Docuart Fest is hosting TACTILE IMAGES, a project that set the bases of the first virtual library of images made accessible to the blind people in Romania, thus taking a first step in encouraging the culture of tactile images in their community.
The exhibition which takes place at the Bucharest Municipality Museum – the Suțu Palace, has a multimedia component with images for the blind made accessible through specific techniques of form reinterpretation and embossing on special paper, accompanied by descriptions which can be easily accessed on a mobile phone. On the occasion of the Great Union Centenary, this project aims to facilitate the access of sight impaired people to images that are representative of Romania’s history and culture.
The sketches/drawings will be created by pupils from various fine art high-schools in Romania and by professional artists according to the norms of image accessibility.
The images chosen to be represented are connected to the Great Union and to the history and culture of Romania. They are pictures, images, representative symbols of the Great Union and Romania’s patrimony.
After the pictures are drawn, we will then select the ones to be printed on tactile thermoform paper and then exhibited as catalogues at our partnering museums: the Museum of Art in Iași, the Mureșenilor House Museum in Brașov and Romania’s National History Museum. At the end of the project they will be donated to the museums and to the 7 schools for the blind in the country.
At the same time, the 500 drawings produced will be scanned and, together with an audio recording, will be uploaded on the project’s website where anyone who wishes can download and print them on regular paper and then transform them in tactile pictures using plasticine or glue.
This way, parents, relatives and friends of people with visual imapirment can transform the pictures in tactile images and thus help their loved one see what the rest of us see. As an example of this simple and cheap method, the exhibition will showcase tactile drawings created using this method.
We wish to created images that the blind can understand/see.
The project will also include the set-up of an online library where visually impaired people can download for free drawings based on our national patrimony and transform them into tactile images. The drawings selcted for the library will be chosen mainly by visually imapired people and also by specialists from the partnering museums and special schools. Steps will be taken so that the drawings in this online library www.europeana.eu will also be included with the help of the Patrimony National Institute (PNI).
The purpose of this project is to promote Romania’s patrimony and, especially, the Great Union of 1918 among visually impaired people.
Exhibition opening: Wednesday, November 7th, 16:00.
Free entrance.
Innitator: The Association for Urban Development
Partner: Historical Assistance Center
A project co-financed by NCFA.