Touch Post-COVID-19 is dedicated to raising awareness about the impact of the pandemic on deafblind communities. To this end, the project presents its research in public events and exhibitions in the UK and internationally. Developed in collaboration with participants from the deafblind community, the events offer audiovisual interpretations of deafblind experiences during and post-COVID-19.
In Touch Exhibition
(November 2020)
Presented as part of the 2020 Being Human Festival, the In Touch exhibition presents a range of perspectives on what touch might mean to us post-COVID-19. The work presented feeds into the ongoing research on how different experiences of touch might reshape audiovisual art practices and further inform the development of communication tools and strategies for the deafblind.
Notes on the Inner Eye
Issy McGrath with Azadeh Emadi (2020)
Issy McGrath has Usher Syndrome Type II and is severely deaf as well as completely blind. Navigating a rural path during the pandemic, this video piece gives a unique insight into how she touches history, touches time, both through her body and her inner eye.
All material was captured by Issy during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the support of her husband and in the company of her retired guide dog, Ice. The material was later gathered and edited by Azadeh Emadi, in consultation with Issy and the Deafblind Scotland team.
Interactive Harmony
Anne Dignan (2020)
Interactive Harmony is a multi-sensory curation of photographs from around the world produced by deafblind artist Anne Dignan. The artist was drawn to the tactile nature of each object depicted in the photographs. The video was originally exhibited in an all-inclusive manner to evoke a reaction and understand despite disabilities. Each photograph was accompanied by a tactile image created by outlining the object on swell paper and then etching using specialist graphite pens. An embosser raised the lines to enable a tactile interpretation of each image. A narrative for each photograph was produced in accessible formats for all to experience: audio description, braille, large print.
Video edited by Azadeh Emadi.
To access the full archive of the exhibition visit the In Touch Exhibition website.
In Touch Workshop
(22 November 2020)
We also ran a virtual workshop as part of the In Touch exhibition which provided participants insights into the experiences of the deafblind community. Alongside artists and scholars, participants were invited to reflect on the exhibition’s themes, and challenge core notions of how we sense and make sense of the world.
TouchScreen
(May 2022)
Hosted at the Centre for Contemporary Art in Glasgow, TouchScreen: Rethinking Perception through Sight and Skin was a multi-day programme of events that explored sense perception as our common ground for experiencing the world. It was co-curated with Azadeh Emadi and David Upton, Public Programme Manager at LUX Scotland. The programme took place from 18 to 21 May 2022 and included an exhibition, film screenings, an artist talk, and a workshop lead by Deafblind Scotland.
A Light Footprint in the Cosmos
Exhibition and Symposium
(June 2022)
‘A Light Footprint in the Cosmos’ was a symposium as well as a programme of exhibitions, performances and screenings hosted by School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. It took place from 24-27 June 2022 and was intended as a celebration of research methods and intercultural dialogue elaborated by the Substantial Motion Research Network (SMRN).
Our research was presented through a a double screen video installation by Azadeh Emadi as well as a talk entitled ‘Altering Perception: Touch, Codes, Images and Imaginal in an Interchanging Relation‘ which used audiovisual impairment as a point of departure to (re)examine sense perception as our common ground for experiencing the world. The work explores the concept of perception in its broadest cultural terms and engages with the philosophy and cosmology of perception from Persian Islamic perspectives alongside the experiences of the deafblind community in Scotland.
