Encouraging new inquiry into what kinds of experience artworks make possible. This conference is concerned with the expanded creative, curatorial, and historiographical opportunities that arise when we refuse to separate out the senses and destabilise the normative, vision-based frame of art reception.

The conference asks: what can blindness bring to sculpture? What does this approach reveal about sculpture’s ontological reality?

This event is part of a three-year research project, Beyond the Visual: Blindness and Expanded Sculpture. The project, a collaboration between the Henry Moore Institute, Shape Arts and University of the Arts London, was the recipient of the inaugural Arts and Humanities Research Council Exhibition Fund. The project will culminate with a landmark 2025 exhibition at the Henry Moore Institute, foregrounding work by blind and partially blind artists.

Programme:

10am
Coffee and Tea served

10.30am
Introduction: Professor Ken Wilder, University of the Arts London

10:45am
Session One: Historical Perspectives
Chair: Dr Aaron McPeake, University of the Arts London

Dr Márton Orosz, Hungarian National Gallery/Vasarely Museum
‘Art Beyond Vision – György Kepes’s Multisensory Practices and the ‘Tactile Gallery’’

Dr María José García Vizcaíno, Montclair State University
‘Sensing and Feeling: Main Functions of Touch in Haptic Explorations of Sculpture’

Dr Nicola Baird, independent art historian and curator
‘Blindness, Expanded Sculpture and Paul Neagu’s Palpable Art Practice’

Dr Vivian Sheng, University of Hong Kong
‘Shen Yuan’s ‘Aphasic Tongues’: Speaking beyond Words’

12:45pm
Lunch (provided)

2pm
Session Two: Practice-based Research
Chair: Joe Rizzo-Naudi, Royal Holloway, University of London

Georgina Sleap, artist
‘The Importance of Haptic Perception in Sculptural Practice’

Daisy James, artist
‘East London Smells’

Zoe Schoenherr, artist/University of the Arts London
‘Expanded Notions of Sculpture’

Dr Kevin Hunt and Fo Hamblin, Nottingham School of Art and Design
‘Mouth Noises and Cherry Pickers: Exploring Interpretive Audio Description for Contemporary Art’

4pm
Tea/coffee served

4.30pm
Keynote lecture:
Dr Fayen Ke-Xiao d’Evie, artist/RMIT University
Chair: David Johnson, artist/Royal College of Art

‘“Touch enabled her to discern minute details… which often pass unnoticed.” How Architectural Sculpture is Reclaiming Blindness’ Place at the Foundations of Exhibition Histories and Art Criticism.’

6pm
Wine Reception (Henry Moore Institute)