For 13 years, the Dialogue Museum was at home on Hanauer Landstraße. During this time, 923,000 visitors came to the museum to experience "DIALOG IM DUNKELN - an exhibition on the discovery of the invisible". Although the museum made an important contribution to inclusion and to raising public awareness and acceptance of disabled and socially disadvantaged people, it had to close in 2018. The reason for this was the expired lease. The significantly increased rental price of the property that came with it was not affordable for the museum. But fortunately, a new location was soon found: Even more centrally located, the Dialogue Museum was able to move to the B-level at the Hauptwache. The museum now has 960 m2 of space at its disposal on the premises of Stadtwerke Verkehrsgesellschaft Frankfurt am Main mbH (VGF). Of this, 350 m2 are the newly designed exhibition areas. They house four exhibition rooms for the "DIALOG IM DUNKELN" exhibition, including a temporary exhibition room that is regularly re-curated and the DunkelBar, with the possibility of an open bar. A lightless workshop space is attached to the exhibition.
After a Corona-related delay, this special museum can finally officially open. Head of the Department of Culture Ina Hartwig, who had supported the museum in its search for a new location, said at the presentation of the new premises: "The idea of 'Dialogue in the Dark' originated in Frankfurt more than 30 years ago and has developed a worldwide network that makes a remarkable contribution to the respectful handling of the topic of inclusion and stands up for blind people in a relaxed and creative way. Worldwide and now again in Frankfurt, it now promotes encounters and exchanges between blind and sighted people at 29 locations on all five continents."
The concept of the Dialogue Museum offers a truly special experience: in the exhibition "DIALOGUE IN THE DARK", visitors are guided in small groups by blind and visually impaired guides through a lightless course with changing exhibition rooms. With the help of a long stick and their other senses, they navigate through lifelike scenarios in constant dialogue with the group and the guide. This can be irritating or even a little frightening, especially at the beginning. But it's definitely something to be faced, as it quickly creates an incomparable role reversal that heightens the senses, allows inclusion to be experienced directly, and trains empathy.
The contents of the new exhibition spaces of the DIALOGMUSEUM are closely related to the city of Frankfurt am Main and feature exhibits that carry a great deal of recognition value as urban quotations. Inspired by the new location of the Hauptwache, for example, is the theme of mobility. For this, a ride in the historic Ebbelwei Express of the VGF was elaborately reconstructed and adapted into the darkness.
So if you want to experience a particularly intense experience once, you can finally book the DIALOG IM DUNKELN again. You can find all the info on tickets and the current Corona rules in force at the museum at: https://dialogmuseum.de/
