, thus escaping from the nega- particular attention to the children’s views All aboard! room. The experts have pre- tive associations? What are the identity and ideas right from the start was impor- sented ideas and proposals for a range of markers and the sorting mechanisms that tant to the agency which has supported educational tools. are cast off or dissolved? What are the the project from the beginning. “This was of decisive importance to entrances that it becomes beneficial to “In many instances the adults assume us at the beginning: that there was an pass? Which questions and possibilities the role of experts but here they have expert committee of children”, Jessica are formulated and opened up? How does treated the children’s views as equally Stjernström from RBU maintains. one make strategies for accessibility com- important and the children as equals. That The Vasa Museum will soon be taking prehensible, manageable and meaningful is what is so inspiring about this project”, over responsibility for the room and it is to for the entire operation? Åsa Karle explains. be open to the public and filled with activi- If one adopts an inclusive perspective There is a real focus on children’s ac- ties at weekends and in school holidays. rather than an integrative one, the differ- tivities at the Vasa Museum. For Torbjörn Implementing the operations in line with the ence is that an integrative perspective Ågren, head of the National Maritime Mu- other activities takes time and various solu- depends on laying down conditions while seums’ educational unit which includes tions are currently being considered. At the an inclusive one recognizes the world in the Vasa Museum, the UN Declaration on moment the educational programme is be- which the other lives as being just as rel- the Rights of the Child is very important ing carefully gone through so that it accords evant and just as valid as my/our own. and he regards its realization in the opera- with the new perspective. An inclusive perspective also leads tions as a critical issue. For Mikael Wahldén the hardest nut to emancipation, to a liberating dimen- “We have three major exhibitions in to crack is having more generous opening sion in that it is based on a transaction hand and we have worked with children’s hours. in which both parties not only meet but groups in the same way as here. And “Now we have created a huge inter- also adapt. But how are these “rooms” here lies a fundamental value: that the All est in the room and have not been able to to be constructed? How are the activities aboard! project is not just a politically cor- cater for this entirely satisfactorily. And it there to be constructed so as to achieve rect assignment but has been much more is extremely important that we continue this form of inclusiveness and emancipa- radical and has meant a great deal to the to be a source of inspiration and expertise tion? What might this look like within the practical work of the museums.” for others.” framework, for example, of a museum’s The All aboard! project has given Tor- There are no plans to build further All operations with displays and educational björn Ågren an indication as to how the aboard! rooms at the two other museums programmes? methodology should be developed: because it is a question of developing a A philosophy of access is more a “We have often ‘gone astray’ and concept. This can be used in many other matter of finding an approach that is de- sent individual educators on courses situations and not just at museums. velopmental, and of offering tools that can when, in point of fact, we need to ensure “No, the benefit is that we can carry keep the issue alive rather than providing that everyone is thinking and developing over the idea of “accessibility for all” into our readymade answers; of an exploratory in the same direction. All aboard! has cer- future operations”, Robert Olsson states. process in which more voices, solutions, tainly opened our eyes to how one should And to make more places and loca- dimensions and insights can mix in an approach a situation.” tions accessible in accordance with the unending discourse. Also on the project committee is All aboard! concept, there does not al- Robert Olsson, head of National Maritime ways need to be a project with substantial Accessibility is a matter of democracy, Museums which comprises the Vasa Mu- funding. It is a question of working in the seum, the Maritime Museum in Stockholm same way and of daring to do this. There human rights and health and the Naval Museum in Karlskrona. For is, now, a concept and a methodology for Accessibility should be considered in the him the project provided a key for how the continuing this work. same context as questions of gender, eth- museums should develop their strategies “There are many ways of producing nicity, class, etc. For then it will also become for accessibility.

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recognized as a matter of power and of be- ity is the norm even though it can well page 18 ing made invisible, of democracy, rights and be seen as a non-identity in that total Health, not just feeling well value as human beings. One ought to look functionality does not exist other than as at the processes that sustain dominance a construction. It is classification that de- (superordination) and subordination and how termines what is normal and what is to be Our focus is on possibilities and chil- defining others as “different” function. With sorted into different categories, thus ob- dren’s own capacities for coping with a base like this as a starting point it becomes jectifying people and creating norms. But their various difficulties – negative as- easier to abandon the exclusive solutions classification and objectification can also pects are pushed into the background. that are made in the name of goodness and be seen as an exercise of power; and they What one can do is what is important, to find new and developing variants. Thus, can give rise to various forms of resistance. not what one can’t, Stefan Hult from one of the starting points of the concept Perhaps it is precisely in these resistance Salutologbyrån maintains. is to base the work on the intentions ex- strategies that one can find solutions. pressed in the UN Declaration on the Rights Contexts that are comprehensible, of the Child and the UN Convention on the manageable and meaningful can be cre- Aaron Antonovsky Rights of Persons with Disabilities. ated, for example, by an expansive focus The term Salutogenesis was minted by Accessibility is also something that af- that involves broad, inclusive and liberat- Aaron Antonovsky (1923-1994) to de- fects people’s health. Lack of accessibility ing solutions that encourage independ- scribe the various factors that increase readily leads to a sense of exclusion and ence and participation. They are created our ability to deal with stress. Antonovsky a lack of stimulus and participation. The by developing functions and getting things was a professor of medical sociology World Health Organization (WHO) defines right from the start, rather than adapting who was mainly based in the USA and in health as a state of complete physical, afterwards, and by making use of many Israel. For a number of years at the end of mental and social wellbeing. It claims that functionalities rather than relying on the 1980s he was also a guest professor health at the highest level is one of the mono-functionality with special solutions. at the Department of Child and Adoles- fundamental rights of every human being An example of this is the All aboard! relief cent Psychiatry at Lund University. Aaron regardless of race, religion, political con- map which, besides using different tactile Antonovsky was interested in what pro- viction, or economic or social situation. In materials, is visually attractive and so on. motes health and why we are healthy. a salutogenic perspective one speaks of Another example is the Vasa soundtrack Antonovsky had a metaphor that de- people having adequate resources based of different sounds that are associated scribes what is central to the salutogenic on their situation, for being able to real- with the Vasa’s construction and its his- approach: “If one thinks of a river that ize their vital goals (L. Nordenfelt, 1991). tory. There are also illustrations, Blissym- someone has fallen into, one saves the Being able to love, work, play and to be bolics, Braille, easily grasped magnetic person from drowning. This can be seen optimistic about the future are factors that playing cards, and so on in a single unit as analogous with the way that health generate health. But this also predicates where children can play together regard- services deal with people who are ill. an accessible social space. less of their functional needs. The next step is to erect a fence on the The available solutions are often the riverbank to prevent people from falling in. The fence can be seen as a parallel to People have different functional most democratic and should, therefore, the health authority’s recommendations abilities and everyone needs to be be the most attractive alternative. Strategies for accessibility should be and warnings. The salutogenic perspec- part of a meaningful context planned and carried out so that they form tive means that, instead, one teaches the And so an accessible environment and an innovative hub which develops all the person to swim in the river of life.” [An- operations should be so organized as operations as well as the people working tonovsky, Lund 1987] to be comprehensible, manageable and in the organization. For Antonovsky the river was the river meaningful for everyone regardless of Questions and problems are always of life. The river has various tributaries their starting point; with solutions and part of a recognized context and so the that lead to quieter waters and others that approaches that, in different ways, sup- solutions are to be found within the same lead to dangerous torrents and whirlpools. port so-called coping strategies and em- context, being intra-linguistic: for example But Antonovsky’s main concern was to powerment and, therewith, the possibility the exhibition medium and the educa- ask: “what enables one to swim regard- of managing situations both practically, tional activities. It is within a given context less of where one happens to find oneself mentally and philosophically. that one can work out new solutions, per- in the river, the state of which is deter- That people are different and have spectives and insights. A museum has its mined by one’s historical, socio-cultural different needs may seem self-evident. problems but is also the seat of the best and physical surroundings?” We all struggle with our own difficulties solutions. And so it is always possible to Salutogenesis means the origin of and shortcomings in our lives. Our identi- provide a complete and universal list of health and is the opposite of pathogen- ties as human beings are dependent on measures to be taken. esis which is concerned with finding out several different factors for their develop- It is a matter of creating a learning what causes illnesses and poor health. ment. Sometimes a functional impairment context for the entire organization and for Antonovsky maintained that it was impor- may provide one of the building blocks the creative process; a matter of leaving tant to consider both aspects, both what though with varying importance to the behind what is familiar and comfortable makes us healthy and what makes us ill person concerned. But no one is merely a and engaging with imagination, commit- and he minted the concept of salutogen- catalogue of obstacles or disabilities. How ment and serious effort. For example, esis and the salutogenic perspective. extensive the limitation is depends, to a by starting with the social dimension of Antonovsky’s found the answer to very great extent, on the environment and learning and developing and by creating the question of what it is that keeps us the reactions the person meets as well as relationships; a working group undergoes healthy in the sense of coherence (SOC). on the individuals themselves. If one does a process of development as do the indi- It is when a person finds their situation not accept the criteria that a construction viduals who are part of it. So that different to be comprehensible, manageable and depends on it will not form an important areas of competence, experiences, life- meaningful that the conditions are favour- base to the individual’s construction of contexts meet and mix. able for enjoying good mental health, a her or his identity. Here a problem arises Developing possibilities for everyone sense of emotional wellbeing and quality with representation which is a matter of to be able to profit by, enjoy and actively in life. identity: who represents whom? What take part in, for example, the museum’s Comprehensibility is an experience happens with one’s identity if accessibility activities on equal and dignified terms is of understanding oneself, one’s surround- increases or is no longer a problem? What an important aspect of promoting acces- ings and situation and of being under- happens to all the so-called intersectional sibility. As a bonus, the entire medium stood by others. identities, those identities that do not fit develops and new fields of activity are Manageability is concerned with the into given categories and that burst the opened up provided that one never ac- extent to which one sees oneself as hav- bounds of these. Are they allowed to take cepts other boundaries than those that ing adequate resources and faith in one’s part? A handicap or disability is as much are necessary for generating the power ability to meet different situations in life. a historical construction as it is a medical to conquer them. Meaningfulness is a motivating com- description. The concepts are dependent ponent and an emotional experience of on a hierarchy in which total functional- Carina Ostenfeldt, Project Manager life having meaning. responsible for the concept

134 Antonovsky maintained that what genic communication. I am here going locus of control, development is not in determines whether one is healthy or to describe two longitudinal studies that one’s own hands and one feels that “this not depends on where one finds oneself Antonovsky referred to and that deal with has nothing to do with me, it has to do on this continuum. He claimed that we Salutogenesis. with other people”. What is important are constantly moving backwards and about having inner control is that one forwards between health and illness and Protective factors has more inner than outer control in life. that we are never entirely either one or Sometimes one has to place control Emmy Werner is a Canadian professor the other but that we remain both/and outside of oneself. This can be a matter of psychology who has studied children throughout our lives. People with a strong of preserving one’s own sense of self by who live with a high risk of developing sense of coherence are able to identify saying, for example, “I did not do very serious mental ill health. She has focused and use both their own resources as well well in my exams because my parents did on vulnerable children who, nevertheless, as resources in their own context for not have time to give me enough help. If I have made a good development against dealing with different types of problems. had had more help I would have got much all the odds, describing their capacity to The general resistance resources better marks in the exam.” recover and their resilience in the face (GRRs) are protective factors and pro- Having a social network of relations of difficult events in their lives. Together cesses that help to build up a sense of and friends who can offer support and with psychologist Ruth S. Smith she has coherence and to modify the effects of help when one needs this represents a conducted a unique research project that different risk factors and processes. Ex- generalized resistance resource and is followed all 698 children born on the amples of this are good self-esteem, ego a protective factor. Hawaiian island of Kauai in 1955. Werner strength, coping, knowledge, material and Smith identified protective factors factors, social networks and meaningful that could compensate for the psychoso- occupation. These are constantly available Salutogenic communication cial risks that the faced. and are activated when a difficult situa- Salutogenic communication is “a dialogue The second study was undertaken tion has to be dealt with. with as little room as possible for different by Marianne Cederblad who was Profes- In life we are faced with reverses and interpretations, questioning and misun- sor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry difficulties but how we cope with them derstandings”. What one says should be at Lund University and who collaborated depends on whether we have access to clear, transparent and comprehensible. with Antonovsky during his years in Lund. the keys necessary for dealing with them. I will here give some examples of This collaboration led her to apply the If we can deal with them in a satisfactory what salutogenic communication can look salutogenic perspective to the unique manner then our sense of coherence is like with regard to children and adolescents. Swedish material of the Lundby Study.1* improved and we move towards the posi- One of the foundation stones of salu- She looked at the protective factors tive part of the continuum showing that togenic communication is supporting and among children growing up in high-risk we managed to deal with the difficulties seeing what is positive and constantly situations who have managed to preserve in a positive manner. emphasizing and recounting positive as- their mental and physical health into pects. Supportive communication means adulthood. Research into these resilient that one is genuinely informative and at- Health children has led to a better understand- tentive in relation to the other and has an Health is defined by the World Health ing of how protective factors function in empathic understanding. It also involves Organization as “not merely the absence dysfunctional situations. [In Sweden such giving oneself time to wait and giving the of disease or infirmity”, but “a state of children are known as “maskrosbarn” – young person time to produce their own complete physical, mental and social literally “dandelion children” because of initiatives and/or answering questions. well-being”. From a salutogenic perspec- the dandelion’s ability to put down roots The young person needs to have the op- tive, health is something other than the and flourish even in the most unfavour- portunity to express herself or himself absence of disease or infirmity. able circumstances.] and to be listened to and feel part of a There are various definitions of health. Both of these studies have found dialogue that leads forwards. It is impor- Salutogenic researcher Emmy Werner, protective factors at individual, family tant to support initiatives from the young who has studied vulnerable children who and neighbourhood levels. These factors person, initiatives that are aimed at learn- developed well despite terrible odds, has include: ing, gathering information or investigating. defined health in the following terms, giv- Positive self-confidence that means Affirming the feelings of a child or ing equal importance to each of the four that one believes that one can survive adolescent and doing this by asking a aspects: against bad odds and that one can take question is an example of supportive af- “Love Well” which stands for the abil- an active attitude towards one’s situation firmation. It is important never to question ity to create and maintain good relations as well as showing greater responsibility. other people’s feelings – for one’s feel- and to love other people. This has importance for how one deals ings are always authentic. The important “Work Well” is concerned with find- with stress. By making young people thing is to help and support the child in ing an occupation that one can enjoy aware of their own abilities they are then seeking out adequate forms of expression given the capacities that one has. able to deal with their own situation for what she or he is feeling. One way of “Play Well” is concerned with the which, in turn, helps to promote self- confirming the field is simply to pose a extent to which one has things one likes confidence. question. For example: “Are you aware doing in one’s spare time: playing, finding Being independent which means that that you contribute a positive atmosphere and devoting one’s time to something one can meet the world on one’s own to the group? It feels as though you are that one feels really excited about. terms. If youngsters are not overprotected irritated with me, is that the case? You “Expect Well” is the ability to expect and are credited with new abilities or tools seem to feel good when you do this, is good things in one’s world and how one’s that they may not even always be aware that right? Was it difficult? In what way? vision of the future agrees with the notion of, they may then be able to assume Were you unhappy?” that “all will be well”. greater responsibility themselves for their Noting and clarifying positive events, Antonovsky rejected the division into “teens project”. This means that young- elevating apparent and unconscious re- “ill” and “healthy” and, instead, proposed sters develop a better level of self-control sources helps young people to accept a a sliding scale between seriously ill and and are able to take greater responsibility positive view of themselves. In a meeting completely healthy. The salutogenic per- for their own actions. Feeling more inde- with a youngster, if one arrives at a point spective concentrates on factors that are pendent also reduces stress levels. where one needs to give instructions, as close to the healthy end of the scale as Having an inner locus of control they should be formulated in a positive possible. means that one has a sense of being able direction; proposing that the youngster to influence and steer the way in which should “do like this” rather than “not do one’s life develops. Without this inner Salutogenic principles like that”. Antonovsky was responsible for defining 1* The Lundby Study is a longitudinal Humour is an important ingredient in the foundations of salutogenic principles study that started in 1947. The aim was salutogenic communication. We know that and the concept of coherence. Besides to chart mental health and ill health in a smiles and laughter are infectious and that these there is also the principle of pro- normal population both at specific points they influence feelings in a positive direc- tective or resistance factors and saluto- in time and over longer periods. tion. Laughter also binds people together,

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helps to get everyone into a good mood Habilitation means that one develops that are at eye height for people in wheel- and has an effect on the sense of context abilities, trains functions that are impaired, chairs can block one’s view. and cohesion. A good laugh encourages adapts the person’s environment and I confront these problems almost eve- creativity which is a very powerful protec- provides families with support in dealing ry time that I visit a museum. Sometimes tive factor. Being able to laugh together, with their situation in the best possible the only things I remember from visiting to be part of something humorous and to way. In salutogenic terms one talks about a museum were the problems I faced. discover something enjoyable increases “children and adolescents with functional Surely that is not what the museum really one’s social competence, self-esteem capacities”. This means that the work wants me to remember most? and self-reliance as well as strengthen- of habilitation more consciously focuses As a member of the expert commit- ing positive communication. The litera- on the child’s resources instead of its tee I have been able to design the room ture describes how adults with humour weaknesses and the goal is that the child so that it suits all visitors. I have checked also have a capacity for accepting their should be able to meet adult life with self that I can access all parts of the room in youngsters’ trials and tribulations for what respect, should be able to influence her or a wheelchair and reach everything in the they are – a difficult period of life that will his life, participate in society and have a room. I can go the same way as everyone eventually pass. satisfactory quality of life. else. This is how things should be every- Salutogenic issues are linked to dif- The salutogenic perspective is cur- where. ferent salutogenic factors. The choice rently applied, for example, to psychiatry, When I finish secondary school I want of questions to a child or adolescent education, social work, nursing and lead- to work with disablement policy issues determines how the other construes her ership or management. Salutogenesis is, because these questions are extremely or his experiences and, in this way, what as we have seen, a knowledge of what it important to me. Everyone should be they talk about and how they narrate it. is that promotes self-esteem, resilience treated equally. Some salutogenic questions are reflexive and health. A positive faith in the future and their overall aim is to help the other and general optimism mean that one Therese Sundqvist Andersson, aged 17 person to think in new ways and new con- develops a better sense of self and feels texts. They are formulated to stimulate happier. When something successful hap- reflection on the meaning of daily obser- pens this often leads to a positive spiral vations and acts and to consider possible in all the other aspects of a person’s life. page 26 new choices as well as mobilizing their This positive spiral can, for example, be own capacity for problem solving. Exam- prompted by success at work, a belief The project has ples of reflexive questions are: “What can that one’s children will do well at school helped me to grow we say about this?”, “What is the point of or success in some hobby. this?”. Or one can make use of the “you It is claimed that, in the USA, presi- Being on the expert committee has to we” principle and ask “How do you dential candidates lose when they focus helped me to grow. We have worked think that we can solve this?” In this way on the ills of society and win when they on fitting out a room and we have trained one makes the young person part of her are more optimistic in their public speech- to become guides and to write an article. or his own project. es. President Obama, who made great It has been fun and I have learnt a lot use of the word “change” in his election that I did not know before. campaign, is a good example of this the- Practical applications ory. He is constructive and forward-look- The first time I visited the Vasa Museum I of salutogenesis ing, and he sees possibilities rather than met eight or nine other young people who The term can be used at group, individual problems. He is also humble in attitude; were all waiting for a meeting. It turned and organizational levels. I can exemplify and there are people who regard him as out that we were the “experts” for this this from my own experience with habili- America’s first salutogenic president! project. tation for children and adolescents in Re- During the first year of the project gion Skåne in the south of Sweden. There Stefan Hult we were to create a room that everyone is a development scheme in progress Section Head within the Department of could access and do different things in. there which was started in 2003. The aim Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Lund We met on a number of occasions that was to give greater emphasis to the salu- year and we discussed together and came togenic factors in work with children, ado- with suggestions for things to be included lescents and families. The development in the room. There were several good relies on stressing functions that work, all page 24 ideas: for example a computer game in that is healthy and to look for strategies which one can steer the Vasa; and being that make habilitation more meaningful, Access without able to hoist a sail and other activities. comprehensible and manageable. Each being separated Working with this was fun and it team has chosen a carefully delineated was good to feel that we could help to field in which to introduce changes which I have to use the back entrance when produce something that everyone could they have then tested in their daily opera- I go to a museum with my class. That is take part in. Every time we met we went tions. no fun, it feels all wrong. I want to use and looked at the room to see how it was In our daily activities we are concerned the same entrance as everyone else. progressing. When the room was finished with feelings linked with a context: Is that too much to ask? it was time for the formal opening. There Manageability – How children and were going to be appearances on a stage families can influence habilitation routines. When my class visits a museum I have and Therese and I were asked to make a How can we, together, help the child or to use a different entrance. Sometimes I speech about the project which we did. adolescent to take control of its own life? have to ring a bell and wait for someone When the stage appearances were all fin- How can we, together, put a focus on the to open. This is no fun because it may ished the room was inaugurated and eve- child’s own resources and limitations? be pouring with rain and I just have to sit ryone wanted to check it out. We were Comprehensibility – How do we know there waiting and getting wet. I am also presented with our salaries for the work that the information reaches its goal? separated from the class and then I some- and returned home. The project was due How can we give information in different times don’t know where I am. Sometimes to last for another year and during that ways? How do we plan and agree goals I feel that the class is fed up with me time we were going to train as guides. with the child and the family? How are our because it can take a long time for me to I was keen to continue with the project. meetings structured? How can we and meet up with them again. The next year we met again and during the child’s context ensure that the child Adaptations for disabled persons can the year we were going to learn about the feels understood? be a hindrance rather than helping. I don’t ship so that we could guide people round Meaningfulness – How do we ensure want special solutions for me and others the Vasa Museum. It was fun as well as that children feel that they are partici- with disabilities but the same for every- educational to learn things that one did pants? How can we put a focus on chil- one. I want to use the same entrance as not previously know. dren’s interests, enthusiasms and wish- everyone else and I want to be able to see We also worked, during the year, with es? How do we make it easier for children everything at the museum. At present, the Vipers – wooden chests which were to feel positive about the future? signs can be too high up while railings filled with things from the room and were

