25.11.2024 - 26.11.2024
Bibliotheca Hertziana, Villino Stroganoff, Via Gregoriana 22, 00187 Rome and online
Finnegan Shannon: “Here to Lounge”, 2020, Nook Gallery, Oakland, © Finnegan Shannon
[Image description: On a tabletop, two trays hold small objects: one has cork cylinders on a wood slice and a spine-like piece, while the other features a chain with flower and key charms. Three hands interact—pointing, holding a stone, and reading booklets labeled "WORK LIST: INSTALLATIONS & BOOKS"]
Sensorial Encounters: Haptic and Non-Visual Access in Art is an exploratory workshop that challenges the primacy of visual perception and terminology in art and art history. Inspired by the methodological insights of authors such as Georgina Kleege, Elizabeth Bearden and Amanda Cachia, among others, this workshop que stions the traditional conflation of sight with knowledge.
We invite scholars, artists, and thinkers to explore the dimensions of non-visual experiences in art. How do these experiences shape our understanding of subjectivity? What could we learn about an object if we were to feel it versus looking at it? How should these objects be displayed? We seek contributions that delve into these questions, offering diverse perspectives on sensory experiences and their implications for art and society.
This workshop will explore how artists who eschew ocular-centric practices have historically engaged with non-visual perception and created spaces to rethink access as more than a mere accommodation. We will examine how these artists' works offer new modes for understanding art and its interaction with the public.
The workshop seeks to redefine artistic encounters by emphasizing the role of touch, sound, and other senses in experiencing art, thus positioning disability not merely as a subject of representation but within the field of creative and affective agency.
Please follow the Workshop also online on Zoom. Links are below in the program.PROGRAM
Monday, November 25, 2024Follow on Zoom: LINK HERE
9:30-10:00 Introduction by the workshop organizers
I. Unlearning the Visual
10:00-10:45 Pierre Von-Ow: “Other Imaginations: Nicholas Saunderson and the Haptic Nature of Optics”
10:45-11:30 Fabian Lilian Korner: “The Knowledge of Touch: Some Notes on Rethinking an Art Historical Tactile Research”
11:30-12:00 Coffee break
12:00-12:45 Simon Baier: “Becoming a Paramecium: Environmental Experience around 1970”
12:45-13:30 Zsofi Valyi-Nagy [online]: “<img> alt= Alt-Text as Creative Accessibility Practice in and beyond Art History”
13:30-14:30 Lunch break
II. Haptic Art and Sensorial Perception
14:30-15:15 Amélie Castellanet: “Raoul Hausmann’s Montage Practice: A Haptic Art Beyond the Visual”
15:15-16:00 Tony Jacob [online]: “Haptic Horizontality in South Asian Colonial Photography”
16:00-16:45 Amanda Cachia [online]: “The Agency of Access: Please Touch”
16:45–17:30 Coffee break
17:30–19:00 Keynote [online]: Finnegan Shannon: “Recent Tactile Projects”
19:00 End of the first day
Tuesday, November 26, 2024Follow on Zoom: LINK HERE
III. Accessibility, Museums and the Senses
10:00–10:45 Wiktor Komorowski: “Invisible Exhibition for the Invisible People: Artists for the Visually Impaired in the Polish People’s Republic”
10:45–11:30 Pratiti Ketoki and Yichen Li: “How We Feel in Museums: Disabled Bodies, Neurodivergent Movement and Sensorial Experience of Art”
11:30-12:00 Coffee break
12:00–12:45 Eva Fotiadi: “Exhibiting for Multiple Senses: Artistic research for sensory diverse bodies”
12:45-13:30 Karin Silverin: “Smelling Moss: Olfactory Epistemologies in Zheng Bo’s ‘The Pleasure of Slowness’”
13:30-14:30 Lunch break
End of the public part of the Workshop
15:00-17:00 Touch Tour at Museo dell'Ara Pacis
17:00 End of the Workshop
During the presentations, all visual material will be described. Captioning will be available, and American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation can be provided upon request with two weeks’ advance notice. We will make every effort to accommodate requests made with less than two weeks’ notice. Moreover, please let us know in advance about any access needs.
Scientific Organization: co-organized by Tobias Teutenberg and Virginia Marano, Charlotte Matter, and Laura Valterio (research group “Rethinking Art History through Disability” at the Institute of Art History, University of Zurich. Email to: disability@khist.uzh.ch).