April 5, 2021

EnChorma Glasses available at MCA Denver for color blind visitors

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**This is a repost of our blog story from December 19, 2019. EnChroma glasses are sanitized per use for visitors and are available to check out at the front desk.**

We are so excited to announce that we are officially the first museum in Colorado to offer our visitors EnChroma glasses for color-blind visitors. Four different pairs of EnChroma glasses are available now for visitors to borrow during their visits. 

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Filmed by Robert Muratore. Edited by Chris Bagley.
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“We are thrilled to be participating in the EnChroma Color Accessibility Program to offer our color blind visitors the opportunity to experience our museum and the art we have on view in clear and vibrant color with these glasses. This partnership is part of our continuous efforts to make our museum as accessible and welcoming to visitors as possible,” said Nora Burnett Abrams, the museum’s Mark G. Falcone Director. 

“Art is a visceral experience and artists make specific color choices to match the emotion they want the viewer to experience,"said Andrew Schmeder, CEO and Co-founder of EnChroma. "EnChroma glasses can help those with color vision deficiency experience what the artist intended, leading to a better understanding and appreciation of colorful works of art. We are happy that the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver has chosen to facilitate access to color for its guests by offering EnChroma glasses.”

The announcement featured an event in which four color blind people were given the glasses for the first time to wear and view selected works of art. Three were MCA Denver staff members and one woman who has been on a waitlist with EnChroma traveled from Longmont to try the glasses. 

Two young men wearing color correcting glasses view artworks in a gallery and are smiling brightly.

 

“For me, this is a game-changer in terms of how I experience the art we have on view at MCA Denver. I absolutely think these glasses will change how our visitors interact with our museum,” said Brad Ingles, Membership and Community Partnerships Manager at MCA Denver.  

 

An assortment of colorful fruit hanging by a ribbon. The image is duplicated twice, one to simulate color blind vision, the other shows normal colorvision.

 

Color blindness affects 350 million people worldwide – 1 in 12 men (8%) and 1 in 200 women (.5%). EnChroma lenses are engineered with special optical filters that remove wavelengths of light where the red and green cones have an excessive overlap in the eyes of people with color vision deficiency. This enables those with red-green color blindness to see colors more vibrantly, clearly and distinctly, helping them to overcome everyday obstacles and frustrations and access more of life’s colorful experiences. To learn more about EnChroma’s Color Accessibility program, check out their website.


EnChroma has taken the lead in advocating for “color accessibility” with the launch of the EnChroma Color Accessibility Program. The program helps public venues, schools, state parks, libraries, museums and other organizations purchase and loan EnChroma glasses to color blind guests and students to make colorful exhibits, schoolwork, attractions and/or experiences accessible to the color blind. Other venues offering EnChroma glasses to patrons include the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Centraal Museum in Utrecht, The Netherlands and others.

For more information check out all the exciting news coverage about the museum and EnChroma partnership:

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We encourage anyone who experiences color blindness, to come to the museum and take the EnChroma glasses for a ride to experience the color of the art more clearly and vibrantly.