136 for use in the hospital play therapy depart- tivities on equal and dignified terms and haul up a sail with the rope is not just a ment at the hospital. The last thing we the activities are part of a rehabilitative learning process but a memory for life.” did that year was to inaugurate one of the chain for children and youngsters. The Vipers at the hospital. Swedish Television educational goals are not just a matter of Inga-Lill Hagberg Desbois were going to make a programme about learning things but, equally, of personal journalist and editor us and the room and they were going development”, Carina Ostenfeldt explains. to show it on TV on the crown princess’ Rehabilitation is an important aspect birthday. The money for making the dolls of All aboard! – the salutogenic museum page 30 for the Vipers came from her fund. We and hospital play therapists from the showed the TV team round the room and Astrid Lindgren Children’s hospital can The ship is drowning! talked a bit about ourselves and what we visit the room with their youngsters as liked best in the room. This was not the part of their chain of rehabilitation, either Ida Kananen and Alvar Mikkola are first time that I was on TV but I was a bit collaborating with the museum’s own second-year pupils in the Finnish nervous nevertheless. But everything educators or working on their own. At the School in the Stockholm suburb of went well. hospital there are the Vipers, mobile edu- Upplands Väsby. Today their class is The project was to last for a third and cational materials in wooden chests that visiting the All aboard! room at the final year and this year we were going are reminiscent of boats and that associ- Vasa Museum. With museum educa- to write an article each and gather them ate to the Vasa theme and provide a link tor Sofia Dahlquist they spend their together into a magazine. I like writing so between the hospital and the museum. I was looking forward to this year. We got In this way, both parties gain a further visit hoisting sails, checking out where to meet a journalist who explained how arena for stimulating children and there exactly the Vasa capsized and salvaging one writes articles. is a range of abilities that they can train finds from the wreck. Working on the project has been great that are built into the room and the edu- fun and I have grown as a person. cational materials. One can, for example, Alvar and Ida put their hands into the jaws work with various forms of hand training, of the lion. They hear a fierce roar and Fredrik Johnsson, aged 15 strength, balance, upper-body stability then the doors to the All aboard! room and mobility while taking part in an educa- automatically open. A roaring lion makes a tional programme. splendid way of entering the room. More “In this way, both parties gain another hands want to try out the lion and there page 28 arena for stimulating the children. They are smiling faces all round. can train various abilities here, for exam- The class from the Finnish School Room with ple balance, and they can train with the consists of 14 children. Museum educa- built-in resistance Vipers at the hospital; and this spreads tor Sofia asks them to sit down in a ring our operations”, project-manager Carina on the wooden deck. In the middle of the This is not just a playroom where there Ostenfeldt explains. She has also devel- ring is a relief map showing what Stock- th are crayons and paper. The All aboard! oped the “philosophy of accessibility” holm looked like in the 17 century. Sofia that is the foundation of the operation. tells them about how the warship Vasa room is designed for everything from “One can work with the Vipers in various left the harbour and she asks Alvar to sail teaching our minds to training our bod- ways and they stimulate the children’s a miniature Vasa along a seaway that is ies, project manager Carina Ostenfeldt interest in the museum and a visit to the shown on the map. The ship sails past the explains. museum falls in the “negotiable” region royal palace and Slussen and ends up in a for the parents. In this way we gain new hole on Riddarfjärden. It is difficult to sit still in the All aboard! groups of visitors that would not have “But what happened here? Plop”, room. One is constantly tempted to try come here otherwise. says Sofia. out new tools and new abilities. How did Currently, the All aboard! room can be “The ship drowned”, Alvar explains as one hoist a sail and how could one steer booked with one of the museum educa- he lets the little boat fall into the hole and a large warship like the Vasa? What was tions who has been trained to use all the disappear. Stockholm like at that time? Thanks to functions. But, in the future, the project “Indeed. The Vasa capsized and the relief map one can feel one’s way aims to provide courses at the museum sank to the bottom of the sea. And now, with one’s fingers and, with the textures for teachers and parents who want to several hundred years later, it is here in of different fabrics and other materials learn how to use the materials. The pro- the museum.” Sofia places the museum one can find out where shipyards, dwell- ject has aroused great interest and groups on the map together with modern-day ings, palaces and farms were located from Sweden and abroad have made T-centralen, Djurgårdsbron and the Gröna before the advent of modern Stockholm. visits to the museum to learn more about Lund fun park. Even a small Viking Line What does the seabed feel like and what the concept. ferry [connecting Sweden with Finland] is sorts of objects have been found there “Our goal is to increase the staffing placed on the map. from the time when the Vasa capsized so that we can have both planned and “I’ve been on a ferry like that lots of in Stockholm’s harbour in August 1628? drop-in activities at weekends and in times”, one of the girls exclaims. The One can feel one’s way to an answer by school holidays”, Torbjörn Ågren notes. others nod in agreement because the investigating the cavities in one of the The All aboard! room has now been children in this class all have strong affilia- walls with one’s fingers. completed and, in order to produce suit- tions with Finland. “When one goes into this room one able equipment or tools that everyone can When everything is in place Sofia can can’t help being pedagogical. We don’t use, Carina Ostenfeldt has led the pro- show them that the Vasa sank midway spend so much time talking about King cess of developing functional educational between the Gröna Lund fun park and the Gustavus Adolphus and 1628 here. It is materials, with a great deal of support Viking Line terminal. This is something to more a matter of using the source materi- from the museum educators, technicians, remember next time they go on the roller- als as pieces of a puzzle or historic clues”, designers, artists, collaborators and free- coaster at Gröna Lund or take the ferry to Torbjörn Ågren comments. He is head of lance consultants. grandparents in Finland. the education unit at the National Mari- “One of my favourites is this sail. Sofia starts the next stage of the time Museums and has, himself, worked The fact that children can themselves try programme. She asks the children what as an educator. hoisting the sail or lowering it is a hugely is needed to make a ship like the Vasa go The room and the educational op- much more profound experience than forwards or stop. erations are intended to function for all merely standing in front of a group and “An anchor”, someone suggests. children regardless of their functionality. talking about sails”, says Torbjörn Ågren. “In a sense, yes. But you need a sail The room is a total experience for all of “One can build up an entire visit with the first”, Sofia explains. There is a large red sail the senses. It encourages independence, focus on just a few aspects in a very ex- in the All aboard! room and now the chil- making discoveries, learning, participa- citing way. For example by working with a dren will start to work in the same ways as tion, physical training and cooperation. delicate fibre which, when twined togeth- the crew of the Vasa. They divide into two “All the children should be able to er with other such fibres, will produce an groups and Ida is the captain of her crew. benefit actively from the educational ac- amazingly strong rope. To then be able to Her six sailors are each given a rope.

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“Up! Down! Up!” the captain orders that I had talked too much with the chil- For many people, the first step inside and the crew pull at their ropes for all they dren and that the lesson had been unruly. the museum proves to be a remarkable are worth and the red sail dances up and I knew what she meant but I could not experience in which all the senses are down, again and again. really agree with her criticism. That was active. The encounter makes people want After that the focus shifts to below precisely what I wanted to achieve – talk- to learn more about it and to discover the surface of the water. Sofia introduces ing with the children rather than giving new things. The educator’s challenge is to words like diving bell and marine archaeol- them a lecture on life in the 19th century. preserve the children’s curiosity and their ogy and she tells them about how people The event has etched itself into my enthusiasm for discovering and studying first began to explore the seabed. She memory and has become an example of the exhibits. Maintaining the ‘wow’ effect shows them a doll wearing carefully craft- a challenge that I have chosen to reject. right through the visit! ed diving equipment. Then she hands out For me, the most important thing is still The children and I make our way to diving masks and headlamps. The children talking with children rather than to them. the All aboard! educational centre. In the giggle excitedly as they put them on. Every educational meeting is unique. room visitors can make discoveries and One wall of the All aboard! room looks It is a matter of timing and it builds on a can study all sorts of things connected like the side of a wrecked ship. There is a conscious interplay on the part of all those with the warship Vasa. You can try sailing cannon, a gun port and holes in the hull. present. It is a question of communica- a ship or working as a marine archaeolo- Sofia had placed various finds in the holes tion and of together creating a situation to gist. or cavities in advance. She turns off the which everyone feels they are contribut- The bright yellow lion’s head on the ceiling lights and pulls two curtains across ing. The educator’s task is to be sensitive wall gives out a roar and the door opens to create a feeling of murky water, sea- to the child’s needs as well as creating for you. Inside the light is all green and weed and the seafloor. the conditions and organizing the situa- bubbling with sound of rushing water. In pairs the children dive in behind the tion so that the child feels affirmed and “It looks like water! Now we are at the curtains to salvage finds from the holes. welcomed. bottom of the sea. Hold your breath!” “What did you find?” Ida is full of cu- Every child who visits the museum one of the children exclaims. riosity as the first divers return with their is special and important. In every educa- We sit down in a ring on the wooden finds. tional situation the child should experi- deck that occupies a good part of the The atmosphere is fairly chaotic while ence that she or he is part of a context room. It is dark and the eyes of the giant the diving is in progress. Ida finds a spoon that functions for the child. One way of sea monster up on the ceiling shine down while Alvar salvages a coin. When all ensuring this is to focus on the child’s on us. Together we are going to be marine of the children have tried diving they sit own curiosity and will. When they visit the archaeologists and search for exciting down and look at the finds together and museums, children should not feel that it things in the dark waters of the Baltic talk about what the items might have matters that they are sitting in a wheel- Sea. In pairs we dive down, pretending to been used for. chair or have a weak hand or limited vision swim through the seaweed down to the “This was the most fun: diving and or readily suffer from restless knees. At wreck. On the seabed, which has crept collecting things”, Alvar exclaims with a the museum we focus instead on all that up alongside the ship, there are dark holes smile. the child can and wants to do. And to the that are filled with secrets. One small “One has to test oneself. It’s fun extent that we can see the child’s own boy at first thinks it’s rather scary. His when you get some things and don’t just resources the child can take part in what brave friend takes him by the hand and look at pictures”, Ida maintains. is going on. together they investigate one of these In the meeting between child and cavities in the wall. Triumphantly the little Annika Wallin, journalist educator there is a common context or boy presents his treasure – a little square narrative; a narrative that is individual and object. He is now happy to swim back up unique for each child and for the meet- to the ship again. Now it is time to study ing. A narrative which will probably seem and document the find. The square ob- page 34 disorderly and lacking in structure, viewed ject is quite small and all brown. It looks from outside. like a piece of chocolate, he concludes. Maintaining the Four years after the event at the But if one drops it on the floor it rings. ‘wow’ effect open-air museum I find myself at the Vasa So what can it actually be? The children Museum in Stockholm. It is just before 10 ponder the matter. The boy discovers “Next time may be you can talk rather less in the morning and the museum is silent that it is marked with a “2” on one side. with the children”, the teacher exclaimed and calm. There is a slight echo as I walk “Perhaps it is a coin”, one of the children with an affronted expression on her face across the paved floor. In the midst of the suggests. “But coins are not square”, before gathering together the class with gloom the gigantic wooden warship Vasa another child opines. “How do we know her loud and high-pitched voice. rears up. Illuminated by lamps its surface what things were like during the Vasa’s I was left standing on the steps to the shimmers in an almost otherworldly fash- time? We can look into the matter in the red-painted 19th century farm, reflecting ion. It forces one to look at it and it retains museum and see if we can find another on what she had just said. one’s attention. coin like this one”, I propose. Together we Suddenly the doors open and a herd go off on a treasure hunt. After a while This all took place at an open-air museum. of children wearing their thick winter one of the boys finds an identical square I had just finished an hour-long programme clothing, stream into the museum. Their brown object in a display case. It is a coin. dealing with life on a farm in the province voices are loud with expectation and their “On the Vasa there were square coins of Uppland 150 years ago. Fifteen eager eyes are fixed on the ship. Some of them that were known as klippingar”, the boy six year-olds and I had tasted traditional blink in amazement, open-mouthed and, reads. “Goody. I found a coin. What a pity bread, tried on period clothing, inspected for an instant, time almost stands still. I didn’t live in those days. Then I would the cowshed and talked about the baby in “Wow!” have been rich as anything now.” the cradle. At times the lesson was a little “Shit!” For me, a successful visit to a mu- unruly because the children had a lot of “It’s huge!” seum is one where all the children feel questions and thoughts. We talked about “Is this the Vasa?” that they are being noticed and are part everything from life on the farm to other “Is it really the real ship?” of what is going on. The content of the important issues like Saturday candy and The children run up to the rails that museum should be accessible to the child dinosaurs! The children became all the surround the entire ship. New questions! but on level where it can also challenge more excited while their teacher’s ex- “Why is it so dark?” “I’m freezing…” the child to try out something new. Some pression grew increasingly disapproving. “What a funny smell!” “It’s all dirty.” “It people may believe that the most impor- When we had completed the programme really looks like a ghost ship.” tant thing when leaving a museum is that I was feeling rather satisfied. The children It is this that constitutes the Vasa’s one has learnt masses about what had been both curious and enthusiastic ‘wow’ factor. There is something direct life was like in the past. But I do not and they seemed to be very cheerful and immediate that almost everyone believe that there is any particular value when we parted company by the steps. feels when they encounter the huge ship. in knowing a lot of history if one cannot But my own satisfaction was short-lived Regardless of who one is, one is immedi- connect it with one’s person and one’s when I heard the teacher’s acid complaint ately struck as one enters the museum. own life. The narrative needs to start with

138 the child’s own curiosity and desire to like today. Visitors who tried their hand at and does…” These were the despairing discover and to investigate. plaiting thin ropes experienced the work words of a museum educator at a meet- When the child leaves the museum with both their fingers and their noses ing a few years ago and they have rung she or he should be able to take with as they caught the smell of tar and this in my ears ever since. For a museum them some new discovery. This can be brought back many childhood memories educator is, in the first instance, a “doer”, a new experience or a new insight about which they shared. Visitors could take and should really be a doer. If one wants himself or herself. Perhaps that today was home their tar-scented ropes which they to express this in salutogenic terms one the day when I dared to take up space. might make into a key ring. Taking such an might say that the praxis and methodol- Today was a day when someone listened object to school would encourage all sorts ogy of their educational activities are one to me and thought that I was important. of learning situations for other children. of the healthiest aspects of the Swedish Today I dared to challenge myself and to- The traditional view of a museum is museums. But there has been a degree of day I realized something that I have never that one visits it in order to gain knowl- frustration among many museum educa- understood before. edge and answers to one’s questions, tors over being able, on a daily basis, to When an educational encounter facts that are scientifically accepted. But see opportunities for acting as a central seems, on the surface, to be a bit “dis- our educational methodology is based on force in their museum’s operations and orderly and lacking in structure” this may the concept of “a philosophy of access”; role in society and yet not being able to actually be the result of successful col- that every child or young person should link up these activities with a theoretical laboration based on the children’s needs. be able to take part in our operations on strategy. Or at least feeling that they lack Where the children succeed in expressing equal terms. This demands more of us the tools to do this. themselves and feeling that they are no- than merely giving lectures and supplying Educational activities have a long ticed. And in which the children and the readymade answers. There are different tradition at Sweden’s three maritime educator jointly create a unique narrative. teaching styles and we educators try to museums, though the educational staff vary the teaching by combining theory recognize this feeling. The lack of a com- Sofia Dahlqvist, educator and practice. We use props that stimulate mon, basic outlook has become apparent different senses: scents, sounds, light, from time to time when we have sought feeling, taste. Children can make studies to communicate our understanding of of things, try out different techniques, museum education within our own organi- page 38 test and concretize their knowledge. For zation. “Learning is the province of the A drop-in creative us it is important to generate a sense of schools” has been the established view weekend workshop participation and to maintain a permissive and this has led to our activities finding climate in which youngsters dare to ask their own “educational niche” isolated questions and to communicate with the from the other activities of the museum. Children are hammering and polish- educators and with each other, since we It has been my hope that, by means ing and laughing – and every now and know that a great deal of learning takes of this project, we would be able to turn then someone screams in frustration place in dialogue with others. We seek to the situation around. The idea of the pro- because things are not working out provide meaningful experiences in which ject is based on the perspective one finds as they want. I just need to shut my it become possible to absorb the history expressed in the formulations and spirit eyes for a moment to find myself at of the warship Vasa. of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Skeppsgården, the creative workshop Work with the All aboard! project has the Child, in the notion of the importance brought about a new understanding of the of health as expressed in the principle of at the Vasa Museum. It is full of chil- concept of accessibility. I have seen what salutogenesis and in the socio-cultural dren building and shaping, sawing and it entails in practice and how I, as a mu- tradition regarding what learning really hammering - and sweating from their seum educator, can create the necessary is. We have borrowed ideas, concepts exertions… conditions that enable everyone to take and terminology that have become keys part in our activities and provide them with and tools for broadening our educational During the Easter vacation 2010 we tried tools that will help them with their own activities. out a new workshop methodology in the development. I have enjoyed excellent If one sees learning as development All aboard! room with a number of sta- guidance from colleagues in the profession rather than as the result of teaching, then tions where one could undertake creative and there has been plenty of time and re- the museum, as a cultural institution, activities. The aim was that children and sources for testing ideas and theories. can play a role in completely new arenas youngsters should be able to try their Experience of running a creative together with new partners. At the same hands at 17th century craftwork while we workshop has shown that we can create time we have been able to move the edu- museum educators could find out what activities that involve the whole family. cational activities into new areas in col- aspects of the room encourage children My best memory from the Easter vaca- laboration with others in our own organi- to make their own discoveries. Everyone tion workshop is of a fifteen year-old boy zation and, with colleagues, to develop who wanted was able to mint their own who lay down on our sofa and read the into a learning organization. coin, a klipping made of copper or alu- book about the Vasa pig while the rest of Thanks to the All aboard! project minium and we provided punches with the family was busy making coins. It was the educational consciousness among letters, numbers and a lion motif. Visitors wonderful to see him so caught up in the museum educators has achieved a com- could study ancient coins with the help story that he seemed oblivious of all the mon focus. What was formerly mostly of a magnifying glass. They could inspect noise going on around him. I think that an attitude or approach has now become with their fingers, feeling and squeezing he felt secure in the environment that we a structured way of gathering round the them, measuring and weighing, and then had created in the All aboard! room. learning and development that we see as form their own coin based on this data. a constant process in everybody – and They could also try writing with a quill Tuija Kananen, educator not just schoolchildren. We make use pen, plaiting ropes, tying knots or making of educational perspectives in a broad colourful copies of the Vasa’s ornamental sense, for example with a family approach sculptures. in our programmed activities but also with Many of the children and adults left page 40 a focus on priority endeavours like the the Vasa Museum with new insights and integration field with seniors or, as here, experiences that we had created together From teaching unit to the field of health and rehabilitation. What in the All aboard! room. The experience educational resource for all is important now is that we, as a group, led to our seeking out more information not only guarantee a factually correct about different crafts of the period and All aboard! – the salutogenic museum is material but also ensure that everyone is we read about the history of money and an educational concept that has given well received so that they feel noticed and discussed what people actually used concrete expression to a particular value. respected and that they have the same money to buy in 17th century Sweden, We want our museums to do their part in opportunities to develop in conjunction how much various items cost, whether changing the world – or at least to make a with their visit to the museum. everyone was part of the money econo- difference. This does not mean that our collabora- my and what money and payments are “A museum educator does and does tion with the schools is subject to any

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less priority. The new educational role still window onto the world around. rotting fish. It took a while for my children involves meeting classes at the museum Together we have taken a great step to let themselves shift in time but, in due but also includes acting as a “facilitator”, forwards. course, they saw the links with 17th cen- for example via our website, using Skype, tury Stockholm. or producing educational materials. With Torbjörn Ågren, Head of the education After visiting the museum their minds increased collaboration with teachers unit and museum educator at the Vasa were much taken up with what they had or with our own guides and visitor staff Museum experienced there. They had numerous we have also considerably increased the questions to do with the Vasa. What did schools’ opportunities for using the mu- people eat in those days? Why did the seum. But the important point is that we ship sink? Couldn’t people swim in those days? What sort of games did children have demonstrated that the educational page 42 activities can function for every child or play? Were there disabled people at that young person in a wider context. The Playing equally well time? The goal had been achieved. We Vipers – the educational materials that with lame hands had received a good dose of stimulating have been specially produced and that are history – and we had got together. stationed at the Astrid Lindgren Children’s Together on terms that suit everyone’s The late winter sun shone from a Hospital could very well be used in a capacities is a fine intention. But my own sparkling March sky outside the museum; school context as well as in active rehab experience is that it is just as difficult to the same sun that shone on people at the training. realize as it is beautiful in theory. Espe- time the Vasa was built. Both on people An important result of working with cially when someone’s capacities are so with functional disabilities and those this project is the fact that the collabora- very different. without. tion between educators and colleagues has increased within the organization, in I was the one who started playing ping- Peter Anderson-Pope, journalist work with visitors and in the production pong with my children. And tennis too. of exhibitions. Our various perspectives I was the one who started cycling with have been able to meet on a new, com- them and taught them to play computer page 44 mon platform, and even if we shall need games. But it was never very long before to continue work on manageability we can they got so good that they preferred play- A happy museum? definitely claim that the sense of context ing with friends of their own standard. has now increased. The fruit of this is, not As a father who sits in a wheelchair and Where are there activities for those of us least, a higher level of consciousness per- whose hands are lame one very rapidly who are dog owners, share our lives with taining to the visitor’s perspective as well becomes overly bad at most things. There a Zebra Finch, are brunettes, very happy, as issues of accessibility. Here the skills are not an awful lot of occupations that vegetarians or in mourning? And if one and experience of our external collabora- are equally well suited to my abilities and doesn’t fit into any of those categories will tors have been very important. those of other people. When some game one be welcome anyway? The UN Convention on the Rights of is played according to terms that suit me A salutogenic museum is also an ac- the Child is another important point of it is too banal or artificial for other people. cessible museum. The aim is that a visit departure for us in this project. It may be When the game is not on my terms I to the museum should be comprehensi- easier to claim that one has a child-based tend to end up as a spectator. When not ble, manageable and meaningful regard- perspective than that one really assumes everyone can do real things together with less of one’s functionality or background. a child perspective at a government body others this has serious repercussions The All aboard! project is based on the like ours. In our communicative activities on all relationships. Everyone gets used idea of a “philosophy of accessibility”. For the UN convention has now been adopted to someone not being able to take part; three years we have been able to develop, as a central, strategic document. Children even the person who can’t join in. So it is test, discuss and play our way to a variety and youngsters have worked as reference important to get rid of segregating envi- of solutions together with child and adult committees in conjunction with several ronments. collaborators. new exhibitions in the same fashion as In the All aboard! project at the Vasa The manifold aspects of working with with the All aboard! project. This is real Museum the ambition has been to create accessibility involve the entire organiza- work and we have found a working meth- an inclusive environment with activities tion and they can, depending on how one odology that makes the UN declaration suited to everyone’s abilities. And they chooses to work, form a dynamic hub both manageable and meaningful. have turned the process upside down in for the entire operation. There are chal- The project has meant an upgrade of the sense that the starting point is the lenges, as well as huge possibilities, for a the educational programmes at the mu- actual functioning of people with dis- museum to work with central issues per- seum, providing us with a completely new abilities. This is not really revolutionary in taining to the exhibition medium, educa- platform. We have been able jointly to itself. They have merely given a little more tional activities of the museum, and staff realize how our educational methodology thought to the proverbial notions that “like organization and this also opens up new can help us to develop both as individual minds stick together” and that “people opportunities for including other societal educators and as an organization. Previ- with disabilities prefer to play by them- activities and of being active in new con- ously the staff of the museum may not selves with specially adapted activities”. texts. But it is important that the work on have really understood the importance With the cleverly adapted toys, edu- accessibility should be comprehensible, of the museum’s educational activities cational aids and training tools in the All manageable and meaningful to the people and the possibilities that these have for aboard! room, my lame hands were no involved in this work. What is it that one personal and organizational development. longer the usual source of irritation during actually needs to know and how is the The educational activities are now receiv- a game of Vasa Memory with my eight- motivation aroused so that an inboard ing much greater attention from both the year-old. We could also try our hand at engine is started up, with an eagerness to management and fellow members of marine archaeology together and look undertake the task and not to end up with staff. And there is now a much greater for Vasa finds in the lovely moist sand at a set of more or less successful rationali- interest in how we are going to develop the bottom of the sea. Everything in the zations or additions with packet solutions educational methodologies in the future. All aboard! room is also accessible from for different diagnoses, problems, or as- One of the most important results a wheelchair thanks to the fact that the sistance aids? of the project so far is that the museum marine environment is mostly merely The starting point should, perhaps, educators have developed creatively new intimated. But the bridge of the ship, the not be looking for faults but, rather, seek- forms of collaboration, both within the side seen from a diver’s perspective and ing out what is right and/or possible”. museum with the technicians and beyond the diving bell are sufficiently realistic to Starting from the salutogenic perspective the museum with the play therapists and, trigger one’s imagination. This is all that means looking for possibilities rather than not least, with children and young peo- is needed provided that it is not one’s impediments and recognizing people’s ple involved on various committees and capacity for fantasizing that is disabled. fundamental need to be part of a social suchlike. When one works together with With a little help from some children one context and to participate. Not just to be others in this way, it creates a new role can easily hear the gulls shrieking and fill welcome and able to attend but also able in society for the museum and provides a one’s nostrils with the scent of tar and to contribute to a situation. This leads to

