A New Way to Experience Art
At most museums, the rule is simple: look, but don’t touch. But at the Washington Pavilion of Arts and Science in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, a new exhibit is encouraging visitors to do exactly the opposite. This innovative display allows guests to explore famous works of art not just with their eyes, but with their hands.
Inside the gallery, visitors are invited to trace raised shapes and textures that bring centuries of art history to life through touch and sound. The exhibit, called “The Seven Art Movements,” took about two years of collaboration between the Washington Pavilion and the National Federation of the Blind of South Dakota to bring to Sioux Falls.
Breaking the Rules of Traditional Museums
“For the first time, blind people have the opportunity to see what you sighted people have enjoyed for years,” said Rich Crawford, a volunteer with the National Federation of the Blind of South Dakota. “You can’t see the picture if you touch a canvas, but with this new technology, where the picture itself is three-dimensional, it gives us the opportunity to put our hands on it to see what you guys have been seeing for years.”
The exhibit guides visitors through seven major art movements from history, allowing them to follow the progression of artistic styles from the Renaissance to more modern works. As visitors move their hands across the tactile artwork, sensors activate audio descriptions through headphones, helping explain the composition, shapes, and expressions in each piece.
Enhancing the Experience for All
“Technology is allowing a whole new dimension of art for the blind and the low vision people of our country,” Crawford said. “It also just brings people’s awareness that there are different ways to appreciate different things; we just have to be creative and figure them out.”
“You can feel the artwork, and as you go over the image, there are sensors that can start additional descriptions in your ear that you listen to via the headphones,” said Jana Anderson, Visual Arts Center Lead Curator at the Pavilion.
The experience offers more than just access for visitors who are blind or have low vision. Crawford says it can also change the way sighted visitors understand art.
“You’ll see it in a different way than you ever would’ve imagined,” Crawford said. “Seeing with your eyes goes to a different part of the brain than seeing with your hands.”
“I think it creates empathy, it creates more understanding of somebody else’s experiences, and I think that applies to anybody in our community, abled or otherwise,” Anderson added.
A Unique Perspective on Art History
Crawford said one piece in particular stood out during his visit. “Probably my favorite, not because I liked it, but because it was so descriptive, was The Scream,” he said. “Eyes bugged out, the mouth wide open, and the hands over the ears. You could get the feeling of terror just by touching this thing, and that was an experience.”
The exhibit also serves as a hands-on lesson in art history, showing how artistic styles evolved. “It’s really interesting to go from one to the next,” Anderson said. “You end up with the most recent piece, The Scream, and you can see that variation from Mona Lisa all the way to The Scream and what art history was really doing over time.”
Challenging Museum Norms
For Crawford, the exhibit stands out because it challenges a long-standing museum norm. “Over the years I’ve had the pleasure of going to a number of museums, and there’s so many things that blind people are not supposed to touch – hands off,” he said. “This particular exhibit is a, no pun intended, hands-on experience for them and children and adults who can put their hands on it and not be yelled at, ‘Don’t touch that!’ is pretty fun.”
Anderson said the goal was to create a space where everyone feels welcome to experience art. “I think it’s been a really fantastic collaboration,” she said. “We hope that we are inviting that community into our space and that this space is for you as well. Art can be experienced in a variety of ways, and even though we are called the Visual Art Center, art is not just about sight; it is about all of the senses, and all of your senses can be activated through an artistic medium.”
A Community Effort
For Crawford, the exhibit is something he hopes people from across the region will take time to experience. “It’s just a real blessing for the Sioux Falls market and the state of South Dakota,” he said. “We’ve encouraged people from all around the state to come to the Washington Pavilion and see this exhibit, and we sure hope they will. It is a free exhibit for everybody. We hope that schools will possibly bring field trips to it. We’ve sent out invitations to all the schools and universities to get their art students to come see it. We think that people will find it worth their time just to come and see it.”
Organizers say the goal isn’t just to change how people experience art, but to show that creativity and culture should be accessible to everyone.
