The art of touch: lending a hand to the sighted majority

Abstract

This article describes three collaborative projects designed to explore tactile and haptic encounters with visual art. As a blind person, the author takes advantage of touch tours offered in many of the world’s museums. As rewarding as these can be, she often leaves feeling that there is something missing. She is aware that people who witness a touch tour for blind people, both companions who might be with them and strangers who might observe it, are curious, even envious. It seems only right that she, and other blind people who enjoy this privilege, have a responsibility to share the experience as a way to expand cultural knowledge about art. The projects described here enable her to begin to establish a taxonomy and vocabulary of tactile and haptic aesthetics, and model tactile descriptions of art that can benefit anyone. She does this both to reciprocate for the privilege cultural institutions bestowed on her, as well as to show that touch is not merely a poor substitute for sight, but rather a different mode of inquiry and appreciation. She hopes this work will support challenges to the ocularcentrism of the museum sector by showing how art can engage the full human sensorium.

These projects all took place in the years leading up to the Covid-19 global pandemic and were a small part of initiatives at arts institutions to promote equity and inclusion by drawing on the knowledge and expertise of members of marginalized communities. As these institutions reopen post-pandemic and restructure their staff and programming, it remains to be known if they will continue the progress toward greater inclusion or return to previous models designed to serve only normative audiences. In her conclusion, the author speculates on the kind of systematic changes that will need to happen to continue to diversify museum audiences and increase multisensory access to art.