Museum of Austerity shows the bitter face of austerity cuts

Whenever a technology is presented that I am not yet familiar with, I like to explore. A museum with holographic glasses? Do it! However, it turned out to be the content that will stay with me for a long time. The Museum of Austerity by Sarah Wares and John Pring is no easy read. But essential for feeling and understanding the impact of austerity on disabled people.

Between 2010 and 2020, the UK government cut their benefits system, resulting in the elimination of a social safety net. Those with the biggest problems received the least help and too little money to live on. The United Nations concluded in 2016 that the UK had severely or systemically violated the rights of disabled people. Museum of Austerity gives them a voice.

I see and hear the stories of people who have fallen by the wayside in neoliberal Britain. Murdered by austerity and poor welfare, they have died of poverty. And harrowing they are, the stories. People unable to work due to addiction, anorexia, dementia or a history of domestic violence were left out in the cold by the government. Institutions offered no help at all. On a few tens per week, they had to make do. And that did not end well.

I hear the relatives of these people sketch a portrait as I look at their hologram. Almost all the portraits end with the wish that their stories have been heard so that their loved ones' deaths still have some meaning. I wish I could grab the holograms and comfort them.

Trigger Warning

No sooner have I been to a VR installation with trigger warnings: a warning that the content may be too emotionally intense. I am given the option to filter out stories that are too close. It did seem very politically correct when entering, but I have come back from that. The stories grab at the throat and don't let go. It can get too close and painful if you have, or have seen, a personal history told here.

You have to stand very close to the persons to hear and see the story. The installation reacts to my presence: I can see the holograms, but can only listen when I am at the deathbed. This is what makes it so intimate and therefore so penetrating: I get to hear the agony 1 on 1. I can walk away, but that feels like betrayal, like abandoning the weak in society again. And that is what makes this museum such an impressive experience.

Digital storytelling as an empathy machine, it's almost a cliché. And yet it works. Sacha Wares has a theatre background, John Pring is a journalist for the Disability News Service. Together, they have the knowledge and persuasiveness to take you into the lives of others. With the limited outrage that the surcharge affair ultimately caused here, this is mandatory reading for us too.

Good to know

The Museum of Austerity is wheelchair accessible. There are low-incentive variants (with no background noise), or variants with text on screen. You can ask not to hear certain stories. The makers are - obviously - committed to inclusivity and even have a bank of tissues as an afterthought. Only limitation may be that the installation is in English.

Tickets and more information are here  obtain