Not all blind people can read Braille anymore, but for those who are still proficient, a whole world opens with artist Willem Boshoff’s Blind Alphabetinstallation.
The Aganang support group of the Society of the Blind’s Free State branch visited the Oliewenhuis Art Museum on Tuesday, 3 December, to learn more about the museum’s special exhibition for the blind.
Their visit coincided with the commemoration of the International Day for People with Disabilities.
Shadrach Sebolao, who works with the Centre for Universal Access and Disability Support (CUADS) at the University of the Free State (UFS), accompanied the group as a Braille guide.
Blind Alphabet is a collection of boxes with objects inside and a full description in Braille on each.
Boshoff’s work redresses the place of blindness as an unfortunate metaphor for ineptitude and ignorance. He aims to ennoble the state of blindness in the context of a perceived lack of understanding.
Apart from its service to casual blind visitors, the project effectively employs artworks as blind guides to educate the sighted, for the first time in artistic history, in an art gallery. It asks what the blind can do for us, not what we can do for the blind.
It recognises that the blind have definite power in the field of touch awareness. The blind are chirosophists, which means “hand-wise” when loosely translated.
Sebolao comments that since the creation of Blind Alphabet, Braille has developed a lot, and is far more contracted than it was in the 1990s.
During the Aganang support group’s visit, the museum’s art guides also accompanied them through the statue garden to experience more of the treasures at Oliewenhuis.
Oliewenhuis is open to the public from Monday to Friday between 08:00 and 17:00, and on Saturdays, Sundays, and public holidays from 09:00 to 16:00.
A ramp at the main entrance provides access for wheelchair users, while a lift provides access to the permanent collection display areas on the first floor.
A R10 parking fee is charged, but entrance to the museum is free.
- The Blind Alphabet exhibition can be viewed until Sunday, 9 February.
