MIXT: MAXXI's inclusive project co-designed with disabled visitors

The MAXXI museum in Rome launched MIXT (Musei per tutti), an accessibility project co-created with blind, visually impaired, and deaf individuals. Initiated in 2018 through a Lazio Innova call, the project was developed by tech firms Mediavoice and DStech. During the 2020 lockdown, Sofia Bilotta of the Public Engagement Office restructured content, working remotely with the Unione Italiana Ciechi e Ipovedenti and Ente Nazionale Sordi. This led to 'Collezione da ascoltare' and 'Collezione in LIS' for the #iorestoacasa digital program. The project features tactile models, audio descriptions, and video guides in Italian Sign Language (LIS) and International Sign (IS) across 11 permanent areas. A key moment: a blind participant identified the steel door of a freight elevator during a tactile tour, demonstrating spatial understanding. Another: a deaf participant's LIS description of MAXXI on the project's homepage. MIXT was recognized by the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD) as a unique good practice, and the team was invited to present at the WFD quadrennial conference in South Korea in 2024. The project embodies the disability rights motto 'Nothing about us without us.'