140 a different sort of solutions and a more and asking questions about “why”. freeing an object in the sand which fills the dynamic work process. It is more a mat- Listening to the child’s story, the nar- boxes then the same material can be used ter of “rigging” so that these situations rative structure of what they have expe- but the object can be placed in the sand arise within the various activities and rienced is a feature of the first meeting. without this being compacted to such an operations. What do they choose to begin by relat- extent. Another example is the game of ing? What do they spend time in relating Memory in which the cards are magnet- “This business with the Vasa, and return to? What was the situation ized and can easily be picked up using it’s a job too…” like when their interest was caught? As a magnetic glove or pointer. These differ- It would certainly be desirable, in all pub- well as asking follow-up questions about ent solutions can readily be filled from lic operations that address children and something that is important or fun and another museum’s thematic content or young people directly, that they should so on. used in several other contexts. The design show zero tolerance towards inaccessibil- Starting from this we bridge to the of the activities means that a group can ity. And so the core group in this project subject content of the museum and the consist of children with different needs; has been the expert committee made up work with accessibility. Here it is a matter when children are working with an activ- of seven children who have been involved of finding a form that suits the respec- ity like marine archaeology, for example, in the project right from the start. tive child. Accordingly, we have worked a child with impaired vision can act as The children are doubly competent, with an assortment of methods to enable instructor for children with normal vision. both as children and through their own ex- the children to express their views and A child with a weak hand can steer the perience of various functionalities. When proposals. Some of them chose to draw, entire ship. And if one can’t quite cope one seeks to realize the intentions of the some worked with modelling clay, some with the pace, then the meditative clouds UN Declaration on the Rights of the Child, wrote and some chose to narrate and that move above the quiet corner can be there is no given method. And it is often show their ideas. It is important to sup- changed into a starry sky and a discussion easier to apply a children’s perspective port the child in planning, getting started, about how one finds one’s way across the than the child’s perspective. carrying through and finishing off their sea can easily become an intimate dis- If children are really to be able to influ- work. course on life at the moment. ence contents, decisions and outcomes Feedback and evaluation are also high- Children who make use of the ideo- one needs to start from their own points ly important. That the child is enabled to graphic writing system Blissymbolics can of departure. One has to give them a explain how it reached a solution or pro- play table games together with children mandate as well as possibilities. That was posal and that each child’s work is clearly who do not use BLISS. why the expert committee was the only evident in the room and the activities; that It is important that a child should not group that could trump the project com- it leaves an impression. It is advantageous always need to ask for help but can train mittee with regard to certain decisions. to extend this via the social media that al- at dealing with challenges in different In the course of the project a five-stage low the user to communicate directly with areas of life. Here the sibling aspect is method for working with the children’s other people using writing, pictures or very important: that brothers and sisters influence developed:Building relations, sound recordings and in this way involving can do activities together even though Drawing up contracts, Strategies for cu- other children in the process. they have different functional abilities. It is riosity, Degree of importance and Feed- also important to make it possible for par- “Steering the ship due south and daring back. ents with functional disabilities to be able The most important stage involved to put one’s hand into the lion’s jaws.” to participate in family activities with their building relations so that the child’s ex- The All aboard! room at the Vasa Museum child, for example. periences and vision of the world could is a total experience for all the senses. make themselves felt. This takes time That every child should be able to take Whole and half class, artistic freedom, and so there has been an advantage in part in the activities on equal and dignified budget, play areas and joint horizons. keeping the same children as members terms has been the primary concern. The Being rooted in a system of ideas and of the expert committee throughout the room encourages empowerment – own theories has been a major advantage to period of the project. Taking children seri- power, independence, discoveries, chal- the project. The salutogenic perspec- ously means that one values their con- lenges, learning, participation, collabora- tive as well as a socio-cultural view of tributions just as highly as those of adult tion and training – and so all the solutions development and learning have provided collaborators. And so an agreement has and materials are broad and inclusive. the orientation points both for the project been reached between the participating They are based on a perspective of equal- committee’s work and for the results children and the museum in which they ity and seek to support different coping of the project. There were concrete undertake to work in the expert com- strategies, constructive attitudes and problems that had to be solved, as well mittee. They naturally receive financial actions in order to be able to manage dif- as material needs, and this made the compensation for this work and this is ferent situations. Children are also encour- work meaningful for everyone who was a way of underlining that their work and aged by the room to undertake everyday involved. Work in the project committee their views are as important as those of activities like moving from wheelchair to thus became not an extra task to be fitted the adults. At the end of each year the chair. in but something that could be under- children receive certificates of service. It It is not primarily a matter of everyone taken within the framework of each mem- is important to give the meetings and the doing the same thing in the same way but ber’s ordinary assignments and goals. work a clear framework by drawing up of meeting the child’s fundamental need Working with accessibility is a process a Contract. This specifies what is to be for challenges and participation on equal of learning and development. Appoint- done, what is going to take place and how and dignified terms. A matter of establish- ing a single person to be responsible for this will be organized. This gives the new ing a sense of competence and optimism accessibility is probably not a very suc- situation predictability. with regard to the future that are fused cessful strategy. Problems and solutions Finding explorative strategies based into the child’s life project. are to be found in a given context and so on curiosity is decisive: that the social Accordingly, not a single adaptation the expertise and experiences of several situation surrounding our meetings and has been necessary; merely functional different professions need to be mixed the work on the project is rigged in a man- development. All the material and all together. In this way one can avoid ending ner that involves the children. One can’t the approaches should have an integral up in a situation where materials and ap- just ask what is interesting about the sensitivity and flexibility. The educational proaches are merely added on instead of warship Vasa and the 17th century and and democratic idea is what powers being fused together. Offering numerous so we started off by looking and becom- the functional development. Since the different “packages” for different groups ing acquainted with a variety of different environment itself, the material and the rapidly becomes unmanageable and leads items and subjects. We looked at things educational approaches are multifunc- to a focus on diagnoses and impairments and events that are also found in the tional, various new solutions have been rather than democratic and existential is- child’s everyday world and the concepts created. It is more a matter of “rigging” sues. People want and need to be part of they use there in order to find adegree of the approaches and material so that they a meaningful context. importance and use it as a starting point can cater to several needs at the same In a socio-cultural perspective on for each child. Listening to what the child time. An example of this is the marine- learning and developing one works with spends time on, what catches its interest archaeology boxes. If one has difficulty in an educational methodology that focuses

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on social interplay. Educational expertise and its operations. It can be a process to give up a great deal of one’s own ego in and experience has been employed in that causes different perspectives to fuse trying to realize the idea. If one succeeds organizing the planning process for the and it creates opportunities for unexpect- in getting an organization to understand All aboard! project. And so it has been ed discussions and meetings – perhaps how commitment is channelled into the important to try and direct the assignment leading on to a happier museum? idea I believe that the fundamental prin- and the various tasks at the developmen- ciple in the process will be more trans- tal zones of all those involved. Finding Carina Ostenfeldt, Project Manager parent. This type of leadership is very oneself in this development zone as a responsible for the concept psychologically demanding and probably group or an individual is characterized by works best during the starting-up phase a sense of commitment and meaningful- of an organization. ness – one is fired up to let loose the in- A strong, contributory factor is hav- ner motivation. And the group has more page 48 ing the necessary “craft skills”. There are of a locus of control, i.e. it is directed from With lamb stew and gravel many examples of everything from jour- within, thereby reinforcing the feeling that in one’s shoe – the art nalists to plumbers and doctors who have one can influence the situation oneself. of leading an idea-based acquired a natural role as a leader largely When one sets up a working group or because they have the skills necessary committee with members from different operation to produce the end product. If one wants professions one can make very conscious a clinic for spinal-cord injuries to radiate use of the field of tension that arises be- Believing in the idea oneself is essen- the sense of being “world best” and that tween different experiences, competen- tial in leading an idea-based operation. the environment there should be “as- cies and ideas by linking up the so-called But so is an ability to get rid of “gravel tounding”, it is a great advantage if one everyday experiences and professional in one’s shoe” expeditiously. is totally consumed by the “idea” and by idiom from the different professions to putting this idea into practise. This applies produce common terminology and goals. Directing an operation, a voluntary body, in principle to all idea-based operations. The cognitive conflicts and the feelings a manufacturing industry or a museum As the leader you need to have mastered of frustration that sometimes develop in makes large demands on the person who the entire process. At that stage, joy and an individual’s or group’s learning process wants to assemble a group of people enthusiasm will be experienced as energy can, when successfully channelled, be- round an idea. Often these leadership and the energy field can then be chan- come an important asset. It is precisely qualities manifest themselves at an early nelled forwards; and in this movement this that leads to new insights and solu- stage of a person’s development and peo- the loyal and responsive co-workers will tions in, for example, the work on acces- ple who have an innate capacity for taking be committed to the central task in a sibility: curiosity about each other and initiative often become leaders. very different way from with a more rigid with regard to the task at hand. A sense But things do not always go smoothly. structure. of trust develops with regard to how the Sometimes people who have been quite I have been privilege to lead such an group should work on a solution to the retiring, if not shy, prove to be excellent organization; one that has undoubtedly problem. leaders. And, in similar fashion, people been powered by ideas and by a pioneer- In promoting focus on the goals the who were very forceful and articulate ing spirit and in which it has been possible notion of a “philosophy of accessibility” when young become much too palpable to eliminate many practical, technical and has been used and a common method- in their leadership, bordering on authori- logistical problems because the force of ology for meetings in the various com- tarian. the forward-moving organization, based mittees and working groups has been There are certain basic criteria that on ideas, has been so strong. employed based on common agreement. constitute a good leader. Shelves full of The work of establishing ideas in an There is a goal for each meeting as to books have been devoted describing what organization is often overlooked. It takes what should be dealt with and that this makes the ideal entrepreneur or “boss”. time and costs money – not to mention should lead to. A summary of the meeting Thousands of universities all over the imagination and creativity. My own experi- is produced noting what has been agreed, world that teach economics, marketing ence is that the time and financial sacri- together with the tasks for the next meet- and business strategies have formulated fice that one makes in order to establish ing. theories about how to lead organizations, the ideas repay themselves many times It is important that the group or or- even in adversity. I intend to share some over. In that everything then becomes ganization should maintain the strategies of these theories in this article. much more fun. It is not enough to take for individual and joint learning that have There is a huge difference between the staff on an outing once a year or a been developed. Accordingly, our efforts being a manager or director and being a cruise in the Baltic. have been monitored by a proactive evalu- leader. Characteristic of a leader is that Another important aspect of leader- ation process. Material from this evalu- she “sees” more of the people she is ship is being “visible” in the right way and ation is gathered from interviews with working with every day. There is an inbuilt in the right context. One can joke about a members of the various groups and from sensitivity that picks up subtle clues that “narcissistic” personality if, as leader, one the various functions that have been car- do not always lead on towards greater turns up on television or radio or is fea- ried out. Some of the material has come profitability in the short term but that tured in the press. But these appearances from common questions of so-called definitely improve the atmosphere of the are effective. Family, relations and friends SWOT type: Strengths, Weaknesses, Op- workplace and the long-term success of comment on the “result” and all one’s portunities, and Threats or Problems. We the organization. Accessibility is a code of co-workers feel pride if one has flow. have also organized a “Socrates Café” a honour and it is important for most people They should, of course, be mentioned and gathering, led by a philosopher who asks for there to be an open door and a leader given credit for what they contribute. questions and comments from a Socratic who is “available”. A rather trivial measure of success perspective, raising concrete questions There are, of course, differences in is the number of royal visits and visits by to an abstract level and challenging those the types of operations that people lead. wives of foreign dignitaries on official trips attending to embrace new ideas. This is For the head of a small business the idea- to Sweden, or of Swedish government a democratic form of discourse which based message may be of less impor- ministers to Spinalis each year. And since invites everyone to state their views, to tance than for the leader of an organiza- we have the world’s best kitchen you participate actively in the meeting and tion with a philosophy and a message that don’t just get a cup of coffee and a pre- to be listened to. The subject to be dis- has to be communicated to the world at packed bun but lamb stew that we have cussed is chosen by the participants. large. In the latter case it is never a matter cooked ourselves. In the kitchen there is a The project has also followed an imple- of a 9 to 5 job and the organization needs scent of olive oil, red wine and garlic and mentation model which is a combination of leaders who are totally convinced of the a meal with a VIP guest is shared with public lectures and seminars for selected importance of what they are doing and are all the staff; not just the management or staff who are later to act as process man- really prepared to do what is required. the board but all 50 or so members of the agers and to introduce their experiences In a smaller organization, setting a staff. This helps everyone to work togeth- to other parts of the organization. good example is incredibly important; be- er towards the same goals. If organized correctly, work on improv- ing able to show, through one’s genuine Most of the people who take part in ing accessibility can enrich an organization and total commitment, that one is prepared the “evolution” of a successful organiza-

142 tion enjoy a high degree of satisfaction page 52 tions become someone else’s and are with their work. But to achieve this it is A ship for all – discovering naturally less important. And thus the ship essential that the leader should commu- remains, fading and turning yellow like an nicate awareness of the staff at all levels the bridge from fantasy to old photograph. of the organization. Larger organizations knowledge The All aboard! project is about inclu- naturally make the lamb-stew method sion. about the right to investigate, to ask more difficult to achieve. The warship Vasa was a failure. But at questions and to build bridges on their Recruiting staff for an idea-based the Vasa Museum those masters of the own terms. To “go aboard”, experience, operation puts the focus on certain, spe- thousand questions – our children – can think and take one’s own ship home with cial characteristics. It is often difficult to make something magnificent and high- one; while also doing this with others, specify the job in detail in that it is the ly instructive out of the catastrophe. communally. person as such who will become an im- Inclusion is, first and foremost, a When, where and how does learning portant cog in the operation rather than matter of being able to feel part of, being the function itself. This is especially true actually take place; and what is it that valued and regarded as someone who can during the build-up phase when all the determines whether we learn or not? do something now, can almost do it, will staff need to be actively engaged in shap- soon be able to, or in due course, in one’s ing developments. At every moment of a person’s develop- own way. How does one best lead an idea- ment there is something that we have not As early as the beginning of the 20th based organization that relies on a jointly yet mastered, something that is the be- century Lev Vygotsky insisted that chil- agreed philosophy? A fundamental ne- ginning of an ability or skill. It can sudden- dren with functional impairments should cessity is, of course, that all the people ly appear at a golden moment and then be given the same opportunities and working “on the floor” should also per- it can seem to have disappeared again. experiences as other children. Vygotsky ceive the idea as being “just right”, and it It is more often seen when we help each particularly stressed the social expecta- requires a great deal of personal energy other, when we think and reflect together tions that people with functional disabili- to reach that point. Communicating an and when we cooperate. Perhaps we ties encounter may well be the greatest ideology or modern mindset cannot be try it out by imitating someone who has obstacle to their learning and developing. done in a matter of seconds. People need already mastered it. This is not the sort of Research shows that children who are time to reflect. skill that turns up in school or in national exposed to negative expectations suffer After a time, when the idea-based tests; or that can show itself in answer to in terms of their learning and developing. organization has grown and the leadership the challenge: “Do this! Get ready! Pre- The All aboard! project addresses this by is looking for new ways to develop, it is pared! Now!” For in those situations one talking about and stressing the fact that not unusual for a number of people in the is expected to manage by oneself. One is every child has different functional abili- organization to feel somewhat disoriented not allowed to ask for help. This can give ties rather than regarding certain children and to wonder where the ship is headed. rise to a sense of frustration, a feeling as having disabilities. This does not mean This is a serious, and often problematic, of having failed, of meeting an obstacle that one denies the fact that there are situation. It is essential that the leadership or barrier to one’s learning. But we do obstacles and impediments to learning is responsive to the situation right from not give up. We accept the challenge of and that we need to learn more about the start – before the “gravel in one’s something we can almost manage, al- these, but the project shows a faith in the shoe” gets any bigger. Communicating most do. possibility of finding paths that will lead the fact that our paths should now part in Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934), the Rus- forward. There is development potential an empathic, straightforward and honest sian educational psychologist, developed a for every child. We must not let mental way is not easy. When such a situation great interest in what people can “almost obstacles become actual impediments to has arisen and the “divorce” has been do”, in proximal development, which he learning for children and young people. settled the temperature in the organiza- regarded as the next step in a person’s Back to the learning environment. The tion can fall drastically. Despite 25 years development. Everyone has things, situa- ship needs to be rigged before it receives of leadership I still quite often experience tions and skills that they have almost mas- visitors. It needs to be rigged and organ- difficulty in finding forms for managing tered or are in the process of developing: ized for inclusion, for learning and for such situations with as little drama as “Just a little, a little bit more and I shall be areas of development. In this sense the possible. able to do that”. “That almost worked!” ship is no different from any other learn- Let us consider what a “healing con- “It was on the tip of my tongue… but now ing environment, but it remains unique, text” looks like, and how, as leader, one it’s gone.” “How did I do that really?” We just as with any other learning environ- can start each day with one’s catechism. can be totally immersed in this eager- ment. In the learning environment it is the How does one ask oneself how one can ness to master something, to remember teacher who rigs or undertakes the prepa- retain and develop a solid structure with something, to know or know how to do ration, first of herself and then together the people that one has recruited? If one something that seems to be within our with the children. Or as Vygotsky put it: devotes enough energy to the concep- reach and is almost possible. We long for “The teacher’s task is to organize the tual endeavour of the process one may an aha-reaction. This is something that social dimension of learning”. Rigging the be able to move forward a step. Here makes things seem important and gives learning environment is a matter of organ- the salutogenic approach has its natu- inner motivation. Time and space are con- izing learning as a joint exploration, a com- ral place. All aboard! – the salutogenic sumed by our desire to succeed and to munal learning. The teacher can invite the museum at the Vasa Museum has, in a understand. pupils to take part in activities in which remarkably empathic fashion, presented Entering the Vasa Museum and see- one can investigate, think, talk about and egalitarian and dignified conditions for ing the ship there readily gives both chil- reflect on what one experiences. If one very many visitors who would otherwise dren and adults the impression of some- feels invited and encouraged it is easier experience exclusion. thing important in the offing. The Vasa is to dare. One can become wiser together The really big challenge is to use an “aha” place for the next-development with others and then it is easier to behave one’s intellectual capacity and energy, area with a fascinating learning environ- wisely on one’s own. one’s inspiration and ideas to persuade ment within reach. There is a bridge from Rigging presents the ship in a certain all levels of staff to display a dedication the fantasies of children and youngsters way. I suspect that the various profes- to and enthusiasm for the common task. to learning about the ship if one so wants. sionals who work in a museum seldom This is no easy matter but it is the essen- Such bridges play a special part because leave the presentation of the museum tial goal and needs to radiate the opera- they generate meaning in the learning to chance. Behind the presentation are tion right from day one. context. Vygotsky might have explained many hours of thought; and perhaps of it as a bridge developing when the child’s learning too in an operational team. Think- Claes Hultling M.D.,Ph.D. Associate everyday experiences converge with the ing and learning on the part of the adults Professor, Karolinska Institutet/Spinalis adult world. WE all need to create our precedes the child’s thinking and learn- CEO Spinalis, Stockholm own bridges. Every child who comes ing. Rigging is a matter of both the outer, into contact with the ship has the right to visible rigging – materials, the physical their own questions and their own ship environment, rooms –­ but also of rigging when they leave. Otherwise the ques- for an inner journey: questions, thinking,

