Sensory Innovations and Creativity in the Arts

Throughout the course of the generations
men constructed the night.
At first she was blindness;
thorns raking bare feet,
fear of wolves.
We shall never know who forged the word
for the interval of shadow
dividing the two twilights

Jorge Luis Borges

Celebrated Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges’ sight began to diminish when he was in his early thirties and by his late fifties he was completely blind. Borges did not shy from the subject of his diminishing sight and it inspired some of his most brilliant poetry. In 2010 a collection of more than 50 works was published as Poems of the Night, rich with his meditations on darkness, night and, both implicitly and explicitly, blindness. Borges’ work arguably gained something from his blindness.

This Early Career Symposium will focus on ideas of ‘disability gain’ and ‘blindness gain’ in the arts, subjects which have been researched in recent years by authors including Rosemary Garland-Thomson, Georgina Kleege and Hannah Thompson. The symposium invites contributions which explore historical and contemporary case studies in order to highlight and focus on how an expanded approach to the senses are creatively explored across different art forms. It seeks cross-disciplinary contributions from practicing artists and curators as well as sculptural, literary and theatrical historians.

Examples of artists engaging with non-visual senses have become more and more prevalent since the 1960s, including: Paul Neagu’s 1969 Palpable Art Manifesto; Robert Morris’ eponymous 1971 Tate exhibition; Felix Gonzalez-Torres’ Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A.), 1991; Katrina Palmer’s multisensory 2015 End Matter; Anne Imhof’s 2017 performance FAUST; Rashid Johnson’s Shea Butter Three Ways, 2019; Emilie Louise Gossiaux’s 2021 installation Dog Girl, They Called Me. Carmen Papalia’s performance projects such as For Your Ears Only and Mobility Device use diverse sonic approaches to his lived experiences, and Fayen D’Evie’s participatory installation With Cane in Hand 2022 combined movement, sound and lighting to reflect disturbances to her visual experience. Examples of theatrical innovations include the work of the theatre company Extant, and its founder Maria Oshodi.

This symposium is part of a three-year research project, Beyond the Visual: Blindness and Expanded Sculpture. The project, a collaboration between the Henry Moore Institute, Shape Arts and University of the Arts London, was the recipient of the inaugural Arts and Humanities Research Council Exhibition Fund. The project will culminate with a landmark 2025 exhibition at the Henry Moore Institute, foregrounding work by blind and partially blind artists.

We invite submissions which examine how an expanded, multisensory approach can lead creative practitioners to make innovations which benefit both themselves and those who behold and experience their art.

Subjects could include, but are not limited to:

• Approaches that challenge ableist assumptions around both the making and reception of art
• Sculptors who prioritise senses other than the visual
• Musicians who use the language of composition in non-traditional ways allowing deaf or partially deaf people to access their work
• Blind or partially blind artists’ creative working methodologies
• New approaches to assessing outcomes
• New technologies: how creative practitioners might use them to challenge sensorial stereotypical art-making
• Innovative participatory approaches to theatre, performance and dance
• Not ‘built to last’; the tactile opportunities of ephemeral sculpture
• The capacity of sonic and spatial audio to augment film-making

Applicants are kindly asked to submit:

• a brief abstract (no more than 250 words)
• a short biographical note (100 words)

The deadline to apply is Friday 27 September 2024.

Please email your proposals to: research@henry-moore.org

Submissions are also welcome in alternative formats.

Speakers will receive an honorarium of £100, and travel and accommodation costs within the UK will be reimbursed.