Spatial Textures: Place, Touch, and Praesentia

Abstract

Sarah' has been visually impaired since a wartime injury to her eyes at the age of seven. (1) A keen artist with some skill in pencil drawings of the human form, she has also been an avid visitor to museums and art galleries since the 1980s. A friend first took her on a visit to a museum. She was doubtful that there would be anything of interest for a visually impaired person like herself, but that first visit turned out to be something of a pleasant surprise to her. Her excitement developed as she became aware of the possibilities and the potential that museums might hold for a person like herself. She has since spent many years trying to convince a conservation-minded museum sector of the importance of access to objects in collections other than through vision and has now become well-known as an activist campaigning for greater access to museums for people with disabilities:`A nd ... after that [visit] it became a passion. I took lessons with a long cane. Because up to then I'd just pottered around tapping but I took proper lessons so I could travel up to London on my own. Well, touch was not allowed then [1980s]. And of course I would go round the galleries and museums and say could I touch just one thing, it doesn't have to be precious, just an old stone ... . And so I just wasn't going away without touchingöso I would touch the floors if they were old flag-stones, columns, doors, which are usually of great interestöand the galleries got used to me going round with an old tape recorder, magnifying glass and a white cane. And the education department became very kind öthey would give me pamphlets and posters. When they started the actual touch tours, they would get professional advice but what they wanted was the grass roots. And they thought, well what better than to call in the queer old duck who has been driving us mad. So overnight from a nuisance I became an expert'' (Sarah, interview, 5 May 1998).

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