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learning. Thus a learning environment page 54 Aims: Establishing and developing has both exterior and interior features. Support for educational a perspective based on a philosophy of And learning must not be left to chance. development dialogue accessibility, with appropriate goals and The learning environment can be both results. Producing a common platform inclusive and exclusive. In normal circum- and jointly developing criteria for quality • Causing all of the educational situations‡ stances we expect visitors to be curious and developmental tasks. to grow for all who are involved by rigging about the museum. But can a museum, a Through: Dialogue/discussion and the social and physical situation to enable learning environment, be curious about its continual documentation of the funda- learning and personal development to own visitors? And what happens then? Is mental idea behind the concept and its take place among visiting participants as this something one notices oneself as a promotion. well as museum staff. visitor. I believe that one does. • Supporting children, adolescent and The tools of mediation, to use Vy- adult visitors in the process of joining in 1. DOCUMENTATION OF PROCESS, gotsky’s term, that exist in the learning and creating a meaningful coherence for RESULTS AND DEVELOPMENT environment, can involve one in new their visit regardless of their starting point POSSIBILITIES experiences, reflections, questions, hy- (sense of coherence). potheses and conclusions about the ship, Contents: • Finding joy and support in being able to the sea, the world, history and the future. A. Description of the educational pro- help colleagues and visitors in developing The learning environment can activate the gramme: Title and Subject background the operation. visitors so that they are transformed into – narrative defining the context, Target • Educational situations are defined as researchers. In the All aboard! room there Group, Duration, Essential Materials, activities that are based on mediation. are numerous learning activities and tools Preparations That is, situations in which there is dia- to investigate that the museum educators B. Description of the educational process: logue and social interplay and where we have rigged. One gets onto the upper Plan and Realization – which points are in- can jointly address a question, subject deck not by the elevator but via the diving cluded together with their place in the basic or dilemma, or a challenge. By means of bell. “Diving bell. Why is it called a div- approach of “A Philosophy of Accessibility” the dialogue and the encounter, thinking, ing bell? I didn’t see any bell in there…” C. Description of Evaluation: Results of skills and opportunities of fulfilling one’s someone may comment. Now there is the process measured according to cho- life-project are enhanced for the child or something important and a question. And sen criteria and Prospective aspects of adult visitor as well as for the museum so the trip in the diving bell and the con- the project staff who are involved. Thus, educational versation about the diving bell lead to the situations can be presented by the edu- child learning. Everyone is included in a cational programme as such as well as by 2. PROCESS AND EXPERIENCE journey and the experience of communal exhibitions or in a rehabilitation process; DIALOGUE activities can stimulate the will to share for example, as in the case of the project experiences with others, to put them Starting point: Strengthen the sense of committee’s learning experiences during into words, to ask questions and to feel a Coherence and Mediated Learning and its operations. It is useful to try to define sense of belonging. And so it is language, Development. Based on the concepts of what we understand by an educational communication and questions that are, Aaron Antonovsky and Lev Vygotsky situation and to list the criteria. perhaps, the most important tools for investigation in the learning environment. Comprehensibility (Cognitive) FUNCTIONS OF THE MODEL Questions have a central role as a Concerned with understanding and tan- • Documentation learning tool. Children may come to the gibility. • Dialogue of Process and Experience learning environment with just a single, That information is experienced as • Results and Quality Criteria simple question and leave with an infinite structured and clear. number of more complex unanswered That there is predictability about fun- PERSPECTIVE AND IDEATIONAL questions. Much of what we know about damental aspects like what one will be BACKGROUND life has been revealed to us because we participating in; what one’s task is; what A philosophy of accessibility – the saluto- asked ourselves and other people ques- is to be achieved; and how we are going genic museum tions. But not every question needs to to do this. • UN Convention on the Rights of the Child have an answer at every moment. Some What does this mean to you and/or to • Salutogenic perspective questions and experiences do not develop the visitor to your operation or task? • Socio-cultural approach to learning and their true contours until later. A child may What is needed to create this? personal development be completely preoccupied by actually By: being in the learning environment for a 1. DOCUMENTATION How are we or how can we and our opera- while. The museum educators, teach- Contents: Headings describing Content, tion become attentive to the children’s/ ers and other professionals in the child’s Process, Result and Development Op- visitors’ framework of references, needs world play an important role in that they portunities. and functional abilities? How can we facili- may be available at a later time when the Aims: To document educational pro- tate comprehensibility? questions begin to take form. grammes, educational processes, results Organizing the social situation and Someone has claimed that what we and development opportunities in dealing interaction in our programme of activities know is determined by the questions with different educational situations. for example. that we ask ourselves. The driving force Directing operations such as educa- behind the questions is curiosity and the 2. DIALOGUE OF PROCESS & tional programmes, working methodologies desire to understand what one does not EXPERIENCE and son on towards development zones. yet know. This often becomes very evi- Contents: Questions that support dia- A clear framework and predictability dent with children who are the masters logue and planning, carrying out and de- Retrospective summaries – where are of a thousand questions, including the veloping educational situations in accord- we in the process/situation unexpected ones, and who reverse the ance with the definition above. Self knowledge – how do I function as perspective. With their questions they Aims: Defining an educational situa- an educator/colleague and so on? What can create something magnificent and tion and the relevant criteria. Creating, in different ways of learning and being are enriching out of something that was oth- every educational situation, a downpour on offer here? erwise dismissed as a failure – like a ship of “golden moments” for all the partici- Outer structure – including space, that sinks. pants regardless of their functional abili- materials and planning strategies. What is ties through dialogue/conversation and available, what can be created and what Petri Partanen continual documentation based on the is needed? psychologist and educational theorist. needs of the group and the programme. Skolutvecklarna and doctor student at Manageability (Subjective) Mid Sweden University in Östersund. 3. RESULTS & QUALITY CRITERIA Having access to the resources necessary Contents: Questions that promote discus- for managing/dealing with a situation/task. sion of results, explorative strategies, What are these resources? Are they avail- challenges and prospective aspects. able? How accessible is the situation?

144 What does this mean to you and/or to QUALITY CRITERIA – Have the following are designed with the focus on children the visitor to your operation or task? been present? Add your own criteria with a high degree of mobility, as though What is needed to create this? UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: children with functional limitations did not By: Best-for-the-child perspective and Child’s exist. How do we and our operation act sup- right to life and development Nine year-old Nicole loves her play- portively with regard to what cannot be Salutogenic factors and mediated ground. It is right outside the building actually managed, what needs to be learning: Comprehensibility? – Experience where she lives and it is here that she learnt; i.e. the cognitive conflicts than of structure, order, clarity meets her friends and can play for hours. arise? How does mediation work and how Accessibility: Broad, inclusive and The park has a great deal to offer her – or do we and our operation interact in these democratic solutions would have if she could only use her legs. situations? Nicole has a muscular condition and she Supporting the capacity to plan, be- Retrospective summary – new and earlier uses a wheelchair for which the park is gin, carry out and end a task. What do experiences not adapted. we/the child/the visitor need to succeed What made the work/strategy doable? Let us take an example. Nicole loves with this task? Which solutions worked? going on the swings and the local author- Knowledge – teaching specific skills. What can we learn from this? ity has recently provided a double swing Providing mental tools, i.e. thoughts, QUALITY CRITERIA – Have the following for two people. There is room for a friend terms and concepts. been present? Add your own criteria or for a helper if one needs one. Nicole Systematize the material and content UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: can lie in the swing while it is in motion. that one is working with. The child’s right to have its rights pro- But to reach the swing she needs a firm Balancing stress by working with cop- vided, §31 and §23 surface for her wheelchair. The parks de- ing strategies. Practising perseverance Salutogenic factors and mediated partment has fitted a soft rubber mat and and remaining in the task. learning: Manageable? – Experiences of this sinks down into the sand underneath. Self-regulation by mirroring and talk- resources and hope of managing situations Nicole fastens in the sand. The swing is ing about emotions and the situation help Accessibility: Multifunctionality and accessible to her but she cannot get to it. to generate understanding of one’s own Functional development Another example is the playhouses behaviour and of how this can influence that provide a never-ending source of the situation. Generalization and future perspectives? role playing. Who has not moved into a Focussing on and dealing with difficul- What has been meaningful? playhouse and played a game of mother/ ties by pointing to resources and capaci- What is the challenge of the next step? father/child or of shops when they were ties of the individual and the group. What experiences and solutions gen- small? There is a ramp leading up to the Scaffolding – transferring responsibil- erated enjoyment, interest and hope? playhouse and inside there is a cooking ity for the task/assignment to the child/ QUALITY CRITERIA – Have the following stove that one can use from a wheelchair visitor/colleague themselves. been present? Add your own criteria for which there is space beneath the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: stove. Nicole can play here on the same Meaningfulness (Emotional) The child’s right to have influence terms as her friends; or rather she would Stimulating motivation is a matter of: Salutogenic factors and mediated have been able to if the door opening had Is it worthwhile to make a commit- learning: Meaningfulness? – Experience been wide enough for her to get into the ment and investment in your and other of participation and context playhouse. Nicole just has to stay outside. people’s time/lives? Accessibility: Liberating solutions All research is united in the under- Why should you do this? standing that play is of great importance Participation activates the inner engine. to a child’s development and learning. For What does this mean to you and/or to Nicole, limitations in accessibility have the visitor to your operation or task? page 60 obvious detrimental consequences. What is needed to create this? When it’s only almost right Agnetha Mbuyamba, who is the chair By: of RBU, believes that these shortcomings How do we and our operations promote Play invites laughter and laughter is are often the result of ignorance. “Decision participation; i.e. how do they make it makers say that every child has the same possible for people to programme their infectious. Joy bridges over differ- right to be able to play but the real world own development? What do children/visi- ences and through playing together gives a different picture”, she maintains. tors want from their visit and from what children grow. But children who do “Decision makers do not have the neces- they experience with us? not play wilt. sary expertise to put themselves into the Create adequate goals as well as chal- child’s place. Play enables children to de- lenges. Few things are as directly associated with velop socially and physically. Children learn Start with everyday notions and ex- the child as play. While playing together about life through repetitive play. periences – for example, tasks should be they test each other. They learn to give Play facilities that are not accessible reminiscent of something known. and take. In play children investigate the to all children do not just affect those Explorative strategies and behaviours. world, they learn social interaction and with functional impairments but also their What leads on, offers discoveries and so they prepare themselves for adult life. siblings. Families choose not to visit the on? Regardless of whether they are taking playground because it does not work for Facilitate the bridging process by part in spontaneous play in the nearest all of their children. embracing the world of the child/working wood or in a more organized fashion in a Agnetha Mbuyamba exhorts everyone group/ visitor. public park, play is one of the foundation who has children with functional disabili- How might this be achieved? Produce stones of a child’s development. Almost ties to make their voices heard. “How examples. all children can play just about anywhere. else are other people going to know and Level of importance – based on what Their own imagination sets the limits. to understand? In all planning matters per- has been defined as important just now? Play teaches children how to approach taining to children there is an obligation What is interesting and attractive? and how to keep a distance and to under- to consider what is best for every child. How would you/we act then? stand the joy of community in both body Financial considerations help to make chil- Internalization – a process that gives an and heart, “Leka för livet” [Playing for life], dren with functional disabilities invisible. inner structure, like models and language. the 2006 annual report from RBU main- I fear that children will become spectators Providing hope and faith in the future by tains. RBU is the Swedish association for in life and society if we fail to change our looking forwards/prospective approaches. disabled children and young people. For attitudes and do not make society acces- Empowerment – own power. children with functional disabilities things sible to all. are not always quite as simple. Avoidable At the playground we encounter yet 3. RESULTS impediments limit and exclude them and another small detail that makes it impos- Successes, disappointments, difficulties the report notes that their exclusion starts sible for Nicole to play. Underneath a What worked and why? as early as playing in a sandpit. The joy of large climbing frame they have installed a What did not work, what can we do being able to play is stifled before it has giant noughts-and-crosses board. Nicole’s differently? even developed in that many play facilities wheelchair simply cannot get up to the

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board, which is at a comfortable height, person, regardless of their functional spect for the views of the child. and so she has to be content to watch status, can experience and take an active The child perspective is a recurring the others playing at a distance. She can- part in the educational activities on equal theme of the convention, though it is not wheel her chair through the sand that terms, no child or youngster is discrimi- difficult to arrive at a unified definition. separates her from the board. A simple nated against. One important starting point when trying path made of a more solid material would The notion of the child’s full and to define the child’s perspective is that enable her to take part. Only quite small equal value as a person also leads to the adults can never see the world through adaptations are needed for Nicole to be conclusion that children must have the a child perspective; only children can do able to take part in the games. As it is, opportunity to be listened to and to influ- this. It is a matter of respect for the child she often remains a spectator. ence their own situation. Article 12 of the as a person, of showing empathy with It is noticeable that Nicole, rather than convention is the paragraph that gives rise the child’s situation, of being curious remaining a spectator, chooses other to the greatest amount of discussion, be- and open for the fact that the child is a games that suit her better. She has a rich ing the one that stresses the child’s right growing person who can listen and under- imagination and she often involves other to be able to influence its own life. The stand. All this is an adult version of a child children in her games. But poor adapta- article deals with the child’s participation perspective. A willingness to accept the tion to her needs mean that she some- and is based on the idea that children are consequences of what the child has com- times has to play with children who can competent to form their own views. The municated is the most important aspect do what she can do rather than playing All aboard! project has been run in accord- of the adult’s child perspective. with the friends that she really wants to ance with this principle. Right from the The Convention on the Rights of the play with. start the project invited seven children Child was adopted by the UN General Nicole’s mother, Anneli, does not be- to take part in designing and realizing the Assembly on 20 November 1989. Swe- lieve that it would necessarily cost more project as the experts that they actually den ratified the convention in 1991 and, to build a playground for all children. “Of- are. It was precisely this way of working, today, every country of the world with the ten they start by building a park that is not of actually trusting the children’s ability to exception of Somalia and the USA has designed for all children and, when need influence their own situation that the con- signed the convention. This means that arises, they start to adapt it. But really the vention had in mind. all laws and regulations affecting children need has been there all the time, though Some children have a long journey in the signatory countries must be in line no one thought about it at the beginning.” ahead of them if the convention is to with the intentions of the convention. It Anneli gives examples of small details be realized. Functional disabilities and means, too, that all central government that have great importance. “Right from behavioural problems can lead to the and local authorities as well as all private the beginning one can provide a simple child’s own right to influence its life and institutions are obliged to follow the con- back-support on one side of the seesaw. environment fading into the background. vention in both policy and operations. The This does not cost much but it enables Youngsters with whom it is difficult to convention deals with all types of rights: children with poor balance or weak mus- communicate and who take few initiatives economic, social, cultural, political and cles to use the seesaw. Build swings themselves risk being subjected to a one- citizen’s rights. designed for two persons from the be- sided administration of functional aids and The United Nations Convention on the ginning and don’t wait until the “need” training while the need for interaction and Rights of the Child has the status of inter- arises because the need will have been communication are forgotten. national law and governments that have there all the time.” This can have unfortunate conse- ratified it are under obligation to respect it “Let the children meet”, says Anneli, quences, since the child risks acquiring and to report on its implementation to the “and do not separate them with obstacles yet another disability: a lack of skills in Committee on the Rights of the Child in that can easily be removed.” social interaction. The child’s need for Geneva at five-year intervals. respect, empathy and lifelong communi- Jessica Stjernström cation gets forgotten. We cease to see Christina Wahlund-Nilsson the “child behind the functional obstacle”. Save the Children Sweden When the All aboard! project for a salu- togenic museum at the Vasa Museum page 62 decided to develop an educational room Children – with that was adapted to every child’s func- page 64 the right to play tional abilities, i.e. to ensure that the room Now I want to write my and the activities were accessible to all own book about the Vasa Children are people too. right from the beginning and did not need This is established by the United Na- to be adapted to different functionalities I helped to create a room at the Vasa afterwards this increased the chances of tions Convention on the Rights of the every child developing regardless of their Museum. Those of us who worked on Child. A true understanding of children specific functionality. the room were known as the expert and their rights still needs to be con- The UN Convention on the Rights of committee and the project was called veyed to the world. the Child – not children – focuses on the All aboard! individual child. This is an important em- Children can no longer be regarded as phasis because it helps us to understand What was special about the expert com- incapable of maintaining views and being that each child is different. The All aboard! mittee was that all the members were listened to. Now it is the UN Convention project works actively at seeing every children with some form of disability. on the Rights of the Child, agreed in 1989, child as a unique human being with their I think that this was a strength because that is the most important international own thoughts and intentions. we think about how to fit out a room so instrument for promoting children’s rights. that it can be used by everyone. It states that children must be given much Christina Wahlund-Nilsson Initially I thought that the room was greater control over their situation and Save the Children Sweden dull. There were just some chairs and a more opportunities to influence the envi- table. Now it is much more inviting. And ronment in which they grow up. it has become more fun. There are different ways of making There are lots of things in the room that are fun and exciting. One can learn the clauses of the convention a reality page 63 in children’s everyday lives. One way is things in an enjoyable way. What I like to work in the same fashion as the All The UN Convention on the best about the room are the cavities in aboard! project in promoting an environ- Rights of the Child the walls. You can put your hand into the ment in which children can develop. different holes and feel what is in there The All aboard! project is a salutogen- The intentions of the convention are sum- with your fingers. Another feature of the ic, health-promoting programme that links marized by the four core principles of the room that I like is that there is plenty of up with the four fundamental principles of convention: non-discrimination, devotion space and it is easy to move about in a the convention (see infobox). By creating to the best interests of the child, the right wheelchair. I appreciate this because I conditions in which every child or young to life, survival and development, and re- use a wheelchair.

146 We members of the expert commit- it was fun. I don’t know why it was scary other even after the project is finished. tee had also produced some wooden but I got a funny feeling when I saw myself And when one becomes a mother chests which we called Vipers [from the on TV for the first time. one will be able to show one’s own chil- name of the small boats that serviced the I am really happy to have been able to dren what one helped to create. Vasa]. These chests contained various be part of all this. It has been an unforget- things that children who are ill and can’t table experience. Laura Stridh Guerra, aged 13 visit the Vasa can look at and feel and I should like to point out that it is learn all about. What I like best are the worthwhile going to the Alla ombord! doll’s clothes that show how people were room at the Vasa museum because it is th dressed in the 17 century. fun for all children. So make sure you get page 70 Another fun thing was that we ex- there too! perts were trained as guides. We were These are your rights given name badges and we learnt more Filippa Kritz, aged 11 about the Vasa and the period. So now I No one has the right to treat a child un- can show the ship and talk about it to my justly or cruelly. friends. Every child is of equal value and every- But the best thing with the project is page 68 one is to be treated in the same way. When adults make decisions affecting that I have learnt about the Vasa and the In my heart for ever people from that time. This was so excit- children they must always consider what ing that I have started to write my own is best for the child. The All aboard! room and the Vipers – book about Vasa. Every child has the right to grow up in everything is now in place after three a secure environment, to have sufficient Julia Hedenström, aged 13 years of hard work. And for me the food, to attend school and to visit the doc- expert committee has meant a lot of tor when they are ill. All countries must do friendship and love. everything possible to ensure children’s survival and development. Every child has the right to say what The Alla ombord! room is designed so page 66 that everyone can be there. There are sev- she or he thinks about different matters. The room is fun en members of the expert committee and Every child has the right to be listened to. for EVERY child I am one of them. We have been meeting These are some of the articles from for three years. the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child which countries throughout the Just think that there was a time when During the first year ofAlla ombord! there was a great deal to think about and world have agreed on. Every child has there were playrooms that not all chil- to build. As the opening date approached the rights stated in articles 2, 3, 6 and dren could play in. Are you interested not much seemed finished. It was only a 12 of the convention. in knowing why? I can tell you a bit week before the opening that things fell about my own experiences. into place. But, in due course, everything was ready and I felt happy but a bit ap- Before I started working at the Vasa Mu- prehensive and I was looking my best in page 72 seum I only knew that there was a ship jeans and a really cool top. The best thing called Vasa and had visited the museum about the Alla ombord! room was the lift A setting for play once or twice in my entire life. Now I was because they had turned it into a diving and rehabilitation going to learn a whole lot more and also bell. see to it that other children could do the Inaugurating the Vipers was real fun. There were farms next to the churches same. Filippa and I got to deliver them to the in 17th century Stockholm. Reading Our first project was to think up ideas staff of the play-therapy department at the grooves and symbols for buildings for the room at the museum. All aboard! the Karolinska hospital. Then we all ate a on the relief map with the tips of their We could present our ideas using pen and special Alla Ombord! cake and drank lots paper or clay. I proposed that there should of sodas. fingers, visually impaired children can be books in the room. For example the We members of the expert commit- understand what Stockholm was like Vasa Story and the Vasa Pig. I also sug- tee helped to decide what the room was on the fateful Sunday in August 1628 gested having clothes that one could use to look like. I had the idea of a treasure when the Vasa sank. for dressing up. You can do that at the hunt and I was pleased when it was fin- museum in Funäsdalen and I have played ished. I thought that children might like to Working in accordance with the concept of a lot there with my younger sister. know what being a diver is like and finding “accessibility for everyone” is not always When everything was ready it was treasures on the seabed. The treasures either simple or self-evident but requires time for the official opening. There were can be all sorts of things: a spoon, a lice a different way of thinking: “My assistant lots of people in attendance and two of comb or a coin. asked whether we should paint the relief my classmates from school were there We also appeared on TV and had to map black as it was to be used by people to check it out. They thought it was great be interviewed. They asked what it was who cannot see it. But it would not be fun and that the room was fine. It was a like to be part of the project. attractive in that case, nor accessible real plus that they came. In the autumn of 2009 I took my class to everyone”, says set-designer Johan The next year we attended a training to the Alla ombord! room. That was pretty Killgren. course for guides. We could choose what cool. We went round the room and I ex- The principle of accessibility for all we wanted to learn about. I wanted to plained what it was like being part of the precisely captures the intentions of the All learn more about the ornamentation on project. Lots of my classmates lay on the aboard! project: that everyone, regardless the ship. For example, that the little boy bed and listened to the sound of the sea of functionality, should be able to use all on the stern of the ship was King Gusta- or the shrieks of the seabirds. Then they the functions of the room. This has been vus Adolphus aged ten. I haven’t guided all tried out the diving bell and steered the starting point for set-designer Johan my class yet but I am hoping that I shall the ship. They all got arm bands, pins and Killgren’s work on the relief map in the All do so soon. stickers with All aboard! on them. aboard! room and the Vipers for the Astrid During the second year we produced This is the best thing I have ever been Lindgren Children’s Hospital. a Viper. A Viper is really an old boat but part of. The project is going to live in my “Otherwise I work a lot with sets we made one as a miniature version of heart for ever. I feel proud and happy for television entertainment where one the room. The Viper is designed for use about being one of the group. And I get has to be observant of trends and make by children in hospital who can’t get to rather well paid for the work. I may buy a everything look good, which can become the museum. We gave the first one to the laptop with the money. I have had three tiresome. Coming to hospital play therapy Astrid Lindgren Children’s Hospital. years of total friendship and love meeting and working in this way feels much more We were on TV too. It was pretty other people with functional disabilities. I important”, Johan Killgren maintains. scary seeing oneself but at the same time hope that we will keep in touch with each He was brought in to the project at an

