ACCESSIBLE DIALOGUES: BUILDING INCLUSIVE VISUAL NARRATIVES WITH AUDIO DESCRIPTION

Abstract

This article proposes a reflection on audio description (AD) as a creative act, addressing it not only as a mediation tool but as an artistic experience that transforms the perception and sharing of art. By shifting the focus from access to the sensitive, the research reveals that accessibility is also a form of creation, capable of broadening the aesthetic and political horizons of artistic production. The methodology employed is a case study with a shadow theatre group that uses shadow description, a modality of audio description integrated into the creative process. The analysis is constructed from interviews with one of the group's actresses and a blind spectator and audio description consultant. The research articulates empirical and theoretical dimensions, drawing on authors from critical disability studies and crip theory, such as McRuer, Garland-Thomson, and Siebers. These frameworks allow us to understand disability as a productive difference and accessibility as a political gesture, revealing that inclusive art is also transformative art—capable of reinventing ways of seeing, hearing, feeling, and imagining. This overview points to the need for a paradigm shift in culture: from accessibility as a normative obligation to accessibility as an aesthetic language and emancipatory practice.