STATUS QUEST

STATUS QUEST (SQ) is an initiative by Fondazione M-Cube aimed at making Cultural Heritage, Art History, and Modern Mythology (CH-AH-MM) education accessible to blind, visually impaired, and sighted learners through a peer-to-peer approach. The project was created in response to a structural gap in inclusive education: graphic learning content for blind and visually impaired users remains extremely limited, and about 70% of blind students in Europe attend mainstream schools where most teachers are neither specialised nor trained to provide inclusive education.

Get to know the initiative

SQ addresses this challenge by developing accessible and free 2D and 3D learning materials, a multisensory game, and an open pedagogical framework. The initiative is built around a mixed-media platform that combines tactile, digital, and AI-supported tools to enable blind and sighted learners to co-design and explore CH-AH-MM content together. By transforming visual content into multisensory learning formats, the project reduces educational barriers, increases engagement, and supports independent learning.

The project's key objectives are:

• Rethinking disability in education and implementing new cross-sensorial content and pedagogy for Cultural Heritage, Art History, and Modern Mythology.
• Making accessible curricula available for both educational and curatorial purposes.
• Strengthening teachers' competences through a comprehensive pedagogical framework and ready-to-use open learning materials.
• Fostering peer-to-peer collaboration between blind and sighted learners through an innovative and replicable methodology.

The initiative integrates advanced technologies including AI for procedural game generation and content search in Tactonom devices, 2D/3D tactile printing, and XR technologies to make the game playable in VR environments within museums, as well as binaural and immersive audio. Learning materials are available in 32 languages and Braille.

Progress made so far

In 2025–2026, SQ developed a functioning peer-to-peer game prototype and engaged 18 museums and associations for visually impaired people, 15 schools and universities, and over 350 students across Europe. A total of 97 users participated in the game's co-design and testing activities, and feedback was collected from students, teachers, and more than 50 professionals.

The Pro-Blind platform - a key component of the SQ ecosystem - hosts over 10,000 tactile graphics and is the world's largest open repository of educational materials for blind and visually impaired users. The game prototype is available on Android and iOS, providing an interactive, accessible learning experience that complements the tactile resources and fosters collaborative and multisensory learning both during workshops and independently.

In 2026, the project enters its second phase, ArtXplore, which will involve 12 additional teachers, 80 students across Italy, Germany, Spain, and Portugal, three museums in Norway, Germany, and Poland, and 20 professionals. The project aims to produce around 300 new accessible 2D graphics and 60 tactile 3D models covering major Art History periods, and to reach approximately 65,000 players.

Why is this a good practice?

The primary beneficiaries are blind, visually impaired, and sighted learners in schools. In Europe alone, 2.65 million people are blind, with 5.1% under the age of 18. The initiative also directly benefits teachers, who receive a pedagogical framework and accessible materials to teach CH-AH-MM, as well as organisations supporting visually impaired people, museums and curators, and the creative and cultural industries.

SQ is free for participants and built on an open-access model: all resources and the pedagogical framework are freely available through the Pro-Blind database. The project has activated networks in more than 10 EU countries and the United States, and has been submitted for further development under Erasmus+ K220, the NGI Zero Commons Fund, and the CR.EU.IN.HERITAGE Strand 1 funding programmes. The initiative was funded with €230,000 from the Horizon XR4ED programme (2024–2025).