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early stage, and his first task was to cre- rehabilitate children at the Astrid Lindgren been made so that it can withstand a lot ate the relief map which hangs in the All Children’s Hospital where they are now an of wear while being used as an educa- aboard! room. He then continued with the aspect of the rehabilitation programme. tional aid for the children”, Maria Miesen- Vipers, the mobile chests for the hospital Working with accessibility is not one berger explains and arranges a large doll play therapy unit at the Astrid Lindgren of an artist or set designer’s key tasks; on her lap. Children’s Hospital. artistic freedom is considered a primary When she started working with the “Work on the Vipers started with a value. But the All aboard! project has puppets, there was no definitive manu- long list of what was to be included and meant that function has been an impor- script so that it was a real challenge to the project seemed stimulating and fun. tant aspect of the brief; so that everyone create a character for each doll. “The usu- After that there were several special ideas is able to participate. Johan Killgren al order of things was reversed because that we developed as we went along”, considers that his collaboration with the I made the puppet first and then had to Johan Killgren explains. technical staff at the Vasa Museum was create a narrative for it”, she explains. The list contained both requirements very satisfactory. “Working with them Maria Miesenberger has created a and wishes but was formulated in such a was great fun. They were deeply com- number of dolls for the All aboard! room way as to leave plenty of room for solu- mitted to what we were doing and they including a ship’s carpenter, the carpen- tions, design ideas and the designer’s saw the Vipers as just an extension of ter’s wife, a bosun, a captain and King own additions. The basic criterion was the usual exhibition work”, Johan Killgren Gustavus Adolphus. that everything should accord with the comments. And Maria Miesenberger adds The viper contain a simpler sort of philosophy of access for all. her opinion: “The finishedVipers were glove puppet which are designed to with- “The real challenge of the Vipers was extremely beautiful, the ship part is like stand being played with. There is a car- the fundamental narrative and how we a jewel”. penter, a bosun, a girl and a cat that really should approach the subject in relation wants to be a lion. Gustavus Adolphus to the children. The other main challenge Inga-Lill Hagberg Desbois is also present in the form of a soft, half was to include as many functions as pos- journalist and editor mask which covers the face. A black ra- sible and here the support of the staff at ven and a seal have been purchased from the hospital was invaluable.” Germany. The Vipers are containers that have to In the Vipers there is also a diver from find room for as many items as possible page 74 the 17th century, a so-called heavy diver and Johan Killgren had to work very hard Uncompromising dolls – from 1961 and a contemporary diver who to find room for all the components. accessibility and artistic is a marine archaeologist. These have all “I did not wanted to create a toy chest liberty been made by dressmaker Marie Nilsson. full of toys that do not actually connect Maria Miesenberger has consciously with each other, and even though one chosen not to make the glove puppets considers their function, one has to re- Artistic sensibility and the principle of too pretty. “I have not made them look tain the fictional narrative. The important accessibility have cross-fertilized and quite as beautiful as the larger puppets thing is the experience that the child has. led to dolls or puppets which can be out of regard for the children. When one is A child with a impairments has just the used by all types of hands for vigorous a child and is ill and in hospital one looks same need to create a story as any other games. different from normal and may have lost child”, Johan Killgren notes. one’s hair or lost weight. In those circum- The expert committee, which consists When we meet up, Maria Miesenberger stances it is easier to identify with dolls of seven children between the ages of is busily at work on the dolls. She shares a that are not as pretty but have more char- seven and fourteen, has had a lot of input basement studio in Stockholm with Johan acter instead”, she explains. with regard to the design and content of Killgren who is responsible for producing The carpenter puppet is a traditional the room. And almost half of the items in the Vipers for the All aboard! project. type of a two-faced doll made from a the room are included in the Vipers. Maria Miesenberger is an artist, wooden spoon. One side of the spoon Johan Killgren has not had a great deal known particularly for her photographs in is cheerful and proud of the magnificent of contact with the expert group but has, the series entitled Sverige/Schweden and Vasa ship while, if one turns the spoon instead, analyzed how the educators work her large, androgynous sculptures made round, the sad and disappointed face ap- and how the children play. The views of of aluminium and bronze. She has pro- pears as the ship sinks. the expert committee have been gathered duced most of the dolls for the All aboard! “I have worked with the dolls on two and mediated by the project manager and room as well as for the Vipers. Maria levels. As an artist I am more visible in the educators. Miesenberger sews all of the clothes for the large puppets while the smaller glove “When we made a sailor who can the dolls on her sewing machine. puppets have more practical functions climb up a rope, for example, or a mag- The Vipers, carrying her smaller dolls, to fulfil and my own artistic ideas have netic baton for the Vipers the project man- have now set sail for use in entertaining taken more of a back seat. The large pup- ager and the educators would say: ‘This is and rehabilitating children and youngsters pets are more advanced in another sense something the physiotherapists are going in the hospital play therapy unit at the even though the smaller ones took just to like! Because they provide training for Astrid Lindgren Children’s Hospital. as much time to create”, Maria Miesen- the fingers, just like the Bliss memory The dolls have marked features so berger explains. game in which one turns over the cards that children who cannot see are able to In the All aboard! room, all the dolls with a magnetic baton.’” feel their faces as well as their clothing have different characters: besides the car- Artist Maria Miesenberger took part and their shapes together with the materi- penter whom we have already mentioned, in a trial of the material and the educators als from which they are made. “Figuring there are the bosun, the captain and also have played an important role in making it out exactly what the dolls should look like an ordinary girl and King Gustavus Adol- possible for her to evaluate how well the was a formidable task”, Maria Miesen- phus. objects function educationally. One exam- berger notes. She emphasizes that she is Artists usually work with complete ple is the plaster moulds which children not primarily a doll-maker but an artist and freedom and totally independently but can use to create their own figurehead. sculptor. here it was a matter of seeing to it that The initial idea was that we should The larger dolls, which are to func- the objects were suited to their purpose make four different moulds one for each tion as puppets, have “moved into” the and could be used by all of the children. sculpture, so that children could make All aboard! room where they are used by What consideration did you take – and four different sculptures. But dividing the museum educators and professional how did it work out? “Initially it feels as each mould into four parts makes many puppeteers. The somewhat smaller glove though one will have to make conces- more combinations possible. One can puppets are used in the Vipers, primarily sions, but in many cases this turns out now combine parts of a soldier and a for children to play with but also as an to be positive. What one does not want mermaid in the same figure just as one educational aid. is a compromise”, Maria Miesenberger wants; or one can choose to cast only a “A normal theatrical puppet does not claims. part of the sculpture. weigh as much as these do because the The Vipers have now sailed off by puppeteer has to be able to hold it up and Inga-Lill Hagberg Desbois themselves and are ready to entertain and act for quite a while. But this puppet has journalist and editor

148 page 76 tails, some of which developed later in The technicians also built the two Vi- Lots of talk led collaboration with technicians, educators pers that are deposited at the Astrid Lind- and the expert committee. gren Children’s Hospital in Stockholm. to a creative workshop The elevator, or diving bell as we say Building work took a long time – about here, was installed very quickly but it took five months in all – and was a bit like The All aboard! project introduced a time to build the upper balcony because working in Santa’s workshop with lots of new methodology to the work of the we had to assess the structural feasibility different things that had to be made and technical staff at the Vasa Museum of the design”, Peter Dans explains. put together and painted. “Building the too. “In our normal work we build In building the All aboard! room they room was even more stimulating because things that can be looked at. Now we worked in a team with other profession- it was like a whole exhibition in miniature”, were faced with making things that als such as designer, stage designer, says a contented Mikael Gustafsson. “Somebody was responsible for she shell could be inspected and handled”, dressmaker and others. “We worked with various craftspeople who were brought – and then we did all the fun parts. Peter Dans explains. in for the project for particular aspects of the room. That was something we had Inga-Lill Hagberg Desbois In their daily work the technicians at the not done previously. This gave us a new journalist and editor Vasa Museum devote their time to building network of contacts which we can make new exhibitions or improving and modern- use of in the future”, Mikael Gustafsson izing existing displays. When they were explains. The new contacts have already brought into the All aboard! project to build led to their collaborating on other projects page 78 the room with its focus on accessibility connected with the museum. they had to attempt a new way of working: Accessibility was a new aspect for the All aboard! – without “For the first time we were working in full technicians and is something that they a ramp collaboration with the museum educators. have taken on board in working on the This was good because they were the new permanent display for the Maritime “Make it accessible to everyone.” This people who were going to use the room” Museum. Floors and other materials will was the brief given to architect Martin Tore William-Olsson explains. He is a light- have different structures which will en- Jämtlid when he started work on de- ing and audiovisual technician. able more people to enjoy the display. The technical staff initially felt that “There are building rules for heights signing the All aboard! room. “This is they and the educators were “speaking in of protective rails and gaps in the balus- a fundamental principle that will follow different languages” and this led to their trade and suchlike that we have been us in the future, though in an anarchic devoting a lot of time to lengthy meetings used to working with. But we now have sort of way; not dull but still dignified.” at which the pros and cons of problems a more holistic approach and a realization and proposals were discussed and solu- that there are more special needs than Making premises accessible to all regard- tions hammered out. merely catering for people in wheel- less of their functionality is not always a “Lengthy meetings were needed for chairs”, Mikael Gustafsson notes. natural concomitant in building or refur- us to be able to make constructive deci- Maria Ericsson is in agreement: “Ac- bishing public property. “One can design sions about what was to be done and cessibility ought to be a natural aspect of premises that are infinitely staid and dull, how we were to do it”, Per Johansson every exhibition production but one needs with ramps and other typical adaptations”, remarks. He is also a lighting and audio- to reflect and to receive feedback as to Martin Jämtlid notes. “But I am convinced visual technician. what works and what does not work. In that one can avoid this if one starts from Working together in new constellations our particular case the project manager the conviction that the premises are to can be tricky initially yet still seem worth- was central because she has so much be accessible to everyone. One can avoid while because it leads to a more profound knowledge about this issue, as do the the most predictable solutions and this understanding of our respective skills and expert committee.” leads to positive effects in the long run may well prove useful in future produc- Reflecting on the issue before one and goodwill on the part of the users.” tions. This is the view of the technical staff starts building is important, Mikael Gustaf- In the autumn of 2007, the All aboard! who are positive about their collaboration sson maintains: “We need to think through – the salutogenic museum project was with the museum educators. possible obstacles that can impede given the opportunity of re-designing a “The museum educators have always physical accessibility, reading signs, un- room at the Vasa Museum that had previ- had to wait right to the end of the building derstanding contexts and we must avoid ously been used for educational activities. work before getting involved, but they making things muddled or too cramped. The new design was to embrace a “phi- have always wanted to be consulted at And we need to think up solutions that losophy of accessibility” which meant, an earlier stage. After this they will be”, do not separate people with impairments for example, that there was a salutogenic Mikael Gustavsson claims. too much from people without such dis- perspective to the project. The education- It took eight months from when the abilities.” al material, in accordance with the saluto- technicians started to take out the original There are certain important compo- genic perspective, would be accessible to furnishings with cupboards all along the nents that worked while the All aboard! all regardless of their functionality. walls and various other items that had to room was being constructed: control, When Martin Jämtlid entered the be removed, until the room could be put compromises, smart solutions, discus- room for the first time in the autumn to use at the end of 2008. sions and the expert committee of chil- of 2007 it did not give a very positive “It used to look like a school class- dren. and playful impression. “It was an awk- room with cupboards along the walls”, “The All aboard! room is relatively wardly shaped and dismal space so that Per Johansson explains. He documented small and would have needed to have anything that one did to it would be an the room in its original state with both still been twice the size to do justice to all of improvement”, Martin Jämtlid claims as photographs and film. the ideas and so we had to discuss appro- we visit the room together. “The activi- Everyone in the group is agreed that priate solutions or to find compromises”, ties there consisted of various items that building the All aboard! room was an en- the technicians explain. were taken out and put back into the nu- joyable task. “We followed Martin Jämtlid’s model merous cupboards that lined the walls.” “I liked rigging the sails. That was fun, of what the room was to look like a lot of According to the long list of features as was building the floor for the raised part the time, and he was sensitive to our ide- required in the new room it should be fit- of the room. I had never done anything like as, flexible and open and he took advice ted out in a manner inspired by the warship that before”, Maria Ericsson explains. from us with regard to various solutions”, Vasa. The room did not need to be in period In other building assignments the ex- says Peter Dans. style; rather the reverse because being able hibition technicians often receive finished The technical staff enjoyed this mode to use one’s imagination was important. drawings with instructions as to what of working: “Working like this and finding Everyone was to be able to do everything, the exhibition is to look like. But in this solutions on site was a more enjoyable regardless of functional disabilities. There case they worked almost in parallel with way of working than working from plans were to be no adaptations, but everything architect and designer Martin Jämtlid. that one is not allowed to alter at all”, Ma- was to done in the “right” way from the Together they produced solutions to de- ria Ericsson claims. beginning, developing functionality.

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“The great advantage of the room is precisely the feeling that one gets on took part in an educational training course. was the high ceiling. This made it possible entering the room; that he has a sense of “It felt good to receive our own train- to build on several levels which increased being invited to take part. ing and we could ask questions from a the dynamics of the room. One does not The technical staff of the Vasa Mu- deaf perspective such as how we could now think of the room in terms of be- seum completed the rebuilding work late work in the room from the point of view ing “tall” but “filled” without in any way in 2008 and the room was inaugurated of deaf people”, Joakim Hagelin-Adeby seeming confined”, says Martin Jämtlid. on 28th November that year. “The ulti- explains. He looks up at the balustrade which mate test is whether the children like the The three sign-language educators was turned into the “bridge” of the ship room and, from what I hear, they never never attended a sign-language tour of a from which one can hoist or lower the want to leave! One visitor claimed: ‘This museum when they were children. No such sails and steer the boat using a computer is the most egalitarian room that I have guiding was available at the time. Being able joystick. The idea of being able to steer the ever been in’; and you can’t get a better to take advantage of what other people see ship came from one of the children on the testimonial than that”, Martin Jämtlid as self-evident is something new to them. expert committee who were involved in observes. Irina Kloch Bozkurt visited Italy with a the project. group of sign-language interpreters from “One of the experts proposed red Inga-Lill Hagberg Desbois Sweden a few years ago. They visited sails and red was a common colour for journalist and editor several museums and were guided by sails in the 17th century”, Martin Jämtlid interpreters from Sweden. One day the comments. group was guided round the Old Town Numerous experiences, like the sails, by some deaf guides from Italy and this are woven into the room and children made a deep impression. “What a fantas- can lift items themselves using block and page 80 tic experience. That made me realize what tackle. There are layer upon layer of de- Listening with one’s eyes a huge difference there is between a deaf tails for anyone wanting to research more guide and a guide with hearing.” closely; for example the black silhouette At last the teacher understood what Recently Irina Kloch Bozkurt guided a of the lion’s head and the cavities in one the Vasa really was – having visited group from a vocational college. “At the of the walls which one can investigate end of the programme the teacher told with one’s hands, looking for finds left the museum some twenty times in the me that he had visited the Vasa Museum on the seabed. past. And this was because he had 20 or 30 times but that this was the first “I think that many visitors to the room met a sign-language educator who is time that he had understood what the feel that there are numerous functions in deaf herself. Vasa really is. And why was this? Because the room and that everything is part of a everything was explained in his own lan- context based on the 17th century warship The difference between meeting and guage, in sign language; and by a guide Vasa”, Martin Jämtlid maintains. He also listening to a sign-language guide with who was deaf herself.” worked with permanent features in the hearing and a deaf sign-language guide is The vessel is sensitive after so many room like the elevator that was turned vast according to the three sign-language years beneath the sea and so the museum into a diving bell with tactile surfaces, guides Irina Kloch Bozkurt, Joakim Hage- has to be kept rather dark. This has reper- and a ventilation shaft that has become lin-Adeby and Jonas Brännvall who work cussions for deaf visitors because they a monster of the deep, thus reflecting for the Vasa Museum and the All aboard! need light to see what the sign-language popular fears in the 17th century of what – The Salutogenic Museum project. educator is explaining or wants to show. might be found in the sea. “I based my “A person who is deaf herself gives “It is rather dark but I have tried to design on a play perspective. Children a much more vivid picture than the sign- find the best places for signing from the have this special capacity for using their language guide who can hear and who light point of view. It is not good to stand imagination to create their own narrative merely translates the written signs. Sign immediately behind the light shining on of what is taking place.” language is a visual language so that various objects because that makes it Martin Jämtlid worked on the project when a deaf person communicates in more difficult for the visitors to see me. for a year. There were innumerable as- sign language it is rather like watching a One has to think about where to stand”, pects to discuss and to pay regard to in film without having to worry about what Irina Kloch Bozkurt explains. order to meet the demands for accessibil- she or he means”, Irina Kloch Bozkurt “That is true”, Jonas Brännvall agrees, ity. “One decisive problem was structural explains. She is deaf herself and has been “it is unsatisfactory if it is too dark or integrity. We wanted to avoid having a col- an authorized Stockholm guide since 2002 if there are lots of exhibits in the back- umn to support the balcony. It had to be as well as a sign-language educator at the ground.” self-supporting if the space underneath it Vasa Museum since 2009. “To be able to There is another reason, too, why it was to be accessible. Fortunately the mu- use one’s first language is important since is important to have deaf sign-language seum building is largely made of concrete understanding it is much less effort”, Jo- educators in the view of Joakim Hagelin- so there was plenty of solid material to fix nas Brännvall maintains. Or, as Irina says: Adeby: “Deaf children find it easier to the balcony to.” “It feels like being at home”. put questions to deaf educators. There Martin Jämtlid found his inspiration The All aboard! project stresses the is a better level of communication and a in books but was also very concerned fact that sign language is a language just stronger sense of community.” that the room should not give a feeling like any other and not just an aid. For this The number of deaf children has of a game of “pirates” but that it should reason, three people who are deaf them- declined in recent years since so many pay due regard to history and what actu- selves are being trained at the museum choose to have cochlea implants. The ally happened. Almost everything he to act as sign-language educators so that cochlea implant can be stimulated electri- designed for the room met with positive the museum can offer educational visits cally to allow children who are deaf or reactions, though the emergency stairs for children and young people as well as have serious hearing disabilities to per- gave rise to lengthy discussion. It would guided tours in sign language. ceive sounds. have been difficult to get wheelchairs One weekend each month Irina Kloch “My idea is that they should employ down quickly in an emergency and so it Bozkurt, or one of her colleagues Joakim someone who was born deaf but has had to be rethought. During the period Hagelin-Adeby and Jonas Brännvall, is on been given an implant. In that way one of the project there were numerous duty as a sign-language guide. Groups can would gain access to a person who had meetings with the museum educators to book guided tours in advance. The guides learnt sign language properly but who discuss various functions in the room and spent a month in 2008 training for their would also understand people who have these deliberations resulted in many valu- work, with half of the cost being met by cochlea implants and can now hear and able proposals. the Swedish county councils’ interpreting who would be able to change easily “It was a positive challenge. There are service [Tolkcentralen]. The entire course between the two languages”, Joakim so many gifted members of staff here that was interpreted into sign language so that Hagelin-Adenby explains. being part of the project has been really the three potential sign-language educa- enjoyable”, Martin Jämtlid notes. Asked tors received the same training that the Inga-Lill Hagberg Desbois what he is most pleased with about the educators and guides with hearing under- journalist and editor room he looks around and claims that it went. Later during the summer they also

150 page 82 was intended for international communica- choosing words to include on the chart. Blissymbolics tion and was described in a book entitled But the room is by no means separated Semantography. It came into its own in from the museum as such and so basic ­– words aboard the 1970s as an aid to people with serious facts about the Vasa needed to be in- Communication speech disabilities. Bliss has been used cluded. The Bliss material was to function – without a single word in Sweden since 1976. Today it is used by separately from the room and to be acces- thousands of people in many parts of the sible even at home. We also wanted to A visit to a museum is an experience. world. reach people visiting the museum without coming into contact with the educational Experiences are greater and richer if Why we chose Bliss staff or visiting the All aboard! room. one is able to share them with other The first question that presented itself The aim of the project was to people and can put words to what one All aboard! was: How are we to decide on the most ensure that every child, regardless of its has experienced. But how can one do important words? But we soon rephrased functional capacities, should be able to the question: How do we want our Bliss this if one cannot use spoken words? take part in the educational activities at material to be used? This shifted the per- the Vasa Museum. And so it become im- spective from what we considered to be Everyone’s right to communication portant, and relevant, to become the first important facts to what we thought would The capacity to communicate with other museum in the world to develop a site be meaningful to the visitor. We think that people using speech or writing is some- map using Blissymbolics. it is fun and interesting for everyone to be thing that most of us take for granted. Yet The Vasa Museum offers guided tours able to talk about new and exciting experi- there are many people who do not share and information in rather more different ences; and that includes Biss users. this ability. Spelling and reading can also languages than most museums. By placing In the process of selecting facts we be problematic for people who have never a highly visible Bliss symbol on each sign were greatly aided by Olof Pipping. He used their voices to say something. in the museum we are sending a signal has an invaluable knowledge of maritime It is essential to everyone, whether in two directions. Visitors who use Bliss matters and helped to rig the Vasa in the they use speech or not, whether they have themselves see their own language rep- museum. And he also has experience of hearing or are deaf, to be able to ask, to resented among many other languages in communicating with Blissymbolics. narrate, to make jokes, to discuss and so an official capacity. And people not familiar The ultimate criterion proved to be on; and not to be limited simply to yes or with Bliss learn about a new way of com- words that are often used in communi- no questions. municating. cation with the groups and children we Many people need support to be able Experience is needed for making Bliss meet in the museum. Some of the words to communicate. This can take the form accessible and enabling people to hear were so specialized that they did not exist of sign language or communication maps about the Vasa in spoken language while in Bliss and so we were obliged to create with symbols or pictures. making use of Blissymbolics – some of new signs. This was partly because it There are numerous different systems them new – oneself. And so we created a would be too complicated to explain the of symbols or images that one can choose stimulating book that includes a selection concepts, and because it can be fun to from. One of these is known as Pictogram. of words, Bliss symbols and pictures as teach parents or friends a word that they This is a tried and tested pictorial support well as a special Bliss chart for the Vasa do not already know. system designed for people with cognitive Museum. Since Bliss is an international language difficulties. But there is only one symbolic If there is a word that they need but one has to get new words approved by or ideographic system that is a complete that is not included on the chart, people Bliss Communication International [BCI]. language and that is Blissymbolics or Bliss. who communicate using Bliss have to try This is a voluntary charitable organization to use a combination of words to make that is licensed to use and publish Bliss themselves understood. It can be very Blissymbolics – an international symbols throughout the world. If a word difficult, for example, to explain to one’s language is missing in Bliss one can ask for or pro- parents that one has been to the museum Bliss is an international language in which pose a symbol and BCI will then decide and seen a mask or that the Vasa was words and concepts are represented by the matter. steered using a whipstaff. And so the pictures or ideograms rather than letters. Our own proposals for new Bliss sym- Vasa’s Bliss chart contains a combination The symbols consist of black outlined bols were produced with the help of Britt of common maritime terminology with images presented on coloured or white Amberntson who has been working with somewhat less usual phenomena. Here backgrounds denoting the word class the the language since it first arrived in Swe- is an example of how the Vasa Bliss chart ideogram belongs to. den. The Vasa Museum’s proposals were makes it easier to talk about the concept Bliss comprises a large number of shown at an international Bliss conference of a “keel”. One can point once at this symbols and grammar indicators which in Montreal, Canada, in the summer of symbol: can be used to construct complete sen- 2008 where they were approved. Exam- tences. This makes it possible to express keel ples of new words that are explained in all words and to say what one wants to the introductory materials are: whipstaff, say by combining words into sentences. mask, braiding, diving bell, and furling a Below is an example: sail. Both the introductory material and I was at a party yesterday Vasa’s Bliss chart are, of course, avail- able without charge on the Internet. Or one can point four times at these four words: Blissing visit

object, iron under/ boat/vessel/ Our ideas about Bliss production tally item beneath, ship pretty well with the actual results that below we can now see. Not so much in terms Bliss users communicate by pointing of quantity, but in quality and variation. on a communication chart. The user can We know that Bliss users have down- point with a finger, forehead-pointer or loaded material and then visited the Vasa lamp, or can use a computer with some Museum precisely because we include Then the parents may be able to other control system. The person that the Bliss as one of our languages. We have guess that one is referring to a “keel”. Bliss user is talking to does not need to noticed that if the Bliss chart is visible But if one’s parents have never heard of a know what the symbols mean but merely when we have non-Blissing visitors it whipstaff what does one point to then? reads the word above or below the sym- generates a lot of interest. bol that is pointed to. In this way the Bliss Avoiding special solutions is one of user can hear and understand what the Selection criteria and production our hobbyhorses. An example of a simple other person is saying. The new All aboard! room was soon to be means of including everyone in the same Blissymbolics was created by Charles completed and the theme of the room was learning situation is to produce different Bliss at the end of the 1940s. The system the natural starting point when we were educational materials using Bliss. For

