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PostPosted: 12/29/12 9:11 am • # 1 
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I, like millions of others, tend to take our "sight" forgranted ~ but blindness has always been a top personal fear for me ~ this is a fabulous and very worthy exhibition ~ :st ~ Sooz

‘Invisible Exhibition’ opens eyes to blindness
By Agence France-Presse
Thursday, December 27, 2012 7:00 EST

The darkness is total. Mundane gestures suddenly become complicated. How do you find the door to your room, cook a meal or cross the road?

The “Invisible Exhibition” in the Polish capital Warsaw offers an opportunity to understand what it is like to be sightless, as blind guides steer visitors round in blacked-out rooms.

“The visitors take on the role of the blind,” exhibition curator Malgorzara Szumowska told AFP.

“Thanks to a series of sense-based installations, you experience what it is to live in the dark.”

The hour-long tour requires a healthy imagination, as the sighted learn how smell, hearing, taste and touch work differently in this unknown world.

“There are six rooms, all in utter darkness. Each one replicates a scene from daily life: an apartment, a street, a museum, and so on,” said Szumowska.

The noise seems overwhelming in the street scene, where visitors must dodge cars and lampposts. Smells are a delight in a forest chalet, as is the sound of a stream under a small wooden bridge.

The last stop is a loud cafe where the blind guide takes on the role of the barman.

Along with the dark side, the exhibition has a section with light that offers educational games to stimulate the senses and demonstrates tools the blind use in their daily lives, such as braille.

“Our goal is to show that the invisible world is beautiful and sumptuous, and that the blind have a sense of humour, with a life and passions,” said Szumowska. “Fate doesn’t exclude them from society.”

The idea for the exhibition came from Hungary, where a woman blacked out her apartment to understand and share the experience of her husband, blinded by an accident.

Her experiment led to an exhibition-cum-social project in the capital Budapest. It caught on, and was followed by a version in the Czech capital Prague then another one in Warsaw, which opened a year ago.

Some 30,000 people have visited “Niewidzialna Wystawa”, as it’s called in Polish.

“It’s very powerful,” said Warsaw student Aleksandra. “At first I was terrified. I didn’t know what was going on around me. I felt lost. But luckily there was a blind guide.”

The guides are paid, a boost in a labour market where options for the blind are often limited.

“It’s the best job I’ve ever had,” said Pawel Kozlowski, one of the team.

It’s also a challenge, said 31-year-old Pawel Orabczuk, a graduate in teaching and social work as well as a sound engineer and drummer in a heavy metal band who has been blind since birth.

“The main thing for we guides is to ensure that everything feels fine and safe,” he said. You not only have to help visitors tap their four remaining senses but you must do so “only through words, because they can’t see your gestures in the dark.”

“If only one visitor in 10 realises that you should consider the blind as an ordinary person, that’s a success,” he added.

Even “we can still say, ‘See you soon’,” he said at the exit. “How else can you put it?”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/12/27/invisible-exhibition-opens-eyes-to-blindness/


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PostPosted: 12/29/12 10:14 am • # 2 
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I have been "practicing" being blind for years ever since my older brother was temporarily blind. He has eye surgery for a detached retina in the 60's (very experimental and unsuccessful) and had to have both eyes covered for quite a while. I was amazed at his perception using his other senses. He then had to wear totally dark glasses with only a pin hole for his good eye. He did some amazing artwork during that time.

I fill my coffee pot in the semi-darkness by counting since I can't see the line and I don't put on my glasses.

I always go to the bathroom at night without the aid of lights. I feel my way to the toilet by running my hand along the counter top. I feel my way back to the bed (I sleep on the far side) by running my hand along the dresser top that is by the foot of the bed. I can successfully maneuver my entire apartment in the dark without tripping or running into things. Blindness doesn't scare me, but I do think about it enough to appreciate my sight.

The funny part is that I am constantly bumping into door frames or counter top edges and tripping in the daylight. :eyes I guess I am not being as careful then.


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PostPosted: 12/29/12 10:16 pm • # 3 
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Funny, I move around in darkness, too, counting steps. Four steps from my bathroom to the corner, turn right, six steps to the stair, eight steps up to the landin, turn right, six steps up to the living room.


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