Art you can touch, smell and hear

Students from National Association for the Blind Goa experience tactile photographs at the Serendipity Arts FestivalAt the ongoing Serendipity Arts Festival in Goa Siddhant Anisha Shah was kept busy by visitors looking at a photography exhibition Young from the National Association for the Blind Goa huddled around four monochrome portraits by Chandan Khanna Shah a 26yearold culture and art access consultant had made tactile reproductions of these photographs allowing his young audience to know more about these works through touchPart of his larger aim to make the visual arts accessible for the disabled Shahs Senses at Serendipity was his way of getting the visually challenged students to appreciate portraiture The tactile photograph brings out the nuances and definitions in Khannas photographs We started by getting them to familiarise their own faces later when they touched the faces in the tactile works they were able to understand better as they already had a mental image of their faces says Shah For the last year and a half Shah has been working with institutions across the country in an attempt to make art institutions accessible Earlier this year Shah worked with the City Palace Jaipur to make tactile forms of their miniatures and also with the National Museum New Delhi Making tactile versions of miniatures is simpler than for photographs as they have welldefined lines With photography there is so much play of light and shadow that is hard to convey all the nuances to the visually challenged says ShahSiddhant Shah PicPoonam BathijaHowever his audiences are quick to learn In one portrait for instance the eyes were shadowed The student who touched the work asked why this portrait did not have eyeballs and the rest did We then explained to him why that was the case says ShahShah started work with tactile art soon after he won a scholarship for heritage management at the University of Kents Greece outpost People accessed museums regularly over in Greece and they were allowed to touch most exhibits It got me thinking on accessibility for museums here Not just helping people reach museums but also intellectual accessibility ndash how can they understand the work better he says Shah was further motivated soon after his mother lost partial sightThe manner in which the visually challenged approach the visual arts Shah cautions is primarily different from the way in which the sighted do The idea with tactile art he says is not to recreate the experience of seeing a work of art but to be able to reproduce the experience through smell and sound if required if not through sight It is different from the visual experience which is so much about colour depth and perspective These rules cant be applied in tactile art he says While Shahs greatest challenge comes in the form on openness on the part of institutions he says that funnier moments pop up when visitors come and tell him You have put the wrong sign on looking at the please touch signs It is still novel for them that they can touch a work of art