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example, a memory game using Bliss for the method of communication that In recent years it has also become symbols on one card and a corresponding their children needed. more usual for Bliss users to learn an photo on the other card, or magnetic text “We realized quite early on that we alphabetical language too. Thanks to their signs and a Vasa soundtrack game. were on the track of something valuable. experiences with Bliss they are able to We have received a number of visits We started with the symbols for “Hi” and learn to read and write. by children that have been a combination “Bye”, “man”, “woman”, “happy”, “sad” “Most of us work to learn English. We of study visit and consultation. Children and “love”. And then we used the sym- teach them to read and to communicate.” have been able to see the All aboard! bols that Charles Bliss had published to Shirley McNaughton is sure of one thing: room for the first time and to investigate generate new ones.” “For me, Bliss is not just a language parts of it and themes that interest them. but an enriching factor in the user’s life. After that the museum educator has Like a normal language People who use Bliss have special links become more active and asked how the The first group consisted of 6-8 children with each other and with their teacher child wants to use Bliss in this specific suffering from cerebral palsy and it is chil- and others who communicate with them. context. Together we have tried placing dren with this diagnosis that are the most They are part of a community. And this symbols on or near various objects. The usual group of users. A typical user of community extends all over the world.” objects can be ones that the child recog- Blissymbolics has a low level of function- nizes and likes or items they are curious ality and has difficulty in communicating David Hulth Wallgren, journalist about and have not seen before. in other ways. The advice and ideas we gain from “For these children, Bliss acts just like such visits we can then make use of in a normal language. They can move back- meeting other groups. Children in a group wards and forwards in time. They can talk page 90 can, for example, gather by the marine- about their feelings and about things they Getting a grip on archaeology wall and choose objects and have made up. The symbols are highly the Vasa Museum tell each other about the objects. specific and not as easy to use as one By using Blissymbolics in the project might imagine.” A camera that one clicks from time to and in the museum we have added to The team at OCCC produced the first time can make it easier to remember the value of the activities. People who Bliss charts and formed the organization use Bliss see their language treated with now known as Blissymbolics Communica- and relate back to one’s visit to the respect. The Bliss chart is available in both tion International. Following the publication Vasa Museum. Images reinforce mem- Swedish and English versions and can also of an article in Time in June 1972, they ory and help one to keep “control of be understood by Bliss users from other received calls from all over the world. Swe- the situation”, thus making the context countries. By encountering Blissymbolics in den was one of the countries that showed comprehensible. a museum, visitors who do not speak Bliss an early interest in this revolutionary idea. gain a new experience from their visit. “This was an extremely intensive The book containing pictures and Bliss Within the framework of the All aboard! period. I had hardly been outside Ontario project, in 2009 a course was organized symbols can be used by all as introductory previously but I now started travelling or summing-up material. It also generates by the educational staff at the Vasa Mu- round the world to explain what we were seum together with the supervisor. Su- interest in Bliss and causes people to re- doing”, Shirley McNaughton explains. flect on the different conditions in which pervised discussions were used to shed we live our lives. We can warmly recom- light on various educational and ethical The public domain is important mend others to follow our example. issues and this resulted in a cognitively Since this beginning, Blissymbolics has accessible visiting model.2* In concrete terms this means that visitors know what Wern Palmius, advisor, The National become an internationally recognized locations and items are available, that Agency for Special Needs Education and symbolic language that is now in use in they can choose what they want to see Schools 33 countries. The system has developed and that, in due course, they can find Inger Elgestedt, educator since 1971 when it was first used with a group of children with cerebral palsy. their way to these locations and items. New symbols are constantly being added. Visitors should be able to gain an experi- In Sweden there is a secretariat that pre- ence of the location or the object and be able to document it (using a camera) in page 86 pares them for submission in accordance with a standard produced by Blissymbol- order to remember it and to talk about it The Vasa on ics Communication International. There to other people. The aim was to prepare, the Blissymbolics chart are currently some 4’500 accepted sym- to facilitate and to make the museum visit bols. One of the most recent additions comprehensible. Canadian-born Shirley McNaughton, is the All aboard! Bliss chart which was Visitors should be able to experience founder of Blissymbolics Communica- internationally approved in 2009. something new, take initiatives them- selves and choose what seems exciting tion Service, helped to develop Bliss “It feels wonderful that people use the language internationally and develop it and interesting to them. The concept was during the 1970s and development of for important ends”, Shirley McNaughton tested with the help of some ten young- this international language still contin- enthusiastically exclaims. sters attending the S:t Erik upper second- ues. Several new symbols and a mari- She thinks that it is important that ary school for individuals with learning time Bliss chart, developed as part of Blissymbolics are seen in the public do- disabilities, and six young adults who live the All aboard! project, are a welcome main as in the Vasa Museum. in a neighbouring group home. One of indication of this. “This increases respect for people the youngsters, a boy in his upper teens, using Bliss. I think that it will help people who helped to develop and test the model At the beginning of the 1970s, special- to communicate with this wonderful com- expressed the view that he would like to needs teacher Shirley McNaughton dis- munity. It is important for people with return and show the figures of the men, covered a collection of symbols in a book cerebral palsy to be able to share their show what life was like in the past when entitled Signs and Symbols Around the language and their communication since asked if he would like to take something World by Elizabeth Helfman. The symbols there are so many limiting factors in their with him to the museum and show some- had been developed by Charles Bliss dur- lives. But when it comes to Bliss symbols thing that he thought was exciting. ing the 1940s. Bliss wanted to create an they are the experts. international pictorial language based on 2* Our cognitive abilities enable us to inspiration from Chinese signs. His ambi- More people learn to read understand what things mean and to remember the things we need to remem- tion had nothing to do with people suffer- Much has happened in Blissymbolics ber. Thanks to our cognitive function we ing from functional impairments. since the first symbols were adopted in can calculate time and plan ahead. Func- Shirley McNaughton and her col- the 1970s. Technical developments have tional states that frequently influence our leagues at the Ontario Crippled Children’s brought new possibilities and children cognitive abilities include developmental Center in Canada realized that Charles with very limited functions can learn to retardation, autism, ADHD/DAMP as well Bliss’ symbols could offer a useful basis use Bliss nowadays. as physical impairments.

152 According to a salutogenic perspec- At the first meeting the young people page 96 tive – something that is a starting point were naturally rather cautious but they The computer game lets for all aspects of the All aboard! project soon got used to us and to the business – a visit should be comprehensible, man- of visiting the museum. At the third and you feel how the Vasa’s ageable and meaningful regardless of a last visit to the museum, some of them decks rolled person’s functional capacities. went directly and hung up their jackets Comprehensibility is aided by provid- and started walking round the museum In the Alla ombord! room there is a ing a clear structure and predictability, on their own. They had begun to be famil- really cool game. The idea is that you something that is all the more important iar with the museum premises. should feel as though you are on the for people with cognitive difficulties. Ac- Both the environment and the social warship Vasa. You can steer the game cess to sufficient time is decisive, both situation had become familiar to those with a joystick. with a view to meeting on a number of taking part. This ensured that the situation occasions but also in order to have ad- was manageable and comprehensible In the All aboard! room there is a really equate time at each meeting. and meant that they could concentrate on cool computer game. You can stand on The youngsters at the S:t Erik upper new experiences. the upper deck and steer the ship with a secondary school and their teacher filmed joystick and if you look down you can see at the school and during their visits to the Ann-Marie Stenhammar a giant screen with water and a small ship museums. The edited film was an excel- Supervisor collaborating with sailing on it. If you steer to the left the lent aid in returning to and remembering the museum educators ship slowly moves in that direction, and what had happened during the most the same to the right. recent visit. In the game one can steer towards After their first meeting with the edu- the smoke that one can see ahead. Some- cators at the Vasa Museum there were page 94 times you can’t see the smoke but after various different subjects that they wanted a while it turns up. The idea is that you to discus: Being able to steer the warship Vasa oneself should feel as though you are on board a ­– We drank beer from a large tankard. real ship and are steering it. If you are on ­– There was clothing made from a grey is brilliant the lower deck and not steering you can fabric. stand on a board and feel how the ship is ­– They (the educators at the museum) I got the idea from sailing in the Stock- tossed by the waves, just as the Vasa was. were nice and we laughed a lot. holm archipelago in my grandparents’ I have become good at guiding during Most of the youngsters had talked boat. my time at the Vasa Museum. I have led about the Vasa Museum with other peo- two real “guidings”, for my own class and I had not visited the Vasa museum at all ple they meet and they had mentioned for two other classes. But I may guide before I joined the expert committee. But the ship, the tankard and the cannons. the younger pupils in my school in a third now I am very pleased that I have learnt When, at a later time, they were asked to guiding; and I am going to guide all my so much about the Vasa. sum up what had been most fun one of relations. the group claimed that most fun had been When we first arrived the room was painted red and everything was different eating dried fish while another thought Tiemon Okojevoh, aged 12 that it was distressing when the floor from what it is today. moved up and down and it was dark in We were asked to think up our own the space below deck. ideas of what should be included in the room. My idea was that one should be A visit involves many meetings able to steer the boat and so they created page 98 During an intensive period together, the a computer game in which one can do What is a person? six young adults and the museum educa- just that. It is great fun and I am please tors developed a model for visits to the with the result. I have been able to steer Why visit a museum? If one were to ask Vasa Museum based on the group meet- my grandparents’ boat on trips in the ar- that question at the entrance to a museum ing prior to, during and after the visit. chipelago. I like sailing south! I would expect the word interesting to Their visits were divided up into a I also wanted tables in the room turn up among the answers. Interest number of occasions: three meetings and where one could sit and work. They are comes from the Latin inter esse meaning the museum and four meetings at the very important. being between. This means that there is group home. During their meetings with It feels good to have been involved a meaningful relation between me and a museum educator prior to visiting the in the project. Everything was fun. What what I am standing in front of or am about museum they got to know each other and was less good is that it was cold in the to enter. If I fail to find any meaning there they practised documenting things using museum. I shall probably leave the museum and, a digital camera. By enabling the young I especially like working with the perhaps, never come back. The place people themselves to choose a situation microscope which can be linked to a cam- seems uninteresting and it fails to con- or an object, photography provides a com- era. I have taken lots of pictures with this nect with my world and me. prehensible context and support for the apparatus including images of a square If interest and a sense of meaning memory. Photographs are a useful aid coin or klipping which was used at the are to be established between people when one wants to return to an event after time the Vasa sank, and of a pewter dish and something specific this “something” the visit and to tell someone else about a found on the seabed beside the ship. I needs to be accessible. The second part favourite location or object. like doing photography and I have put the of the word interest can be interpreted “We tried dressing up. The museum photographs up on the walls of my room as going; as in to go or something worth educators brought various things with at home. The camera ought to be readily going to or having something that one them and that was fun”, Christian Åström available at all times. can move with or unlimited possibilities explains when reporting on the museum I also like investigating the openings of movement. That the room, society, the educators’ first visit to the group home. in the wall with my hands and feeling my world are all accessible means greater He has chosen to show a picture of a man way through the sand to discover items freedom to move as one wants. Acces- diving into the water and this is some- that are hidden there. sibility is an asset that means that I can thing that he would like to see again dur- I have also visited the museum with experience freedom of movement. ing his next visit to the Vasa Museum. my class and acted as their guide. That It is a fine term: freedom of move- “I showed them my photographs when was fun. ment. The term relates not to external I got to work”, Christian Åström continues. Another museum that I like a lot is the physical movement or function but to The photographs were also highly Stockholm Music Museum where you can an inner experience and feeling. Like a important for one of the participants who try out different instruments. That’s fun. rhythmical mental dance. It can be de- does not have verbal language. With the scribed thus when meaning arises; that help of the photographs and body lan- Julia Snees, aged 12 it swings between me and the context guage she was able to show other people that I am part of. Between the room and what she liked best. me. Between what is in me and what is

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exterior to me. Between me and you and between them; like enclosed and inacces- since a person is never entirely defined by the world. sible preserves. functions or legal rights. To recognize and That this swinging sensation turns up Human reality often defies these see someone as a person brings with it sufficiently often is essential if life is to neat categorizations. It is all too easy to responsibility for helping to try to develop seem interesting and meaningful and com- lose one’s way. In practice this means and contribute to the person’s potential pletely irreplaceable for developing and that one loses one’s context and with it sense of freedom of movement. There is using our abilities to evaluate, understand one’s sense of freedom of movement. a responsibility to contribute to a person’s ourselves, plan our lives and make choices. Instead one is left with a succession of ability to evaluate her or his surroundings, I can give an example from All contexts that it is difficult, if not impossi- to understand herself, plan and make aboard!, the educational room at the Vasa ble, to unite into a meaningful whole. choices. To help to ensure that it swings Museum that has been created with great It is even difficult to find a single com- and that life becomes interesting! care, expertise, understanding of human mon and practical word or expression that behaviour, experience and imagination. would bind together all these categories Göran Odbratt, author and journalist In the All aboard! room, all children are into a single whole in a meaningful man- invited to steer the ship, try dressing up, ner. Every child is, for example a pow- study marine archaeology, subject them- erfully motivating expression that can selves to the chaos of the storm or retire sometimes exceed all the different terms page 100 to the welcoming resting place in the defining categories. But what do we call corner. There is also a diving bell to take all the people who have left childhood Background to the Vipers you from one deck to another, rather than behind them; and perhaps the diving bell an elevator for handicapped users. This too? How do we exceed the particular A diving bell for a drip stand, figure is the sort of detail that says a great deal aspect and reach what it is that binds us heads for hospital beds that one can about a more profound way of reflecting together. How do we continue to empha- make oneself, and syringes that turn on the matter of accessibility than “pure” size what we have in common rather than into cannons; a museum can also be functionality. what divides us, like rather than unlike? Is an active part of a rehabilitation pro- If we see accessibility solely in terms there some effective term? gramme for children and youngsters. of freedom from obstacles and depend- During the 1990s the concept of an ence on others then we risk missing the individual took the language by storm. Working with accessibility and children’s aspect of freedom to develop our innate The “individual at the centre” and the rights can lead to a variety of dynamic capacities together with other children. It “focus on the individual” became slogans effects. With increased accessibility and would have sufficed with an elevator for that were mainly contrasted with collec- new collaborators a museum’s normal the disabled rather than a diving bell for tive solutions, with large, grey apartment operations can be upgraded and enter all. This example shows a way of thinking, houses or office blocks and anonymous an entirely new context. This can be a way of looking at children and adults, bodies and limited categories. On the achieved without costly investments and of valuing participation and it points to one hand the meaning of seeing to the can lead to mutual benefits and additional serious differences between aims and individual but, on the other hand, who skills for the organizations and their staffs methods. A diving bell rather than an has actually seen a living individual in the that are involved in the project. elevator for persons with handicaps is an real world? I do not believe, for example, An important development, using the illustration of an approach that thinks in that nursing staff or people in the welfare device “From hospital bed to museum”, terms of functional opportunities rather services claim that there is an individual in has been the production of the Vipers* than functional obstacles. This is an im- the waiting room (unless something very filled with accessible educational materi- portant distinction that Carina Ostenfeldt, untoward is happening!). als, that are stationed at the Astrid Lind- who initiated and has run the project, has An individual is an incorporeal being gren Children’s Hospital at the Karolinska drawn my attention to. who is incapable of sustaining relations University Hospital at its two locations in The All aboard! room has not been and who cannot answer. The contours Stockholm. We collaborate with the rehab designed for “doing specific things with of the individual are drawn more by lan- team at the children’s hospital, stimulating particular people with particular needs”. guage, by law books, documents and and challenging children and youngsters It has been designed to promote freedom political programmes than by a context to undertake the various activities that a of movement, participation and a sense of of concrete reality. rehabilitation process entails. The individual is incapable of swing- community for and between all children; In the All aboard! room at the Vasa children with different ways of being, ing! And so it is fairly easy to bind an indi- Museum various training possibilities have similar and dissimilar, but much more vidual to legal rights, though things will be been built into the room and included in like than unlike. The sense of community more difficult as regards human relation- the educational materials, Children can, in the context of this project predicates ships and living contexts. One speaks of for example, work with various types of the possibility of a “we”, a we that is ac- or about individuals but not with them. hand training, strength, balance, upper- cessible. And freedom from functional When the term individual is used to indi- body stability, moving between wheel- impediments is a natural result of this cate freedom from obstacles and depend- chair and other furniture and other training cross-sector thinking. ence our way of thinking should anticipate activities while also taking part in an educa- The philosophy underlying the All freedom to enjoy a sense of community tional programme. and relations with other people, because aboard! project tells us something about * The units are called Vipers because the greater room which comprises every- otherwise the individual is merely alone, this was the name of the small boats that one. In society at large many “particular separated and impossible to have a mu- accompanied the warship Vasa. things for particular people with particular tual relationship with. Everyone can demand their rights and needs” are decided. A person can also be Carina Ostenfeldt, Project Manager freedom from obstacles but this does not “particular” in a variety of different ways. responsible for the concept A person may be physically impaired, ensure that a sense of community and a patient, a client, a pupil, the person comprehensible contexts will develop and insured, a user, an applicant, a tenant, be sustained. If this is to happen, then it is a guest, an immigrant and so on. These essential that other people (including pro- page 102 particular categories mean that the focus fessionals) recognize each and everyone’s is on limited characteristics and qualities. right to seek freely to develop her or his “The Vipers dupe children These categories often form the basis potential capacities and functionalities. into training various func- of contracts and legal rights which, to an It is, of course, not enough to rec- tions” increasing degree, are entered into jointly ognize other people’s rights; there are already affirmations of these. Nor can by the individual person and society. The Wanting to train but not being in the categories can become a succession recognition be limited to trying to develop of particular rooms with different and people’s functions, since people are not mood. Many children struggle with a limited or more or less specialized tasks, machines. What is needed is that the lack of motivation for training, even rules, legal injunctions, ways of thinking, individual – the patient, client, visitor, et children who really want to train in and languages, often without clear links al. – should also be affirmed as a person order to function better. And so rehab

