Tactile artwork should be commonplace in UK galleries to make sure art is accessible to blind people, while more needs to be done to counter \u201cocularcentric bias\u201d, according to the creative team behind a significant new exhibition.<\/p>\n
In November, the Henry Moore<\/a> Institute in Leeds will host Beyond the Visual, the first sculpture exhibition curated by and created with the input of blind and partially sighted artists.<\/p>\n Featuring a mix of new and older works, the curators in charge of the show hope it can encourage leaders in the world of visual arts to make their galleries and spaces accessible to blind visitors and artists by ensuring suitable works can be touched.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of our aims of the project is it brings about institutional change,\u201d said Beyond the Visual co-curator Prof Ken Wilder. \u201cWe want to challenge that ocularcentric bias that\u2019s just really embedded within the art world, which means for most sculpture exhibitions, you can\u2019t touch the works.\u201d<\/p>\n Lenka Clayton\u2019s Sculpture for the Blind, by the Blind 2017. Photograph: Carlos Avenda\u00f1o\/Courtesy the artist and Catharine Clark Gallery, SF Photo Carlos Avendano<\/p>\n The exhibition is the culmination of a three-year research programme, which has already resulted in changes at the Henry Moore Institute.<\/p>\n \u201cWe ask now for tactile objects,\u201d says Dr Clare O\u2019Dowd, research curator at the institute. \u201cIf we are working with a living artist, we\u2019ll ask them for objects or materials that we can use on \u2018touch tours\u2019 \u2026 maybe a maquette or some material that the artists use, so that you can get more of a sense of the object itself.\u201d<\/p>\n Dr Aaron McPeake, a blind artist who co-curated the show and an associate lecturer at Chelsea College of Arts, said changes made by institutions to make them more accessible usually benefited everyone and were known as \u201cblindness gains\u201d.<\/p>\n He said: \u201cYou get announcements on buses and trains signalling what the next station is. That was primarily instigated for blind people, but now everyone uses it so they can read their book and still know when the stops coming up. Those kind of accessible instruments are used by everyone, and they benefit everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n Lenka Clayton\u2019s work Sculpture for the Blind, by the Blind 2017, is featured in the show. \u201cShe worked with 17 blind artists to make variations of Constantin Br\u00e2ncu\u0219i\u2019s Sculpture for the Blind<\/a>, which ironically, is behind glass in the Philadelphia Museum of Art and can\u2019t be touched,\u201d said Wilder.<\/p>\n People holding Lenka Clayton\u2019s, Sculpture for the Blind artworks. Photograph: Courtesy the artist and Catharine Clark Gallery, SF. Photos Lonnie Graham<\/p>\n Other work includes Emilie Louise Gossiaux\u2019s Doggirl 2025, \u201can anthropomorphised ceramic sculpture\u201d based on the artist\u2019s guide dog; Jennifer Justice\u2019s \u201chighly tactile hanging installation\u201d Bucket of Rain 2017; and Collin van Uchelen\u2019s Project Fire Flower, which features a series of illuminated tactile panels.<\/p>\n There have been other landmark exhibitions that tackled the subject of blindness or tried to engage blind audiences: the Tate\u2019s Sculpture for the Blind in 1981 and the 1987 exhibition Revelation for the Hands at Leeds City Art Gallery, where visitors were invited to touch the 20 works on show.<\/p>\n More recently, In Plain Sight<\/a> at the Wellcome Collection and Layers of Vision at King\u2019s College<\/a> London also explored arts relationship with vision.<\/p>\n