Since its establishment the Museum with its every action, exhibition and workshops bridges the gap between the world of people who see and all those people deprived of visual experience.
Precisely due to the fact that art is not „invisible“ to the blind people, and continuing with its tradition of exhibitions at the Tactile Gallery on the occasion of the International White Cane Day, the Typhlological Museum opens this exhibition at the adjusted space of the Plaster-cast Gallery. By displaying sculpture exhibition Gallop of Touch of the academic sculptor Hrvoje Dumančić we will try to evoke visual experience of the harmony of shapes, textures and movement of which visually impaired persons are deprived.
Inability to perceive visually activates other senses – hearing, smell and touch – in a very specific way. Physical limitations of that part of population evoke, powerfully, the passion for things available to their capacities.
Sculpture, as an artistic expression, opens the tactile communication path and enables blind and partially seeing to encounter with three-dimensional art work and activates the making of image of artist's creativity inside their spiritual world. Since many art works are not available to the handicapped persons, including those visually impaired, this adjusted exhibition is an opportunity to open the doors to the world of figurative art especially to them.
Visually impaired persons are given an opportunity to find their way through space with the help of floor relief ribbons and tactile map which gives an insight into the whole area and the location of the sculptures within the exhibition area. Basic information on the exhibition and sculptures are given through the exhibition catalogue and legends in Braille alphabet alongside those in black print. The dimensions and the disposition of sculptures enable visitors to fully experience them tactile, and besides shapes and lines visitors can experience the characteristics of various materials the sculptures are made of, such as the coldness of bronze, the warmth of terracotta or the roughness of wood.
This exhibition is not intended for the visually impaired persons alone, but for all other categories of handicapped persons as well, and opens yet another opportunity for discovering newer and richer ways of perception, refining visual experience with tactile dimension.