154 training using the Vipers is beneficial apy need to involve a hospital play thera- It is as though play is both a source of in that children are “fooled” into train- pist or other suitably trained person who life and of survival and an opportunity to ing various functions even when they keeps a professional eye on the activities reflect on and comprehend what is funda- are not really in the mood, Senior Phy- which can otherwise merely be a game. mentally incomprehensible. Throughout Rehabilitation from acquired brain our entire lives play can be active in our sician Bo Ericsson of the Astrid Lind- damage is a matter of re-opening doors minds and can help us to achieve a sense gren Children’s Hospital explains. that have been damaged. This involves of balance that may be lacking. helping the patient to access the inbuilt The child is driven by an inner devel- Patients in the Department of Paediatric computer in the brain which has already opmental source. In its perceptions the Radiology at the Astrid Lindgren Children’s stored information about walking, speak- child finds images of the future, and an Hospital where Bo Ericsson works include ing, reading, writing, counting, eating with imagination that knows no limits can of- children who have suffered brain injuries a knife and fork, building models with ten be a direct source of energy. A medi- from accidents with bicycles or mopeds, Lego, cycling, jumping. And if children can cal doctor who worked in famine-struck infections or, simply, a blow to the head. play in rehabilitation, opening these doors Congo told me recently about a relief But most of the brain damage results from again will be less complicated, Bo Erics- consignment of food that failed to reach car accidents or cerebral tumours. son observes. its destination in time. The situation was Children and young adults come to “Children maintain high ambitions desperate. He had taken with him some the hospital for both consultations with about re-opening the doors. They want to toys, dolls, crayons and paper. This was the medical staff and to train the func- get their skills back and to be able to live all that he had to offer the exhausted and tions that are partially or wholly impaired. as they used to. But trying to do this in hungry children. When he presented the They spend a lot of time at hospital play rehab can sometimes generate blockages children with these items he was aston- therapy on the floor below the clinic. and the children can feel stressed by the ished to see them starting to play. In his Twenty years ago, at its inception, hos- therapy.” view, the children survived because they pital play therapy was mostly concerned Although it may be easier for adults were able to play and nourish themselves with giving young patients something to feel motivated Bo Ericsson thinks that with the play materials. enjoyable to do during their stay in hospi- something on the lines of the Vipers, Hospital play therapy is a legally pro- tal, taking their minds off their illness for though with more adult aims, could be tected right for children and youngsters in a little while. Today hospital play therapy very effective in rehab training. Swedish hospitals.3* If one suffers from is an integral aspect of rehabilitation to- “There is a group of young adults – 18 an accident or illness and needs hospital gether with other forms of training with to 25 – who have been involved in acci- treatment one becomes vulnerable and the speech therapist and physiotherapist, dents and who have received inadequate dependent. One may have difficulty in for example. rehab training. The most usual type of understanding what has happened and The Vipers are a new addition to such patients has had an accident on a one’s need for a sense of being in control hospital play therapy and Dr. Ericsson is moped or a horse and received relatively and secure can suddenly become very ev- very pleased with them. “I should like modest injuries which, nevertheless, have ident when it is no longer apparent. When to schedule the use of the Vipers, just led to some form of cognitive difficulty the hospital staff inform the patient and as with all other training in the rehab which is generally termed a ‘hidden handi- talk about her or his situation, when they process”, he proposes. “We also need cap’. This can involve amnesia, difficulty prepare the patient for treatment and an- a scientific evaluation based on a group in planning ahead, behavioural problems swer questions, this helps to re-establish of five to ten selected children who train and difficulties with impulse control. the sense of security and of participating with the Vipers so that we can learn what These patients can be difficult to rehabili- in life that is so essential to us. Being able results one can achieve with them. This tate in a ‘voluntary’ manner.” to comprehend our situation is a human would also enable us to reach out to other Dr. Ericsson is just about to retire after necessity regardless of our age or of our doctors and patients all over the country 35 years of working with neurological pa- cognitive, emotional or physical states. so that they can work and train in accord- tients. During his professional life he has Being able, in some degree, to com- ance with this concept.” seen a striking development in his field prehend, to see meaningfulness and to Bo Ericsson was an early collabora- from a time when young, seriously injured manage a situation is essential to every- tor in the All aboard! project of which the boys who had been involved in moped one at all times. Age, functionality, ma- Vipers are part. “At the Vasa Museum accidents were permanently committed turity, reference framework, cultural and they have invented an alternative form of to nursing homes to today’s rehabilitation social opportunities are some of the pa- rehabilitation which differs from the tradi- which achieves very gratifying results. Us- rameters that we have to pay attention to tional rehab that takes place in a hospital ing current treatments and training meth- in the meeting. At the children’s hospital or clinic. This is something that I welcome ods, many patients can partially or wholly it is the hospital play therapists who have and I think that this is an example that return to their “old” lives; or at least have a special competence in this regard. The should be followed by others”, Bo Erics- much greater possibilities in their lives hospital play therapist at the hospital com- son explains. than was the case in earlier times. bines basic teaching competence with The idea of the All aboard! room and “It is inspiring to witness young lads expertise in the field of special needs the Vipers is an extraordinarily valuable coming here in a seriously injured condi- together with an extensive knowledge of complement to rehab as well as a devel- tion, having lost the power of speech different medical conditions, testing rou- opment of hospital play therapy in the and much else besides but who, after tines, treatments, physical examinations view of Bo Ericsson. Many of his young a great deal of training, end up more or and so on. This means that the hospital patients are really motivated to train and less as they were prior to the accident”, play therapist has a contribution to make to claim back the lives that they had Bo Ericsson explains to me with a radiant at many stages of a patient’s contacts before their illness or accident but find it expression. with the health service. difficult to really devote themselves to the Some children show a particular fear necessary training which involves endless Inga-Lill Hagberg Desbois, of what is going to happen at the doctor’s. repetition of certain movements. This can journalist and editor They may be frightened of jabs, anxious be very dull and demanding. about the hospital environment in general “When they work with the contents or about other concrete matters. In such of the Vipers there is a natural process cases it is usual for the hospital play ther- in which one is not aware of doing rehab page 104 apist to help in the preparations so that training. The training is done subcon- the child, at its own pace, can acquaint sciously in a variety of areas including The child’s right itself (comprehend – embrace mean- cognitive, audiotive, visual, gross and fine to healing play ing – manage) with the process. In most motor skills. The Vipers stimulate the sens- cases this leads to the child daring to es and this is something that is difficult The last thing that children lose is the to achieve in an ordinary training scheme. desire to play. Not even seriously trau- 3* This right is established in two laws And, at the same time, the patients relax. matized children in the shadow of war pertaining to health care and education: Bo Ericsson notes that the Vipers, just and disaster can refrain from playing. Hälso- och sjukvårdslagen 1982:763 19§ like any other aspect of hospital play ther- Skollagen 2a kap 4§ and 2b kap 4§.

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cooperate so that the medical procedures being addressed as capable collaborators, Most children who show an interest in can be carried out as planned. On some regardless of their functionality. Children the Vipers are in the typical discovery age occasions, such as an acute situation, it is always have the most important knowl- between six and nine. Generally they get not possible to prepare the child. In such edge about their own development. The down on the floor and start by taking out cases the hospital play therapist can help fact that, as an adult, one can help them the cannons. to ameliorate the child’s situation by di- to verbalize a process does not make it “The cannons are very visible and verting its attention. Something as simple any less true that it is the child who holds they arouse curiosity. One can take them as blowing soap bubbles can suffice to the key to its own development. The very out of the ship and load them with paper enable a small child to forget its anxiety word development posits that there is an balls. Playing with the cannons is very for the brief time needed to take a suc- innate potential that can be realized. And popular”, Ann Jacobson explains. cessful blood sample, though there are the child is always primarily prepared to One of the cannons can be fired with more spectacular possibilities too! Many cooperate with its surroundings. The child the help of a syringe. For children who nurses and doctors speak enthusiastically has the skills, the desire to collaborate and have been frightened of jabs it can be of what a skilful hospital play therapist the potential for development. The task helpful to play with syringes in this way. can contribute in such a situation. of the adults is to use their resources to Firing this cannon also has a built-in rehab A third situation is that of the child give the child space in which to grow. This aspect in that one has to use muscles and that needs help to come to terms with is an image of collaboration and genuine fine motor ability in one’s fingers to be alarming experiences in the hospital. Here creativity that has been an inspiration to able to release the shot. the hospital play therapist can let the child our work in the hospital situation. Ann Jacobson is one of the people work through what happened time and The second step was to transform who thought up the idea of the Vipers time again. Often this will take the form the intentions that the room at the Vasa and she appreciates the cleverly arranged of letting a doll or a dinosaur undergo Museum manifests into a mobile, educa- training aspects. Though that is some- the treatment that the child experienced tional tool that can be used wherever the thing that is primarily the province of the itself. In play, in conversation and in re- child happens to be. In our case the child physiotherapist. flection – on the child’s terms – what took is in the hospital. The Vipers have docked “It is true that part of the hospital play place can become a calm and secure expe- at the Astrid Lindgren Children’s Hospital therapist’s work is to prepare children rience which gives the child the energy to in Stockholm. We have now entered a mentally for various treatments or to work move on in life. trial phase to determine how best to use through alarming experiences in the hos- Children in hospitals do not, in the these treasure chests. The staff are being pital. But here in hospital play therapy’s first instance, play with other children. I offered inspirational day-long courses and drop-in activities the children have a zone often see children engrossed in their own the patients are coming to terms with the free of medical treatments. We do not talk play along side other patients. The drop-in Vipers step by step. The material of the about training here and the children that playroom at the hospital is an oasis where Vipers has been beautifully produced and attend are free to do precisely what they children are free from treatments, exami- is of the highest quality both from a mate- choose. The Viper offers children a period nations or having blood samples taken. rial and an aesthetic viewpoint. It gives of enjoyable play and delight in discovery. One afternoon when hospital play therapy rise to enthusiasm, curiosity and delight. This is healing in a different way”, Ann was closed for the day someone persis- As regards the Astrid Lindgren Children’s Jacobson maintains. tently knocked on the door. I was alone Hospital the All aboard! project has given The symbolism of the Vasa is central on the premises. All the other hospital an opportunity to clarify, visualize and to the aims of hospital play therapy. The play therapists had gone home. When articulate much of the practical, and often ship itself is an example of a successful I opened the door I came face to face hidden, skills that hospital play therapy rehabilitation. The materials also provide with a nurse accompanying an angry and represents. inspiration for stories that can strengthen tearful little six-year-old boy. “I know that Hospital play therapy while in hospital children. you are closed but he has to come in for is a right. A right is the other facet of an “In the Viper there is a box of plaster a while”. Accompanied by his little sister obligation. We regard it as an obligation moulds for making figures from the Vasa. and his mother he entered the room. He never to be content with what we “know” Initially we did not understand the point showed me his elegant superman plaster and “can do”. Children develop, the role of them and so we have not used them. dressing from having just given a range of the hospital changes, rehabilitation and But I have now attended a half-day course of blood samples. And he started to play. health care break new ground. As educa- and I now realize what a treasure trove For twenty intensive minutes he played tors and special-needs educators we they represent. Each of the figures has a with the things he liked best in the room. have a particular responsibility for ensur- fantastic symbolic value. They speak of, After that he was done and he was ready ing that a child perspective is maintained potency, courage and strength. And who to buy an ice-cream and go home. But in the treatment of young persons in hos- needs these qualities more than sick chil- playing was absolutely essential to him as pitals. The mutual process of knowledge dren?”, Ann Jacobson says. a source of strength and recovery after a and development that the various con- Ann Jacobson is looking forward to painful hospital experience. tributors to the project have been involved getting to know every aspect of the mate- Even what is most difficult can be- in is an excellent future format for how rial but she emphasizes that this will take come comprehensible, meaningful and one can develop a “real” child perspective time. manageable. There are numerous exam- in collaboration with various experts and “The Viper requires knowledge and, at ples of how children have coped with operations in society. Ask the children”! present, I am busy communicating what desperately difficult situations and been I have learnt to my colleagues. It has also able to move on. The hospital play thera- Kent Holmström, Head of the Hospital been clear that children need an educator pist can be a useful guide and counsellor play therapy Unit at the Astrid Lindgren who can help them in their investigations to both parents and nursing staff. Many Children’s Hospital of the material. Accordingly, we are going nurses and doctors make use of hospital to change our schedule so that there is a play therapists as instructors and for hospital play therapist in attendance for teaching assignments. Besides medical the Viper at all times.” knowledge, working with children in hos- page 108 One pleasant task in the future will be pital also requires specialized, educational taking materials from the Viper to children competence. Encouraging joy in healing who are too ill to attend hospital play When work on the All aboard! project therapy. got under way it was natural that the Hospital play therapy should promote “There is a diver who can use a diving Karolinska University Hospital should ac- enjoyment, development and learning. bell attached to an intravenous drip sup- cept an invitation to take part. And it was The Viper contains materials that make port. And one can play at being a marine natural that hospital play therapy should this possible, hospital play therapist archaeologist if a hospital play therapist represent the hospital in the project. Ann Jacobson of the Astrid Lindgren lies down under a hospital bed and sends In working on the development of Children’s Hospital in Stockholm finds up from the seabed”, Ann Jacobson the design for the educational room at explains with a sparkle in her eye. the Vasa Museum there was a growing explains. Ann Jacobson encourages families insight of the importance to children of where the child is well enough to leave

156 their hospital bed to visit the Vasa Mu- very much at home in hospital play ther- between theoretical and practical applica- seum and the All aboard! room there. She apy after a succession of operations. He tions which involve experiments in the finds it a profound experience to visit the has always been interested in the Vasa real world in rehabilitation, care of the Vasa after working with the Viper. and immediately picks out the cannons elderly and with schoolchildren, looking “One moves from a small model to and starts shooting paper balls across the into how one can improve their daily lives the enormous ship and one recognizes floor. He soon notices the work with mak- by adding various experiences of the arts. much of the detail form the Viper. When ing coins at the next table and immedi- “Sometimes I am introduced in the I last visited the museum there were sev- ately wants to try his hand at it. Ann helps following terms: Now Gunnar Bjursell is eral fantastic “reunions”. It was as though him with the hammer. going to talk about the ‘soft’ questions. I could say ‘Hi, lion, I was playing with “Now we shall see. I need to hit it But then I insistently point out that these you today’.” really hard with the hammer”, Mathias are the ‘hard’ questions.” proclaims, giving it a hefty bash. Scientists today know a good deal Annika Wallin, journalist The coin is marked with a lion and about how the brain works and that cul- initials. After that the metal has to be tural activities extend people’s life-span. clipped and the edges have to be filed. Most of our brain cells are already in place “Robin likes making things with his when we are born but recent research page 110 hands, but there are mostly girls in that has shown that new cells can be added, corner of the playroom”, his mother ex- though this requires the brain to be exer- The Vipers in use. From plains. She watches his work on the coin cised. bed to museum. with great interest. This sort of craft activ- “The brain needs stress. Just as mus- ity interests boys too. cle cells are stressed when we exercise, Robin Jacobsson finds a thimble in Robin spends a long time filing the so we can stress brain cells, giving them the Viper. This marks the beginning edges of his coin until they are really multimodal stimulation by making music, of several finds from the wreck, coin smooth. Mathias is content with his own doing crosswords and running. These minting and dressing up. He inves- coin almost immediately. reinforce each other and they stimulate us “It feels good to have made a coin in different ways. We do not yet under- tigates the material together with myself”, he explains, turning his attention stand these mechanisms but the effect Mathias Mellstrand Sajnovic, who is to the microscope in the Viper. This is is known as transfer; the cognitive ability almost the same age, and play-thera- connected to a computer screen and the develops better when one does different pist Ann Jacobson. idea is that one should be able to study things”, Gunnar Bjursell explains. finds from the wreck in detail. Though, if The functions of the brain are compli- Robin is nine years old and is being one prefers, one can look at one’s own cated and different processes take place treated for leukaemia. He has just had a ear or inspect one’s scalp. This is just as in the brain depending on what we are blood sample taken from his finger. Now exciting. doing at the moment and what we are he is looking at finds from the wreck of “I can see that my hair is a bit experiencing. Speaking and singing, for the Vasa. sweaty”, Mathias enthusiastically ex- example, activate different parts of the “Why did they have one of these?” claims. brain, the speech centre and the music He means the thimble. Ann, the The Mathias plays a game of Memory centre respectively. Music has differ- hospital play therapist, explains that the and they try out the clothes that the ship’s ent qualities and one can measure the crew took their sewing things with them boys used to wear. reactions in the brain and interpret what to make or repair clothes on the trip to “They are rough and prickly”, Robin one observes. For example, if music in a Poland. notes. film makes you feel frightened there is a “But they did not get very far”, Robin Ann explains that the clothes are certain specific reaction; other types of adds. made of homespun just like in the Vasa’s music can increase the dopamine level He already knows a lot about the Vasa day. while yet another type may stimulate the because he has played with the Viper sev- After a while it is time for Robin to go opiate receptors. When we co0me upon a eral times and has heard the lion (with an home and Mathias has an appointment partner, music can play an important role. MP3 player) telling the story of the Vasa. with another hospital play therapist. They A work by Mozart may give us a sense of “I was tired at the time. It was nice to have to stop playing. But next time they spirituality, while other music may numb just sit and listen”, he explains. come to hospital play therapy’s drop-in our feelings or reduce pain – as with mu- How far did the Vasa actually get? activities they want to play with the Viper. sic at the dentist’s. Ann gets out the relief map showing how “I want to make some more money”, The sensory experiences that activate the ship left Stockholm. The wind got up. Robin explains. the brain most are cultural experiences, Robin recalls that all the cannons rolled “And I want to build a dock of Lego Gunnar Bjursell maintains. Quite simply, over to one side. bricks round the ship”, Mathias an- the brain becomes better at thinking if it “Yes, blub, blub, blub. The ship cap- nounces. is stimulated, activated and challenged. sized and everything went to the bottom Gunnar Bjursell has been talking about the of the sea”, says Ann. Annika Wallin, journalist positive effect of culture on public health This leads on to a chat about divers for a long period of time but it is only now, and salvaging the wreck. Robin can try his when quantifiable results supporting his hand at being a marine archaeologist for views are available in scientific reports, a moment. He works in a sandbox which page 112 that people are beginning to take serious is covered with a cloth that has two notice. “The development has been like openings in it. Robin pushes both hands A mix of culture – hard a popular political movement in Sweden through the openings and immediately core for the brain and I have travelled and talked about cul- senses some strange object. ture and health in Norway and Finland too. “What is it?”, he asks. It is a vertebra Learning to read and write is good but Formerly the arts were regarded as some- from someone’s backbone. Robin has had playing a musical instrument, looking thing that was really only the province numerous lumbar punctures. Ann shows at a painting or visiting a museum is of a cultural elite, but cultural manifesta- him where on the bone the spinal fluid tions are important to everyone”, Gunnar just as important for the brain’s devel- would have been. Bjursell explains. His Culture and Health Robin makes several other discoveries opment. And in the physician’s new project now receives support both from before finding a square coin that arouses toolbox there are prescriptions for cul- the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of his interest. Ann asks him if he would like tural experiences. Culture. to mint a coin himself. There are materials Many researchers are now interested for making coins in the Viper. Gunnar Bjursell is professor of molecular in the connection between health, well- “I’d like to do that today”, Robin ex- biology and head of the Centre for Culture being and the arts both in preventive claims with enthusiasm. and Health at Gothenburg University. and in therapeutic situations. Increasing At this moment Mathias turns up. He The Centre is a cross-sector research numbers of studies are showing a link will soon be eleven and, like Robin, he is organization investigating the connection between culture and health and in brain

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research several processes have been brains are also busy with other matters.” us anxious and being able to reduce our identified that can lead to brain damage Gunnar Bjursell considers that every stress level mentally and physically is an being repaired. child should learn a musical instrument important part of the healing process. Be- Experiences of the arts are also con- and should sing a little everyday. “Any ing able to devote ourselves to something sidered to be part of the healing process. pop song will do because it is a question that we enjoy and that catches our inter- Experiments have shown that it has been of doing something one likes doing one- est makes it easier to find motivation for possible to reduce medication when pa- self and that one regards as fun. In some carrying on. tients have been able to listen to music. schools the younger children are taught Asked whether there is any particular The results showed that this was not just English with the frequent use of pop group that needs cultural experiences a matter of psychological effects but also songs in that they give a direct stimulus more than others Gunnar Bjursell answers of biological ones. When we listen to and are perceived by the children as en- with a smile: “No, but one can argue that music that we like, dopamine – the brain’s joyable as well as arousing curiosity about the people born in the 1940s do not need reward system – is released as well as what the song is about and what the to devote more time to the arts. My focus feel-good oxytocin that reduces pain and words mean. Singing pop songs becomes is on how we treat children. Not a single that this promotes healing of wounds a good way of learning a language.” 12-year-old should leave school without and injuries, and lowers blood pressure And it is precisely the fun element that being able to play an instrument, sing, at the same time that the level of stress- is one of the components in the All aboard! have taken part in gymnastics or unable hormone cortisol is also reduced. project that attracts Gunnar Bjursell’s sup- to read and write. The second important At clinics in several parts of Sweden, port: “Fun and meaningful are terms that group comprises people who work in cultural events are now being prescribed are increasingly important in society. If the health-care services and in factories by doctors in treating depressions and activities are really to be fun, then they where it is important for people to be able suchlike conditions. Certain illnesses have also to seem meaningful because to relax and to charge their batteries, for can also be ameliorated by taking active otherwise one has no reason to repeat example with a lunchtime concert at their part in cultural events; gymnastics for them. The brain benefits from being sub- workplace. The third group consists of the brain leading to a healthier life. And jected to different types of environment elderly people who need to be stimulated research in Helsinki, where there is one of and the All aboard! room is rich in offering to take part in dramatic performances, the world’s leading centres for the study different environments.” to sing in a choir or to listen to someone of the influence of the arts on the qual- Gunnar Bjursell stresses that another reading a book.” ity of life, has shown positive effects for important component of the project is Gunnar Bjursell is, himself, a passion- stroke patients when they have been accessibility: “That one alters one’s per- ate consumer of the arts and he devotes a able to listen to music. spective and makes it possible for every- lot of time to different cultural manifesta- Asked whether it has been easy to one to take part. This is an inclusive way tions. “I travel a great deal and I always convince doctors of the importance of the of removing the clinical aspect so that try to attend a concert at the place I am arts to health Gunnar Bjursell exclaims: both children with and without functional visiting. Otherwise I like to listen to Bob “No! It has not. But doctors need to be impairments can take part on an equal Dylan, Michael Jackson and Puccini. I also encouraged to work with preventive footing.” play the guitar and piano a bit myself and medicine. Just consider what has been Asked whether some arts activities all my family make music. achieved in preventing tooth decay, for are better than others Gunnar Bjursell example. We inherit risks for health replies: “No, it is the mixture that is im- Inga-Lill Hagberg Desbois issues biologically, but the most wide- portant, everything from popular culture journalist and editor spread serious conditions like cancer, to Aristotle. Of course one should try diabetes and obesity are also affected by to give children the keys to rather more our life-styles. And since we now know advanced literature with more complex that we can help to prevent these and language, perhaps in beautiful episodes. page 116 other conditions by making use of the This stimulates and gives all-round train- arts, we have an obligation to make use of ing and, sooner or later, the child will find Life skills as a way to this knowledge. There are people who try her or his favourite artist or author”. growth The return and tease me by asking whether patients He proposes culture coaches, for of philosophy are expected to weave or listen to music both children and adults, knowledgeable on prescription, but the fact is that those people who can help one to interpret and When life radically changes following yellow ordinations from the doctor act as understand a painting, for example, some- serious injury to the body from an a motivation”, Gunnar Bjursell explains. thing that gives one a deeper understand- accident this is often difficult for the In Helsingborg, doctors write pre- ing and a richer cultural experience. “Carlo person concerned to deal with. But, scriptions both for singing in a choir and Derkert provides a model for this. He was visiting the Sofiero palace gardens. And a brilliant educator at the two national art according to Professor Richard Levi, research in Scotland has shown that well- museums, the Nationalmuseum in Stock- it also presents an opportunity for educated consumers of the arts have a holm and Moderna Museet. He could the person to mature and develop. life expectancy that is 15 years longer place himself on a chair and ask a group In the field of rehabilitation medicine, than that of poorly educated people who of ten-year-olds ‘what do you see?’ This a philosophical approach can help in never take part in any cultural events. always led to an interesting exchange and seeking a new meaning in life and can “It is important for there to be dopa- he showed the youngsters how to look provide a re-orientating dimension. In mine rushes in the brain; it has to keep at works of art in a more rewarding way”, in training. And if we want to reduce ill Gunnar Bjursell explains. order to give patients existential guid- health then the arts need to be part of The arts are an integrative force which ance, nursing staff have been trained the school syllabus. A good school day most people all over the world can relate in philosophical dialogue in a project should have a rhythm to it with the three to. Music, film, books and dance are uni- entitled Livskompetens [Life skills]. components of learning, making music versal means of expression. “We humans and physical activity on the syllabus”, ac- live with anxiety and apprehension”, I often A taxi driver comes into the entrance hall cording to Gunnar Bjursell. point out to people. “We fret about what of Södersjukhuset – one of Stockholm’s “It is right that there is great emphasis people will say about us and whether we leading hospitals – and finds a woman on on being able to read and write but these have said something that may be miscon- crutches waiting just inside the doors. are ‘technical’ skills. They are not like the strued and we worry about tomorrow. But She hands the driver one of the crutches content of a book or like listening to music listening to a good concert or looking at a and takes hold of his arm and, a little which trains the brain and develops our beautiful painting can mean that we stop unsteadily, they make their way through personalities. And this should preferably thinking about our situation for an hour or the doors. Where is she going? Presum- be a habit that we establish early in life, so and instead experience feelings of de- ably back within the horizons of her own prior to adolescence, before children have light and of having enjoyed something.” world. But, depending on the extent of developed prejudices about how they “I can feel more alive after listening to her injury she may not be returning to the should relate to different manifestations of a good concert than after a night’s sleep.” same life-world, exactly the same circum- the arts. When children reach puberty their Forgetting for a moment what makes stances as formerly. Life-world (from the

