The Shapereader Workshop is a unique occasion for visually impaired and sighted participants to meet and create side by side a tactile narrative based on an ad-hoc language. The group is given a set of tablets carrying different geometric engravings. The participants learn how to collectively identify the different shapes. By activating tactility as a cognitive tool, they then proceed to attribute meanings to the different shapes. The goal of the workshop is not simply to reflect the community’s expression by a collectively-built story, but to provide the very same genetic material for textual production: a repertoire of empty symbols that can be reiteratively attributed different meanings and functions according to each community’s specific needs, preoccupations and issues. The workshop in MUSAC was done in collaboration with the local branch of ONCE, Spain’s largest foundation for visual disabilities.
September 2016