Encouraging new inquiry into what kinds of experience artworks make possible.
This conference is concerned with the expanded creative, curatorial, and historiographical opportunities that arise when we refuse to separate out the senses and destabilise the normative, vision-based frame of art reception.
The conference asks: what can blindness bring to sculpture? What does this approach reveal about sculpture’s ontological reality?
This workshop 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.
![Shape Arts Shape Arts](https://images.henry-moore.org/uploads/2024/06/Shape-Arts-16x10-1.png?resize=16%2C10&gravity)
![Chelsea College of Arts, UAL Chelsea College of Arts, UAL logo](https://images.henry-moore.org/uploads/2024/06/UAL-chelsea-college-of-art-logo-16x10-centre-align.png?resize=16%2C10&gravity)
![UK Research and Innovation: Arts and Humanities Research Council UK Research and Innovation: Arts and Humanities Research Council logo](https://images.henry-moore.org/uploads/2024/06/UKRI-AHRC-logo-16x10-centre-align.png?resize=16%2C10&gravity)
Call for participation
For this one-day conference we invite new contributions from the philosophy of art, curatorial practice, art history, critical disability studies, psychology and the sciences which engage with inclusive forms of making and beholding sculpture.
![Aaron McPeake, 'Once I Saw it All' 2022 A ring of metal, roughly 30cm in diameter, hanging on a loop of string. A hand is steadying the ring, while a second hand is poised to strike it with a small, square hammer.](https://images.henry-moore.org/uploads/2023/09/Aaron-McPeake-Once-I-Saw-it-All-2022-1.jpg?resize=16%2C10&gravity)
Blindness and Expanded Sculpture
Call for participation
International Conference, to take place:
Leeds Art Gallery
Wednesday 19 March 2025
Deadline to apply:
Friday 6 December 2024, 17:00
![Aaron McPeake, 'Once I Saw it All' 2022 A splayed hand touching a bronze plate with lines of single black letters recessed into it. The letters are from a Snellen eye test chart and reduce in size from top to bottom.](https://images.henry-moore.org/uploads/2023/09/Aaron-McPeake-Once-I-Saw-it-All-2022.jpg?resize=16%2C10&gravity)
Beyond the Visual: Blindness and Expanded Sculpture
Research Season
Autumn 2024 – Spring 2025
This Research Season explores engagements with contemporary sculpture using senses other than sight, challenging the dominance of sight in the making and appreciation of art.
Aiming to rethink the under-representation of blind and partially blind arts practitioners, we’ll investigate the relationship between artworks and audiences, the varied ways in which sculpture can be experienced, and what is gained from creative practices that emphasise a broader approach to sensory experience.
![Fayen d’Evie, 'From Dust to Dust: Prologue' 2018 (featuring Aaron McPeake's 'Resonant Cuts' 2011) A woman is raising her hand to touch metal sculptures hanging from the ceiling. There are seven of them, each a vertical slice cut from a bell.](https://images.henry-moore.org/uploads/2023/09/Fayen-dEvie-From-Dust-to-Dust_-Prologue-2019-featuring-Aaron-McPeake-Resonant-Cuts-2011.jpg?resize=16%2C10&gravity)
Early career research symposium
Sensory Innovations and Creativity in the Arts
Book Now
![Aaron McPeake, 'Once I Saw it All' 2022 A ring of metal, roughly 30cm in diameter, hanging on a loop of string. A hand is steadying the ring, while a second hand is poised to strike it with a small, square hammer.](https://images.henry-moore.org/uploads/2023/09/Aaron-McPeake-Once-I-Saw-it-All-2022-1.jpg?resize=16%2C10&gravity)
Conference
Blindness and Expanded Sculpture
Book Now
![Henry Moore, 'Large Two Forms' 1969 (LH 556) at Yorkshire Sculpture Park](https://images.henry-moore.org/uploads/2024/06/Henry-Moore-Large-Two-Forms-1966-69.jpg?resize=16%2C10&gravity)
Workshop
Collaborative Audio Description
10:00–15:30
Book Now
Getting here
This conference takes place in the Henry Moore Lecture Theatre, Leeds Art Gallery.
Leeds Art Gallery
The Headrow
Leeds
LS1 3AA
United Kingdom
T: 0113 378 5350
E: art.gallery@leeds.gov.uk