Photographer Cristiano Santana
Relief, 2018
The exhibition O Relevo is a translation of works exhibited at a previous Mercosul Biennial and provides a technological, sensorial experience
Held from March 15 to June 2 at the CEEE Érico Veríssimo Cultural Center, the exhibition O Relevo showed the relief translations of works presented during the tenth Mercosul Biennial.
Developed with a brand-new technique of synthetic fresco, which the artist herself created, the works were interpreted in the same dimensions and colors as the originals, so that they could be understood and experienced by the visually impaired through touch. Sighted visitors also experienced the sensations through a dimly-lit environment in order to equate the perceptions of everyone in the exhibition.
The technological experience was provided through a glove, created in a partnership between the artist and the company ThoughtWorks Creative Technology Consultants, developed with the LilyPad and Arduino platforms, suitable for the application of plates and chips on fabrics and clothing. Wearable prototyping that fits the concept of Assistive Technology, which promotes improvement in the quality of life of people with some type of visual limitation. With it, visitors were able to visualize Lenora's work through their fingertips.
In the artist's opinion, this opportunity to democratize art is a special task. "Since 2015, when I had the opportunity to receive a group of visually impaired people at an exhibition at the Blumenau Art Museum (MAB / SC), I have been encouraging the public to touch my works, whether they are sighted or visually impaired. At this moment, everyone had the sensorial experience, but in reverse: those who could see were out of their comfort zone! My desire comes with this goal: to minimize borders, to unite differences for the general public's personal growth," she defines.
Among the 12 featured works, 10 translations and two of her own were part of the exhibition "Negra" by Tarsila do Amaral (Brazil), "Composición V" by Maria Freire (Uruguay), "B.iB portrait # 8" by Kimani Beckford (Jamaica), “Composition” by Fernand Léger (France) and “Bomba” by Renzo Assano and Laila Terra (Brazil). Lenora's authorial pieces showed the continents, representing the link that connects all the works created by different artists and places of the world.
In addition to ThoughtWorks, this initiative was also supported by the Fundação Bienal Mercosul.
Professor Dr Gilberto Schwartsmann
SEEING FINGERS
When I read that the talented visual artist Lenora Rosenfield had created an art exhibition for the visually impaired, with the support of the Blumenau Cultural Foundation and the Association for the Blind of the Itajaí Valley in Santa Catarina, I found the idea fascinating.
Visual arts for the visually impaired! What could be more inclusive? I was even more moved after reading the testimony of a visually impaired individual who had visited the exhibition. He said he had never imagined that he would one day be able to "appreciate the beauty of a work of art with his fingertips.”
After this unique experience provided by Lenora, we decided to challenge her to select some representative works of the history of the Mercosul Biennials and produce this exhibition specifically designed for the visually impaired entitled The Relief.
But the artist went even further. With help from a group of researchers, she created an instrument that enables the visually impaired to add color information to the tactile reading by using the vibrating sensitivity of the fingers.
Of course, the subject raises discussions. There are those who say, for instance, that the aesthetic experience caused by a work of art is unique and any attempt to translate it into another language would de-characterize it.
The truth is that Lenora provides us with an exhibit that can be enjoyed by those who have always lived on the margins of the visual arts and who will now "see" works of art through the sensitivity of their own fingertips.
More than this, the exhibit will allow sighted people, like most of us, to enjoy the art show with their own eyes and, at the same time, to live out the fantasy of being able to run their fingers over the canvas, to feel its texture.
While, for some people, "translating” a work of art means de-characterizing it, following the same concept, the artist's "translations" ultimately offer us a precious collection of original works. The Relief is an art show that is to be seen and touched.
Lenora Rosenfield
THE RELIEF
The exhibition The Relief aims to provide the visually-impaired access to the arts through touch, as well as to allow sighted people to have the same experience as the visually-impaired.
The exhibition is comprised of translations of ten works by artists who participated in previous editions of the Mercosul Biennial, along with a work of my own, in a dialogue between the various continental and visual worlds that border the Atlantic Ocean. Nine of them are arranged between two maps of my own creation and one is on the first floor of the exhibition hall, A Negra, by Tarsila do Amaral.
The works presented are not appropriations or re-readings, but rather translations made with materials different from the one or ones used by the original artist, made with the synthetic fresco technique, the result of research I developed several years ago, and which allows the visually-impaired to perceive a work of art.
In addition to the possibility of touch, the public will be able to explore the work by means of technology, that is, by wearing gloves with sensors of sounds and vibrations, capable of interpreting the color on the surface of the works. This was made possible by a valuable partnership with the company ThoughtWorks Creative Technology Consultants.
The maps I created for this exhibition show the continents, represented on a closer scale, and the link that unites them are the works of artists from different countries. This connection occurred firstly because of the physical proximity, the Pangea period, when all tectonic plates were attached to one another, as well as by the natural phenomena that transformed the planet Earth into several continents and the influences established over millennia of immigration.
The continents are presented in complementary colors-- green-red and purple-yellow, considered opposite colors in the chromatic circle.
However, when placed side by side, one potentiates the color of the other, confirming the objective of this exhibition, where the visually-impaired and the sighted are not contrasted but potentiated by each other in the exhibition space. A potential which should increasingly govern human relations.
