Event Date: 28 – 30 June 2015
Royal Holloway University of London
Egham, Surrey
TW20 0EX
Royal Holloway University of London presents:
Blind Creations
An International Colloquium on Blindness and the Arts
This three-day international conference and micro arts festival,which took place between 28 and 30 June 2015, explored the relationship between blind people and artistic creation.
Our definition of ‘blind person’ was broad, encompassing anyone who might be defined as having ‘non-normative vision’ and / or who relates to the world using senses other than sight. We welcomed 116 delegates from around the world and heard interventions from blind and non-blind academics, practitioners, advocates, writers and artists. By defining blind people not only as subjects in their own right, but also as active creators, the conference rejected the ‘medical model’ of disability which posits blind people as passive objects of medical investigation and rehabilitation. In so doing it challenged and reconceptualised the myths and stereotypes of ‘blindness’ which continue to circulate by recasting ‘blindness’ as a multi-faceted and positive creative force which might be usefully explored by both non-blind and blind people.
The conference, which took place at Royal Holloway’s campus in Egham, Surrey, UK, was co-organized by Hannah Thompson (Royal Holloway) and Vanessa Warne (University of Manitoba, Canada).
The conference website is here
Programme:
Sunday June 28
Welcome by Dr Hannah Thompson and Dr Vanessa Warne:
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Plenary: Georgina Kleege – Blind Self-Portraits
Generously sponsored by the University of Manitoba’s Interdisciplinary MA Program in Disability Studies
Talk:
Questions:
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Session 1
1a. Music: Chair: Steven Riep
Sebastien Durand – How did music change the course of history for the Blind?
Selina Mills – The life and times of the composer, musician, performer, teacher, Maria-Theresia Von Paradis
Yeaji Kim – Tactile Stave Music
Anne-Lise Mithout – Blind musicians and the making of epic poetry in Medieval Japan
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1b. The Blind Pen: panel organised and chaired by Laura Carnelos and Jane Everson
Jane Everson – Memory and the Mind’s Eye: Ecphrasis in Il Mambriano of Francesco Cieco da Ferrara
Juan Gomis – Songs, prayers and business: blind people in Spain (15th-18th centuries)
Laura Carnelos – Italian Blind Authors and the perception of their disability in the Early Modern Age
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1c. Creative Possibilities: panel organised and chaired by Marcia Moraes
Marcia Moraes – Research WITH: for a world more dense with narratives and sensorialities
Laura Pozzana – Corporal workshop to awaken presences at the museum
Virginia Kastrup – Art and Blindness: Three Lives Reinvented
Camila Araujo Alves – What if we tried more?: A proposal for the field of accessibility in cultural spaces
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Artists’ Talks and Exhibition Opening Reception (with wine): Chair: Vanessa Warne (Management Building Auditorium followed by Foyer and Exhibition Room 004-5) Featuring talks by David Johnson, Florian Grond, Teresa Jaynes, Partho Bhowmik, Aaron McPeake and Alice Entwistle and Lou Lockwood.
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Presentation by Michael Mellor – Inventive Louis Braille
C. Michael Mellor, author of Louis Braille: A Touch of Genius, NBP 2006, is former editor of the Matilda Ziegler Magazine for the Blind in New York. Born in England, he graduated from Leeds University, where he specialized in the history of science and technology. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.
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Monday June 29
Session 2
2a. Literature (Anglo): Chair: Nancy Hansen
Adam Pottle – Blindness and Limited Narrative Omniscience in Timothy Findley’s Not Wanted on the Voyage
Hemachandran Karah – Blindness writing: an examination of triple narrative positions in Ved Mehta’s The Continent of Blind Culture
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2b. Creative Blindness: Chair: Matthew Rubery
Alice Entwistle – Touching Text: To The Lighthouse as tactile art in Cardiff Bay
Brian Miller – Prairie Tales: Mary Ingalls and the Invention of a 19th Century Super Crip
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2c. Japan: Chair: Kozue Handa
Hiromi Kishi – A History of “Blindness and the Arts” in Japan: Memories and the Power of Touch
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Session 3
3a. Institutions: Chair: Emma Brodzinski
Nancy Hansen – Art in Everyday Objects: Resistance in the Making
Hazel McFarlane – Blind Asylums: Places of Creative Resistance
Iain Hutchison – Creativity versus Respectability: A contest between blind aspirations and the values of philanthropic interventionists in Victorian and Edwardian Scotland
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3b. Film and Visual Depiction: Chair: Sarah Dauncey
