Audio description in galleries and museums aims to make visual information accessible using verbal description. The Photographers' Gallery has, for several years, also linked audio description to slow looking and to visual literacy. Scroll down to hear five audio descriptions for five works in the exhibition. A transcript of each audio description is also available.
These audio descriptions have been produced by Eleanor Margolies, a writer and audio describer. She has a background in puppetry and theatre design, with interests in ecology and the role of the senses in performance. She audio describes in museum, theatre and dance contexts.
About Bert Hardy: Photojournalism in War and Peace
London-born photographer Bert Hardy (1913-1995, UK) was an influential English press and documentary photographer known for his work as chief photographer for Picture Post magazine. As well as historic material from his work for Britain’s leading photo-magazine, Picture Post, this retrospective includes photographs during his time in the Army Film and Photographic Unit, including imagery from the Blitz in London to the liberation of Bergen-Belsen and war in Southeast Asia.
Below: Newcastle Street, 1950 (Elswick, October 1950, Newcastle-upon-Tyne) Photo by Bert Hardy/Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Below: Blackpool Railings, 1951. (Pat Wilson (left) and Wendy Clarke (right) sitting on the railings at the promenade, July 1951, Blackpool) Photo by Bert Hardy/Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Below: Liverpool Hostel, 1942 (Chinese merchant seamen at a hostel Liverpool, May 1942) Photo by Bert Hardy/Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Below: Guinness Advert, 1949. (Billboard, December 1948, Elephant & Castle, London) Photo by Bert Hardy/Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Below: Work As Usual, 1940. (Mrs Marsh working in a tailor’s shop, September 1940, London) Photo by Bert Hardy/Picture Post/Hul-ton Archive/Getty Images