158 German Lebenswelt) can be regarded as life and death by a serious injury – and I Richard Levi and I are soon to part, the intimate world of a person’s experi- say this somewhat cautiously because it he to join the stream of people penetrat- ence; a world that seems self-evident and can be misunderstood – discover a richer ing further into the hospital and me to totally natural – until something happens. life that they value more highly than they join the flow out through the doors. That Now something has happened. There did before the accident. When one’s exist- is what we generally do. Without much is a before and an after to a decisive event ence breaks down there are opportunities reflection we follow streams of people, in life that can influence the rest of the for growth and development. Many of us given patterns and well-used paths as far person’s existence and that may move the can live a whole life before we become as we can. But if and when something in woman’s horizons in several different di- aware of the fragility of existence. Much of the contextual narrative falls apart and we rections. It is about this shifting of horizons life has run so smoothly that it is only now no longer have an obvious answer to the and how it is dealt with in rehabilitation that one is suddenly faced by the question: questions of who, where, whither, then that I intend to speak to neurologist Rich- “What is important?” In the context of a we are obliged to re-orientate ourselves, ard Levi in the café at the Södersjukhuset serious injury this is a very adequate reac- because we cannot live without a sense in Stockholm. tion and so rehab staff should be prepared of meaning. Last year Richard Levi took up the post to meet this type of existential question”, of Professor of Rehabilitation Medicine at Richard Levi explains. Göran Odbratt, author, journalist Umeå University in the north of Sweden. The Life skills project aims at giving Levi started his medical career with his the rehabilitation process a dimension friend and colleague Claes Hultling. To- that helps to create meaning and to facili- gether they have gathered a great deal tate reorientation. page 118 of expertise and insights in the field of “Our experience is basically positive rehabilitation medicine in the course of and suggests that philosophy can be of There are no special needs two decades, and have developed and real value in a medical situation”, Richard publicized their findings. Richard Levi has Levi claims. “I don’t believe in throwing Visiting museums is something that shown that people’s life-worlds often philosophical aphorisms at people or interests many children, young people collide, not just with what has previously choosing philosophical themes for a thera- and adults regardless of their status. been taken for granted but also – and peutic attitude. I believe in a philosophical But how do museum staff relate to a frequently – with the health system and approach. Our notions are so limited by rehab treatment. language. What is valuable about philoso- child with an impairment? Is it in the “Sweden is a strange country”, Rich- phy is that it can reflect on concepts and role of a personal assistant looking ard Levi remarks. “We have a pretty ade- come up with something new.” after a patient, or is it as a museum quate hospital service with appointments, He notes that, with regard to the professional meeting a fellow citizen? doctors’ rounds and suchlike, but almost body, it is normal to assume that the pa- no preparedness for the inner states that tient is the best person to give an accu- For many years, children and adults with people have to deal with in conjunction rate description of her or his symptoms. impairment have been met with goodwill with serious injuries. And so it is easy to “The same thing should apply when we and compassion, being regarded as a rely on sleeping pills or to send patients to are trying to form an opinion of people’s group that needs assistance. Impair- a psychologist or psychiatrist. I question life-worlds. We focus on what the patient ments have primarily been regarded as this practice. The real issue is whether talks about without first interpreting it or individual faults in relation to the human we should not, instead, regard reactions psychologizing.” norm, weaknesses that can be wholly from people who have suffered serious With the help of language it is pos- or partially compensated for by surgical injury as normal and adequate.” sible to reflect on everything that has, so treatments, clever aids or helpful people. Richard Levi points to a gap between far, been a natural and self-evident part But despite the fact that goodness has psychiatric practice on the one hand and of our lives. Philosophers, for example, extended towards these people they have experience from rehabilitation medicine sometimes make an interesting distinction often been denied rights that are self- on the other. Earlier attempts to integrate between speaking and saying as two dif- evident to other people. Well into the 20th psychiatry or psychology into work with ferent aspects of the same action. Paying century, there were many persons with people with functional disabilities were greater attention to the act of speaking and impairments who lacked the right to at- not very successful. less to that of saying is reminiscent of the tend school, the right to vote in elections “There is an extraordinary reluctance artist who is more focused on the actual or the right to bear children. These people in psychiatry to treat people who are not business of painting than on the picture as were not taken seriously and lacked real well and have a very visible reason for not such, the work of art or the final result. influence. feeling well. The aim should not be to find In a philosophical approach the result In recent decades an environment- a fault somewhere. This person’s reac- is not given in advance and there is no related perspective has been increasingly tion is not pathological. The person is not normative model for how life should be applied in connection with disability poli- thinking in a way that is wrong and that lived following an accident. The painting cy. Focus has been increasingly directed can be put right”, Richard Levi explains. is not finished. We still do not know what towards the obstacles which are constant- So that if the patient’s reactions can the person is actually painting or what ly being created in the physical environ- be regarded as universal and adequate new elements are going to turn up, for ment and in all sorts of operations. The then they should naturally be treated as they are individual people who will give fundamental idea is that society should such in rehab medicine. Accordingly, expression to and establish their own life- be built with due regard to people’s dif- Richard Levi’s conclusion is that rehab worlds. ferences and not the other way round. staff should develop their skills in see- Richard Levi gives an example from With this way of thinking we can create ing reactions as adequate signals and a philosophical café that was part of the solutions that are essential to 10 percent normal reactions and should therefore project. The adviser asked the question: of the population, make life easier for 40 regard them as an invaluable aspect of “What is the point of a wheelchair?” percent and are good for everyone. For the patient’s efforts to re-orientate her “Someone reacted very forcefully: far too long we have built society on the life-world. The patient’s reactions must ‘What on earth sort of question is that? needs of the majority and then created not be seen or treated as an expression There is no point with a wheelchair. It is special solutions for the other people. of deviant behaviour. an appliance for an injury that cannot be Museums are no exception. Persons with It is precisely this type of methodo- repaired.’ But there were other views too: impairments are offered special exhibi- logical development and scientific stud- insights into how society is constructed tions and educational program that are ies that Richard Levi is directing in his functionally, socially, humanly, and so on. aimed specifically at them. It is important three-year Life skills project. Under the A discussion focusing on wheelchairs can here to stress that it is by no means for- auspices of the project both medical and shift an accepted pattern as to what life bidden to continue creating collections non-medical staff have received training should be like. The question is not a lead- of educational materials for children with in philosophical dialogue and existential ing one and it can be answered in various learning difficulties or to build tactile guidance for and with patients. ways. What is important to each person displays specifically for persons with “People who are cast into the existen- is to be able to continue their re-orienta- impaired vision. But one should be aware tially charged no-man’s-land surrounding tion”, Richard Levi maintains. that these are a form of special solution

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and that the long-term aim should be to The interest shown in the convention get her to sit in the front seat although she provide universal solutions that work for is partly due to a general increase in the has just told them that she wants to sit in everyone. Offering guided tours of a mu- focus on issues pertaining to human rights the back. She asks if the seats at the back seum display with sign language is not a in society. The All aboard! project is topical are already taken. They are not, but the special solution, nor is guiding in English. in that it is wholly in accord with the UN driver still insists on her sitting in the front. This type of service gives visitors the op- conventions on the rights of the child and “It doesn’t matter what I say. They portunity to enjoy the same content as the rights of persons with impairments. do what they think is best anyway. I want other people. Thus the All aboard! project has become to sit in the back to avoid having to talk There is a tendency both in the mu- an important hub of expertise and a source to the driver because I know from experi- seum sector and in the world at large to of inspiration to other museums. At the ence that I shall find myself in a situation regard persons with impairments as a same time, the project has been faced that I don’t want to be in. I have been group for whom one should, from time to with a problem that disability policy itself questioned so many times about how I time, do something in the same way that struggles with. It is a widely held view lost my sight and how I cope with life. one places a focus on some theme that that an operation or activity, an information And I have to listen to people telling me has not been in the public eye for some system or a physical environment in which how clever I am to be able to manage the time. “We have not had an exhibition persons with impairments can take part, seatbelt without help. It makes me feel about food traditions for some time, nor is to be regarded as a special operation like an object.” anything for persons with learning dif- which is only, or at least primarily, directed Jessica remembers one occasion ficulties either. Perhaps it’s time we did at persons with impairments. Seminars that was different. The driver presented something about it?” But persons with and projects frequently bear titles like himself, said which taxi company he was impairments cannot and must not be re- “Museums for all”, “Culture for all” and driving for and explained that the car was garded as a group. Rather, it is a matter of suchlike. The word “all” is readily under- 25 metres away. “Do you want to hold my different types of human needs. People stood as meaning “particular people with arm or what do you want me to do”, he with functional disabilities are not more, special needs”. The same applies to the asked and Jessica was flabbergasted. neither are they less, interested in Swe- “all” in the All aboard! project. Throughout “What a driver, I thought. He asks me den’s history as a European power or the the duration of the project there has been how I want things to be done. So simply art of Picasso than persons without such an emphasis on the fact that it is directed and politely. It felt as though I was being impairments. An example that illustrates at all children, whether they have impair- treated as an equal.” this group-thinking is the organization that ments or not. Despite this, it is evident In a letter to the municipality’s mobil- installs a fire alarm for persons with hear- that, for people still caught up in an older ity service Jessica explained that she ing reduced in the toilet. In itself this is a tradition of compassionate care it is still is tired of drivers who, without being good idea. But sometimes this alarm is easy to regard the whole operation as asked, take her bag and try to put on only installed in the wheel-chair toilet and being a “disability project”. her seatbelt. The authority replied that it there is nothing to suggest that a person But All aboard! has not been about was strange that things should work out who is deaf will necessarily choose to use creating special activities for particular so badly because all of the drivers have the spacious wheel-chair toilet. This indi- children with particular needs. The very attended a course and they also have a cates very clearly how wrong things can ethos of the project is that it is aimed at handbook which states that they must turn out when group thinking takes over. each and every child. introduce themselves and contains guide- In the year 2000 a national disability In point of fact, there are no special lines for their behaviour. policy entitled Från patient till medborgare needs, merely human ones. “Sometimes I pay for a normal taxi [From patient to citizen] was adopted in and there is a huge difference. In such Sweden. The policy, encompassing all Carl Älfvåg, Director General cases I do not experience any problems. areas of society, is to be realized in its Mikael Wahldén, Senior Adviser Those drivers do what I ask them to do. entirety by 2010. The title indicates the Handisam – Swedish Agency for Disability I can give them instructions and they do shift from a patient/care perspective Policy Coordination not question them.” to the citizen’s perspective. Disability Jessica thinks that it is contradictory policy has been much strengthened by that she should be treated so differently in a relatively new international document, these situations. People who drive stand- the UN Convention on the Rights of Per- page 120 ard taxis have received no special training sons with Disabilities. This may well be for assisting disabled passengers unlike the most important milestone ever with The power to classify those who drive for the mobility service. regard to disability policy. It presents us Yet it is when she takes a standard taxi with a clear structure for continuing the It is often claimed that regarding peo- that she receives the best treatment and work to achieve equal rights and opportu- ple with disabilities in a special way is is made to feel like an equal. Her conclu- nities for persons with impairments. The a matter of ignorance. This assumes sion is that in one situation she is seen as convention has been adopted by the UN that injustices can be eradicated a customer while in the other she is re- General Assembly and has been signed garded as someone who is handicapped, and ratified by Sweden. It came into force through information. But there are an object. Or as she puts it: “like parcel in Sweden in January 2009. people who are critical of this view freight”. The global guidelines that had hitherto and who prefer to describe it in terms At the hospital where Jessica Lucic been agreed and that formed the basis for of power and conflicts of interest. works as a psychologist she has also the Swedish policy document were the had reason to wonder about how her UN Standard Rules on the Equalization of The explanation is popular everywhere. blindness is regarded in relation to her Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities If one merely informs people about dis- professional position. Her guide dog has from 1993. One important difference abilities, they will be kind and do the right its basket in the office where she meets between the convention and the standard thing. Politicians and government bodies clients for psychological evaluation and it rules is that the former is legally binding as well as those organizations that rep- has only happened twice in four years that on countries that have ratified it. Every resent the disabled often maintain that a patient has refused to sit in the same fourth year, beginning in 2011, Sweden if one spreads enough information about room as the dog. has to report to the UN on how work in wheel-chair Braille notices then all premis- “Many of my patients are from Bosnia fulfilling the terms of the convention is es will become accessible and everything and the Middle East and it is common for progressing. Parallel with this report, the will be readable by everyone. But who is them to say that they are frightened of organizations representing persons with to pay for this? What happens if someone dogs. When I explain that this is a special impairments Sweden will be able jointly gives priority to something else? dog and that she is not going to get up to submit their own report on how the “One can’t ensure that one is treated and approach them, they agree to have work is proceeding. Sweden has also in the way that one wants just by informing the meeting in the same room. I am calm signed a so-called facultative protocol people”, Jessica Lucic comments on the and matter-of-fact and this probably helps which enables ordinary citizens to submit public mobility service which she desper- when I am informing them. But, above complaints directly to the UN if they con- ately tries to avoid but sometimes has to all, I am in a position of power. I am in my sider that their rights have been infringed. use. She explains that drivers often try to professional role and I am at a hospital.

160 Many of these patients come from coun- page 122 ory questions norms that divide society tries where authorities are held in awe.” Adaptation is not enough according to functionality into people with But when Jessica, as a private person functional disabilities and “able” or “func- with a guide dog, wants to eat in one of tionally normal” people. Crip theory turns Crip theory questions norms regarding the town’s restaurants things are not as away from the well-defined people on the straightforward. “Restaurant owners here functionality. So it is not enough for margins of society and focuses, instead, are often people born outside Scandinavia the arts merely to be accessible. Their on the invisible mass of people who are and I know that they are often frightened task is to transform the public domain regarded as “normal”. of dogs. And so I give the same informa- into a multifunctional and multidimen- The concept of crip theory was tion as I do at work, that the dog will lie sional commons. launched by Robert McRuer in 2006. down and not disturb anyone, and that less McRuer is a professor of English at George than one percent of the population suffers Most people today would agree that the Washington University. He has published a from a serious dog allergy and that the arts should be accessible to everyone; book entitled Crip Theory - Cultural Signs National Food Administration has made an and that they are a public responsibility. of Queerness and Disability in which he exception to allow guide dogs in restau- The traditional medical explanations, that gives his view of functionality seen with rants. But whatever I say is to no avail and ascribed an absence of participation in the the aid of a queer-perspective. His work I am almost never allowed into the restau- arts on the part of disabled individuals and follows in the footsteps of a handful of rant. I conclude that this must have to do that regarded rehabilitation and treatment other American scholars who are interest- with a power shift. I am at a disadvantage as the solution have long since disap- ed in norms and functionality. One of these and in such a situation, giving the same peared. Since the 1950s a new perspec- is Rosemarie Garland Thomson, Professor information about the guide dog that I give tive on people with functional disabilities of Women’s Studies at Emory University in my professional capacity does not help.” has developed, and with it, explanations in Atlanta. She has coined a term to de- One person who has made a detailed as to what it is that gives rise to these scribe the ideal of perfect functionality study of processes in which great cre- disabilities. Instead of trying to explain the both as regards democracy and the market dence is given to information about dis- individual’s difficulties in functioning, it is economy. People who have disabilities are abilities is sociologist Agneta Hugemark. society’s functionality that is emphasized. regarded as a part of the population but For several years she monitored the de- In the “social model” it is the faults in as irredeemably different and therefore velopment of the new Stockholm neigh- society that represent the core question. the subject of special measures. Western bourhood known as Hammarby Sjöstad. The reasons for a person’s disabilities democracy links its ideals to characteristics “A spearhead for accessibility for people are to be found in the way society is con- like independence, self-government and with functional disabilities” was what the structed. And accessibility is part of the self-determination. People with functional politicians claimed in advance for the new solution. disabilities are, on the other hand, seen as neighbourhood. A committee to advise Sweden’s National Plan for Disability dependent and incompetent. on accessibility was formed with repre- Policy is, perhaps, the best result of a so- The arts can, and should, be used for sentatives from the organizations that cial model that one can find in Sweden; at questioning the normative world-view and represent the disabled but, in the end, the least as regards political decisions. When its privileged position at the same time neighbourhood was just as good or just the Swedish Parliament adopted it in that they make room for and affirm people as bad as any other new neighbourhood 2000 this was a clear indication of how far with experience of functional disabilities. in terms of accessibility. we have come since the time when there This can be achieved, for example, by “Accessibility conflicted with child were special institutions for the disabled refraining from showing off the tragic or safety, for example, since they wanted to and they were subject to exclusion. This comic anecdotes that are so often used to avoid having garbage lorries in the yards change in attitude can also be seen in represent the narratives of our lives. Living and this meant longer walks to the rub- the everyday world. The Vasa Museum with a disability is not traumatic, exotic or bish bins. The problem could have been is working at making both its physical even especially exciting. People who have solved but this would have cost more premises and its information and com- personal experience of disabilities cannot money. Financial considerations are in munications accessible. The All aboard! be adequately portrayed in a series of an- many cases, perhaps in most cases much project links accessibility with questions ecdotal events but in their everyday lives. the most important factor behind poor about democracy and human rights and is A person with cystic fibrosis who took accessibility and this is no longer merely expanding this perspective to include its part in the Museum of World Culture’s a question of information”, Agneta Huge- educational activities. exhibition Tänk om – berättelser om funk- mark maintains. There has been a shift in attitudes tionshinder [Rethink – narratives of dis- Another person who is critical of the towards functional obstacles and the task ability] replied disarmingly to yet another idea of a strategy relying on information is of adapting society to everyone’s needs question about her limited life expectancy: Jan Wiklund. He is an environmental ac- is in full swing. This is naturally essential “Perhaps forty years is a normal life ex- tivist and works at Synskadades Riksför- if the arts are ever to be accessible to all. pectancy for me”. bund, Sweden’s association for the blind The trouble is that this will not suffice in Another way of shaking up our idea and partially sighted. He has developed itself. Yet another step in our thinking is of normality is to show how people with his ideas in a book entitled Demokratins required. Accessibility to exhibitions can, disabilities can reject normality; that the bärare [Upholders of democracy]. at best, give opportunities for enjoying desirability of privilege can be questioned “Information is perfect if one wants the experiences and life that are reflected and alternative positions can be elevated to avoid having to deal with conflicts. And in the exhibitions. When what is illumi- in value. In Jona Elfdahl’s filmParia the there are cultural, organizational and class nated exclusively reflects “normality’s” main character aims a direct threat at the reasons for wanting to avoid conflicts. perspective on the world, people with dis- normative hegemony. “Tonight you are Sweden is a country in which agreement abilities merely experience confirmation going to die and contemptuous laughter is extraordinarily highly valued and where of their alienation; while people without is the final thing you will hear because conflicts are considered shameful. Many such disabilities are affirmed in their nor- now we are on our way, we cockroaches, organizations in Sweden are economically mative position. black rats, plague infested, we idiots.” dependent on the state and they do not Crip theory is one of a group of ex- This open resistance and threatening dare to bite the hand that feeds them. planatory models that turns its gaze from defiance is not consistent with an image Organizations are dominated by people the categorized groups and, instead, of the well-meaning normat and Elfdahl’s whose incomes come from information questions and studies the norms that cre- imaginative counterpart. It has to be dealt of one sort or another and they tend to ated these categories. Within this norm- with in a different fashion – by denying or believe that information is the most im- critical tradition one finds, for example, by considering. portant thing there is. In view of this it is “feminist studies”, “queer theory” and Regardless of the general reaction it not surprising that talks of ignorance and “critical white studies”. These theories is, not least, important to show alterna- the need for information overshadows the all question norms that classify people tive narratives of life, positions and proud fact that disabilities are often a matter of according to gender, sexuality and race, identities so that people with disabilities conflicting interests”. claiming that these characteristics are are given the possibility of shaping and constructed or created by the society in evaluating their own lives based on their Finn Hellman, journalist which we live. In the same way crip the- own perspective. For people with disabili-

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ties are not marginal people. They have always been and continue to be a part of the population that lives within the social structure. The problem is that normality’s grip on them makes them strive to imitate “normality” rather than being what they really are: self-determining, conscious subjects.

Susanne Berg, manager, Independent Living Institute, writer

page 126 Examples of functional developments and innovations see www.allaombord.se

page 130 Contact information

Bookings for educational programmes, guided tours in sign language and price information. Contact: Booking Office: +46 (0)8-519 548 70 Information on contents and meth- odology of educational programmes and weekend activities. Contact: Museum educators at the Vasa Museum at [email protected] Magasinet: Here you can download your own copy of the All aboard! publica- tion www.allaombord.se (text-to-speech function) Website: About the project: www.allaombord.se Further information about the educa- tional activities at the National Maritime Museums. Contact: Torbjörn Ågren, Head of Edu- cational Unit at Swedish Maritime Muse- ums +46 (0)8-519 558 03, 0733-60 42 94 [email protected] For further information about the concept of a “Philosophy of Access” and the “Salutogenic Museum” and the development of the project. Contact: Carina Ostenfeldt, Project Manager responsible for the concept +46 (0)701-10 56 13 [email protected]

162 163 Avsändare: Statens maritima museer Portot Box 27131 betalt 102 52 Stockholm B

! d or omb lla A www.allaombord.se