Alexandra Tacke – “The Blind guiding the Seeing”: the ‘blind spots’ of film history
Monika Baar – Depictions of guide dogs and their owners in literature, visual art and film
Steven Riep – Intersections: Objectification, Visual Impairments and Gender in Contemporary Cinema from China and Hong Kong
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3c. Literature (Hispanic): Chair: Maria Romeiras
Max Ubelaker Andrade – Against Seeing: Jorge Luis Borges’ Literary Imagination
Kevin Goldstein – Foregrounding the Amanuensis: Dictation, Interdependence, Epistemology
Aravinda Bhat – Borges’s Aesthetic of Blindness: The Dialectic of the Ideal and the Experiential
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Session 4
4a. Key Figures: Chair: Bérengère Levet
Bruno Ronfard – An Enlightened Journey: Taha Husayn
Bruno Liesen – Cecile Douard (1866-1941): Impressions d’une seconde vie
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4b. Tactile Education: Chair: Pieter Verstraete
Norman Ball – The innovations of Frank H. Hall
Annika Noll – Viktor Löwenfeld and Tactility
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Session 5
5a. Across Media: Chair: Vanessa Warne
Emilie Giles – Exploring the role of eTextiles designed by blind and visual impaired users within cultural spaces
Kozue Handa – Shape of Content: Exploring Japanese Traditional Design through Touch
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5b. Audio Description: Chair: Ryan Knighton
Louise Fryer – An ecological approach to audio description
Polly Goodwin – The limits and possibilities of audio describing silent film
Yayoi Mashimo – Near Poetry, Beyond Explanation: Toward Verbal Descriptions with Inspiration
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5c. Multimodal Reading (panel organised by Matthew Rubery): Chair: Rebecca Scales
Matthew Rubery – Talking Books and Censorship
Rachel Hutchinson – “Books are asked for by the loudest shouter”: the challenges of reading creatively with a limited library
Sejal Sutaria – What’s in a Name?: The Dangers and Delights of Multimodal Reading
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Rod Michalko and Tanya Titchkosky: ‘Blindness Imaginaries and Visual Culture’ (Auditorium)
This session reveals blindness as a form of cultural perception lurking at the edges of all ways of looking and seeing.
Creative Writers’ Roundtable featuring Ryan Knighton, Naomi Foyle, Frédéric Grellier, Romain Villet and Rod Michalko (Management Building Auditorium)
Tuesday June 30
Plenary: Zina Weygand – Jacques Lusseyran: Le héros aveugle de la résistance française / The Blind Hero of the French Resistance’ (in French) English translation here
Session 6
6a. European Texts: Chair: Hannah Thompson
Pieter Verstraete – The representation of blindness in Maeterlinck’s theatre play De blinden and Johan van der Keuken’s documentary Herman Slobbe: Blind kind II
Sabine Gadrat-Cellou – L’émergence d’un nouveau type de personnage(s) aveugle(s) dans la fiction (in French)
Bérengère Levet – Blindness or Femininity, that is the question: the young blind girl in The Two Orphans, a popular novel by Adolphe d’Ennery (1887-1889)
6b. Touching Art: Chair: Ruth Hemus
Simon Hayhoe – An enquiry into passive inclusion and unreachable artworks at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Raquel Guerriro – Aesthetic Accessibility and Tactile Images of Works of Art
Riitta Lahtinen and Russ Palmer – Art Experiences Using Haptices on the Body
6c. Medieval/Enlightenment Perspectives: Chair: Selina Mills
Irina Metzler – Mis-leadings: Guide Dogs and the Blind in Medieval Culture
Herve Baudry – Barocco Blindness : music, poetry and philosophy in early-modern France
Jenni Kuuliala – The Sacred Lack of Vision: Blindness of Saints and their Clients in the Later Middle Ages
Session 7
7a. Museums: Chair: Laura MacCulloch, Curator, Royal Holloway Art Collections
Paul Sullivan – Inclusive descriptions of art works at Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery
Sasa Poljac Istenic – Including and Empowering the Blind: The Case of Slovenian Museums and Art Galleries
Rebecca McGinnis – Seeing through Art: Blind Visitors and the Museum Experience
7b. Book Design: Simon Hayhoe
Dannyelle Valente – Multi-sensory books created for and by blind children
Brandon Christopher – The Tactile Comic: A Reading of Philipp Meyer’s Life
Bruno Brites – Colours of Touch: A Graphic Design Experience for Blind People
7c. Theory/Philosophy: Chair: Heather Tilley
Joyce Leysen – Staring into the open: Towards a cosmopolitical understanding of blindness, art and society
Piet Devos – Against the Pollution of the Eye: Jacques Lusseyran’s Phenomenology of Pure Inner Vision
Maria Romeiras – Visual literacy and the history of the self: an option?
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Described Gallery Tour of the Royal Holloway Picture Gallery (Founder’s Building) with Laura MacCulloch and Vanessa Warne:
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Touch tour of Royal Holloway’s Erinna sculpture with Michaela Jones:
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Conference Close
