Slow emergency siren, ongoing: Accessing Handsworth Songs

From Daly & Lyon:

“Slow emergency siren, ongoing: Accessing Handsworth Songs is a website and a book which documents a project to make Handsworth Songs – Black Audio Film Collective’s 1986 documentary about the 1985 riots in London and Birmingham’s Handsworth district – more, and differently, accessible. It developed as a year-long collaboration, co-led by LUX and Sarah Hayden, as part of the Voices in the Gallery research project. Elaine Lillian Joseph was commissioned to write and perform augmented audio description for the film, and the Care-fuffle Working Group developed creative captions. Audio-description and caption-users advised on the translations of sounds and images as they evolved.”

“The book and website make the captions and audio description available as texts that can be read or heard. The site can be navigated by screenreader, keyboard or mouse and has custom accessibility functions accessed via the settings icon or by pressing ctrl + y. Both formats have been designed with access at the fore, and were developed through consultation with Roger Firman at the UK Association for Accessible Formats. Both formats include new essays by Clive Nwonka and Sarah Hayden.”