Royal West of England Academy

The RWA gallery is currently closed for a big building project and will reopen in spring 2022. When I was in the building before the building work began, it still made a good visit despite Covid restrictions. Beautiful Grade II listed building, being upgraded with accessibility in mind. The staff are friendly and welcoming. The grand-looking building hosts exhibitions of both new and old art, and there are workshops and activities run by artists for adults and children on and off-site. Automatic doors at the entrance to the building, very old lift being replaced soon with a brand new one. The accessible toilet is fine but a new changing places toilet is additionally being installed during the building project. When reopened, RWA will continue to have a new exhibition every three months. During Covid restrictions you needed to prebook a time slot, so this might continue for some events/shows.

I visited here on Disabled Access Day. I used the stair, but I think they had lift access in the building for people with mobility impairments. There was step free access around the rooms of the gallery, although there are glass doors separating the rooms. As with most galleries the access for visually impaired visitors was bit limited due to small text on the information cards next to each piece of work. An audio description would be great in these situations.