What's on Blog Four Days at Tate Exchange #4 Day 4 - (or the one with the touch workshop and get out) It was almost business as usual for the Shape team by now. Liz Porter, who, as a storyteller and artist, has worked on a number of interesting projects dealing with interwoven access and creative narratives, seemed fully at home as we set out a table of art objects kindly loaned to us by Tate’s access and public programme team (thank you Marcus Dickey-Horley and Anna Murray!). These objects are used as part of touch tours, occasionally combined with other sensory elements, such as objects you can smell. Artist and blogger Fae Kilburn takes us through the session: 'The workshop was a sensory session. Liz had a wonderful array of objects on a table, with questions next to them, one object was a wooden figure sculpture, the question was (write five words that describe me, what am I made of, if I could talk what would I say?) with our eyes closed we had to touch the objects, guess what you thought it was and answer the questions that were being read out to us. There was some wonderful responses, two girls came up with a whole story for the two sculptures and named them but were also surprised when they guessed objects incorrectly, confusing a very flat textured bronze figure for a fish. Two young boys gave brilliant audio descriptions and then went on to look at the Adam Reynolds memorial short listed art work on display and did audio description for this as well. They really understood that someone without vision was going to be able to gain an insight into the art work through their words. There was a couple who spent ages with all the objects and handed them to each other, getting completely lost in the moment. Blind people asked different questions about the objects, they were more interested in finding out about what colour the object were. I found it interesting watching and listening to people interacting with the objects'. Images above: participants and creatives responses to the art objects handling workshop. The post it reads: I never considered how blind people might 'see' art. Thank you for the introduction. Colin Hambrook, editor of Disability Arts Online, was also one of those attending. Colin noted: The objects ranged from a small tactile model of Anna Berry’s Dole Scum II to a Giacometti-type maquette, a marble pillar, a white cane and a model of a fruit pie. It was an opportunity for those taking part to exercise their imaginations in a playful way. In making up stories about the objects in relation to each other, one participant imagined the white cane guiding the fruit pie to somewhere it wouldn’t be eaten. Images of participants immediately above: c. Andy Barker Ahead of us lay the task of packing up, shipping out, and, beyond this, to work out what we had gained and learned from TEx, and to evaluate it in various ways. This blog is part of that process. On this subject, an interesting comparison can be made from the feedback following the symposium and the artist workshops - below I have pasted word cloud representations for each one. The first shows the six key words used to describe the symposium as informative, interesting, inspiring, important, educational, and engaging; whereas for workshops, the six key words were: inspiring, interesting, fun, stimulating, informative and thought-provoking. I like the fact that the workshops were described as enjoyable as well making people think, and that with the symposium there was a sense that what was being learnt was of significance and genuine relevance to the attendees. Other words like empowering and challenging, suggested that the symposium had given attendees a sense of mission and purpose to accompany them away, and that in the workshops, a sense of relaxed warmth and communion with others had resulted, as well as a sense of having learned something or experienced something worthwhile. Word cloud illustrating feedback taken at the Symposium Word cloud illustrating feedback taken at the workshops Tate Exchange in numbers 947 visitors in 4 days 93 audioboom posts created receiving 832 visits 53 symposium attendees, with 20% blind or partially sighted participants 3000+ online audiences 6 blind or partially sighted artists in lead roles Overall, looking back over the four days, I think Colin Hambrook best summarised our programme, as well as our intentions, at Tate Exchange: The way audio description is incorporated within all aspects of approach to the gallery, the website, marketing as well as exhibitions themselves, was at the heart of Ways of Seeing Art. As things stand, many visually impaired people would be sceptical of the idea of visiting a gallery or museum, as lack of access is a given. New worlds can be opened up with object-handling sessions and guided talks. With a bit of thought audio-guides can incorporate description, making artwork accessible to blind people. It’s not necessarily a difficult thing to do, or something that is going to incur extra expense for the gallery. Our huge thanks again to the many artists and contributors who made up the programme, especially lead artist Zoe Partington. We'd like to thank the Tate team for their support and passionate enthusiasm, and I would like to thank the whole Shape team for the same. A special mention here for our volunteers, who in particular ensured the weekend sessions ran smoothly, that everyone was welcomed and that everything was in place. Our warmest thanks go to: Anahita Harding, Bethany Green, Jessica Ryan-Ndegwa, Kat Kolanyane-Kesupile, Ramon Salgado-Touzon and Sam Castell-Ward. Post script Since then, we have published a number of resources, which you can find at links through our Tate Exchange blogs, as well as our youtube channel and our audioboom pages. To read our top tips of producing an audio description, you can download a word document by clicking this link here. Our thanks go to Ian Rattray who assisted in the producing of an audiobook version of our audio description booklet, which you can listen to via the link below: Join in on our conversation, tweet @ShapeArts using the hashtag #WaysofSeeingArt to let us know your thoughts. Credits: Banner image c. Andy Barker; body images by project team members apart from where identified as by Andy Barker Colin Hambrook excerpts taken from his editorial piece on the Disability Arts Online website: http://disabilityarts.online/magazine/opinion/shape-arts-make-welcome-move-world-audio-description-tate-exchange/ Fae Kilburn excerpt taken from her blog: https://www.faekilburn.co.uk/single-post/2017/03/09/Ways-of-seeing-art-workshops For other Shape blogs, click here Manage Cookie Preferences