Blundering into sensorial conversation

Since early childhood, I have perceived the world with fluctuating vision, mediated by a cascade of ophthalmological and neurological interactions. Despite the disorientation, fatigue, and pain that accompany these disabilities, the silver lining is the extent to which I notice, appreciate, and value perceptual variation and abundance. Within my art practice, this has flourished in the form of hybrid artist‑curatorial projects, which invite collaborators and audiences to immerse in ‘sensorial improvisations, translations, and conversations.’ To explain my use of the term ‘sensorial improvisations’, I encourage artists, museum staff, and audiences alike to explore unfamiliar, sensorial ways of experiencing sites and artworks. This could involve subtle listening based on echolocation training; myopically close looking using conservators’ magnification equipment; choreographies of movement; taste, touch, and more. Second, sensorial translations relate to how we might describe a perceptual encounter, through creative mediation, such that the translated form can be experienced through another sensory reading. For example, how might sonic documentation of an encounter with an artwork in a particular site be translated into a gestural description for Deaf audiences? The third part of the invitation – to gather together in sensorial conversations – presents an alternative to common models of public programming in museum that segregate access audiences, for example, offering a gallery tour in sign language for Deaf visitors at a separate time from a touch tour for blind audiences, or a sensory tour for babies and children. Instead, my ambition is to develop structures for programming that invite people with varied perceptual experiences of exhibitions and artworks to share thoughts and sensory responses with one another, through contributing to a collective, inclusive conversation. In this chapter, I share examples of projects that distil my thinking and methods; this is intended as an offering to museum professionals interested in engaging with access beyond compliance, to adapt as you wish. My approach to access draws on Carmen Papalia’s (2023) concept of access as a temporary, collectively held space, and also Mia Mingus’ (2011) writing on access intimacy. Most simply, I conceive of access as an ethos of welcome, a platform for generosity, and as a catalyst for creative experimentation.